We can expect the police to be able to fight criminals MMA style, fast enough to chase them down on foot, they should be dead-eye shots able to hit small moving targets like feet and they should have split second reflexes so that they can wait until they are fired upon before shooting their guns.

But if we expect that black people simply have to comply with the police like everyone else then that's too much

AFAIK US cops are instructed to shoot until they target is incapacitated, usually that means goes to the ground. He was still standing after the first three, so more followed.

Shooting in the back means you don't know what he's intending or doing because you see neither his hands nor eyes. You don't know what he's reaching for, could be just as well the car keys as a gun. That leaves you in the dark, and US police doctrine is that the worst must be assumed.

I just came across this article in today's news titled "Why police shoot so many times to bring down a suspect."

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/26/u...rnd/index.html

"When police believe a suspect could harm or kill them, they're usually trained to fire as many gunshots as it takes to bring that suspect down."

So while I'm not intending to imply that I think the cop was right for shooting him, that article might help explain why he was shot so many times.

ah people coming up and defending the indefensible!

the cops were just doing as trained, 7 shots in the back is what they are trained to do is it?

maybe if US cops were not such trigger happy morons they would be treated with a little more respect??

the guy was a muppet, of that there is no doubt, he should have done exactly what he was asked to do without question, but as (as of now) it seems the cops were not even there for him but for a fight between 2 women one could ask why they were giving him a hard time anyway?

in the back? if they saw him pick up a gun and start to turn towards them then fair enough

Sorry not indefensible. Have you ever been in a similar situation? We have now weeks to judge a decision that had to be made within miliseconds.

as I'm not a 'professional' law enforcement officer, then no, of course not, what a stupid argument tbh I have to have been in a similar situation to give an opinion ???

weeks?? it was a few days ago

WRS is rubbish.

Tom

Thank you.

The good Samaritan narrative has already fallen apart

According to the audio obtained by Madison365, someone called police to report that Blake was at her home and wasn’t supposed to be, and that he had taken her keys and was refusing to give them back. A dispatcher relayed this message to patrol officers at about 5:11 pm Sunday.

https://madison365.com/kenohsa-polic...scanner-audio/

There is a good US YouTube channel called 'Police Activity'
There are enough videos, usually from multiple body cams, of the police being shot by guys, 'by surprise'.

Does anyone know why exactly the cop already had his gun pointed at Blake as Blake was walking to his car? What I've read in the news about the incident hasn't mentioned the exact reason for that -- what Blake had done or may have done to cause the cop to have his gun out in the first place. I did read that none of the cops had bodycams on them, which is a bit of a shame, because it makes it more difficult to really know what happened or to judge the situation.

As a side note, not too long ago, I watched a good series on Netflix titled "Trial by Media" and the episodes are about how the media's portrayal of certain crimes, etc. shapes public perception -- and not always in the correct light. In the first episode, a white guy had shot three black guys on a subway in NYC. The media portrayed him as a hero (a vigilante), and so the public ended up assuming that same perception. Eventually, it was revealed that the white guy had shot them without any valid reason other than the fact that he had been robbed by entirely different people months prior.

Maybe the US should start planting oranges instead of apples then? Learn from this country.

I don't think that you or any of us really know enough yet about EXACTLY what happened to accurately judge that situation. And not all cops in the US are "trigger happy." You can't make generalizations about all of them according to the actions of a few -- or according to the ones you hear about it in the news. Think about all the times that cops do NOT use their guns on a daily basis. Those are the situations that, of course, we never hear about in the news.

That happened in a shopping plaza just across the street from the house where I grew up a few months ago. A white guy shot a cop and killed him for no apparent reason. All the cop was doing was responding to a call about an intoxicated man at a shopping mall. The cop didn't even have his gun out or anything. It was really sad. Just earlier that day, the cop had stopped at someone's house to show their kids his patrol car and the siren, etc. as part of a birthday present, and the father had posted a cute photo of him with the kids on his social media. He looks so happy and peaceful in the photo. And he had no idea that later that evening, he would end up losing his life.

Give an opinion? nope you made a judgement. Not only about the cop but of all of us writing here...

Similar situations can happen somewhere else as well, high adrenaline, split second decision happen also when you referee for example. Ofc for the cop the stakes are higher but the concept is the same.
If you had some experience in that direction, you were probably not that quick to judge.


Maybe you are not a native speaker as well but isn't there a difference between

"we have weeks now" and "we had weeks"

I read that bodycams aren't in the budget until 2022, but they were wearing microphones.

One article I read said that before the video started, he was struggling against officers trying to arrest him, and managed to get away. That's when the the filming started, as he was walking around the car to get away from them. The same article said the cops had used a taser, but for whatever reason it didn't work. If that's all true, it's not really surprising they had guns drawn. IMO that still doesn't justify the shooting but it does explain it, if that makes sense.

He had a warrant out for his arrest. Assuming the police knew it was him, they were trying to execute (sorry, no pun intended) the warrant while there on an unrelated call. I haven't heard or read a transcript of the audio of the 911/dispatch call(s) so it's not clear yet if the officers had been informed it was him.

Logic tells me they would have run the license plates of the SUV and learned it was him, even if dispatch had not said anything.

Seems like his raping days are over too

Open rape case pending against Jacob Blake, past criminal charges revealed

Thanks.
I did just see in the news that a second video of the incident has now been released (link below). It shows a few seconds of what was happening prior to the other / first video that had been released. The quality is not very good and it was taken from a distance. All I can really make out from it is that people are yelling "No! No! No!" and that he does indeed appear to be violently resisting arrest before walking around to the other side of his car.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/20...newday-vpx.cnn

Since it hasn't been mentioned anywhere that a gun was found in the car, it doesn't appear that he was reaching for a gun and was instead trying to get into the car to get away. So I guess it comes down to whether or not someone deserves to lose their life for resisting arrest. Personally, I don't think that they necessarily do, but that it is something that depends on what the guy is wanted for in the first place -- how much of a threat they are to society. I don't think we want to live in a society where rapists and murderers are just allowed to resist arrest and get away... Do we?

It would be interesting to hear from the cop as to whether or not he shot the guy because he was resisting arrest or because the cop thought he was reaching for a gun.

And what a difference in reporting.
WRS
"WRS is the trusted resource for English speakers in Switzerland"

bluewin report
bluewin is not even a high quality news-channel, yet I just learnt to appreciate it.