California officer shoots and kills boy, 15, holding gardening tool

juicy@lemmy.todaybanned from community to News@lemmy.world – 762 points –
California officer shoots and kills boy, 15, holding gardening tool
theguardian.com
361

You are viewing a single comment

That's basically what their elected prosecutor will say, I've seen it a lot. They'll say "he has a weapon and was committing a crime, so the shooting was justified." That's what they said when my local pd shot a kid in the back when he was running away. He hadn't done anything but run away and was killed.

He was murdered, if you shoot someone in the back while they are fleeing you are a murderer.

The cop that shot him is a murderer and a coward.

Yeah, and the states attorney started her excuses with "he was committing a crime" as if execution is the correct answer for running away from police.

In this case it was the police that was fleeing and the person getting shot was chasing him with a raised gardening hoe. He could have shot him in the house the first moment he started approaching him. He didn't. He told him to stop or they'll shoot. He didn't stop so the police started running away in order to avoid shooting him. He followed. Didn't leave them much choice.

Didn't leave them much choice.

Wrong. The murderer chose to shoot and kill the kid. That was the choice they made.

They could have...just run away to a safe distance. But they chose to shoot and murder the kid.

Could have tried to disarm them. Too risky? Run away.

Stop making excuses for poorly trained thugs with guns killing unarmed citizens.

The cop was literally running away when he shot him.

When I am running away from something to escape danger I do not do so facing the danger and aiming a gun.

I guess you and that cop have a better method of running away from danger that somehow isn't primarily concerned with increasing safety by maximizing distance from the danger?

You suggesting running away indicated to me that you didn't watch the video and thus don't have a clear view of what actually happened there. If you did, then my bad.

Knowing american cops, I wouldn't be surprised if he was physically unable to outrun the guy.

He also could have just used the taser instead of the gun. The boy was, what, 150lbs?

Being black adds 150 lbs of pure muscle and testosterone-fueled rage. Poor cop was basically facing a sword wielding grizzly bear.

/s