It’s getting better believe it or not. If it still hurts bad tomorrow I’ll get an x-ray. Perks of having access to the equipment.
I’ve spent the day on the couch napping and watching “Dirty Money”, alternating Tylenol and Motrin, and icing it and soaking it every couple of hours. The crunch was more of bones rubbing/grinding against each other than breaking. Hard to describe. If it’s not continuing to improve by Wednesday I’ll go in. My bff has an entire medical supply house in her shed so I can get a free compression wrap, air cast, cane, whatever. Lucky me.
WTF is wrong with American police?
You don’t just go around shooting unarmed people for the hell of it, especially this soon after George Floyd. Don’t they get any training at all in the careful and reasonable use of guns?
Edit: To expand a bit, US police training is (to my knowledge) extremely minimal, and basically focused around “You are putting your life on the line every single day, so make sure you get them before they have a chance to get you.”
The most recent shooting in Wisconsin is not as cut and dried as “cop shoots unarmed black man.”
But then again, is it ever really cut and dried?
I’m still waiting for the full facts - and I always recommend that before spouting off on any topic - but from what I HAVE read so far and seen in the video is the police were there because a man was threatening other people (domestic situation, I believe). The suspect was armed with a knife (visible in the video), was refusing to put it down or stop moving to his car, had stated he had a gun in the car, and was reaching into the car when he was shot.
I have not seen any video of the actual shooting, just the time leading up to it. Could it have been resolved without shooting? I’ll wait for the actual details before forming my own opinion.
But if he 1) had dropped the knife he had been using to threaten people, 2) stopped when the police told him to and talked to them, 3) not made reference to the firearm in his car, and 4) reached into that same car…
… he would not have ever been in danger of being shot.
I saw the shooting video, but not the lead-up. He ran to the side of the (I presume his own) car and opened the driver’s door. Kind of hunched over, ducked down behind the door but still on his feet, facing into the hinge. Officers came up behind him I guess to corner him, and the one closest to him fired seven times at arm’s length, directly into his back.
From where he stopped moving into/toward the car, there are very few places he could have grabbed a gun from. It’s not possible, from the video I saw, to tell if he was even reaching for it or was in a purely defensive position.
Given where they had him pinned, this probably could have been resolved with a less-lethal instrument. Or with fewer bullets. Given what we’ve seen over the past 6 months, and really over the past decades, it’s hard to watch the video and not think that the officer over-reacted, or was attempting to send a message to everyone watching. Or perhaps he intended to kill the individual and was simply unable to aim his firearm properly at a range of 1 meter.
I think part of this is part of the “gun mentality”. I’m experienced with firearms, with my father being a (formerly) active hunter and collector (and also NRA member). The thinking when dealing with guns is “If you’re a danger to me, I will put enough lead downrange to completely and unquestionably ensure that you stop being a danger to me.” Even now, I still somewhat hold the same mentality when it comes to things like home defense. I own a couple of pistols solely for home defense, and if I were to ever use them in the course of said defense, it would be rather difficult to overcome that reaction.
That’s completely different to what I heard. The version I saw was that there were two women fighting an Blake tried to stop them.
There is no knife visible in any of the video I have seen. The one I saw there is no way he could have been carrying a knife as he hitches up his trousers with both hands, one of which (left) appears to be holding something short and black - possibly a key fob.
You can call it spouting off, but the fact is that a lot of American police shoot first and ask questions later. Or sometimes shoot first and try to cover up any questions. If there hadn’t been third party video available then I think the police would have done just that.
It will be interesting to see if there is any bodycam footage, and also to hear from the other people involved in the altercation.
Really. You’re well acquainted with American police officers?
Probably more likely that you’re acquainted with the story the media pushes, and they push the story that gets people coming back to read more, getting more paniced, generating more clicks.
Here’s a YouTuber who does an excellent summation of the Black shooting, including his criminal history, the shooting from two viewpoints, and why this individual is probably not the person who should be deified by the public.
Criminal history is only possibly relevant if the officers knew of it at the time.
I’ve seen so many different takes on this, many claiming entirely different facts, let alone their interpretation. Epistemology is the great challenge of 2020.
If I shot an unarmed dude in the back–even an armed dude who wasn’t presenting a threat I could articulate–seven times while I was in Afghanistan, I would probably go to prison. “Might soon become a threat” is not a reason to use deadly force. Did they think he was going to detonate an IED?
I’ve seen more than one police blogger state that the call included his name, and he was “known” to the force.
He stated he had a firearm in the car and he was holding a knife. And you don’t let a known violent suspect get behind the wheel of a two-ton weapon if you can help it.
Seven times? I agree, seems like overkill. But the purpose behind shooting at a suspect is to stop the threat. Since we cannot see what the officer saw I’m not going to guess what he saw as a threat during shots 2, 3, 4, etc. Maybe the suspect was continuing to reach for a firearm. Door pocket, stuck between the seat and the door… who knows.
I have to agree with @DocDubious. What seems like overkill when playing Monday morning quarterback is entirely different that being there in the moment, making split second decisions.
To clarify one thing - the bad guy having a weapon is not required to justify shooting him. If the guy is dangerous, and a threat to your safety or others’, you shoot to stop the threat. Saying he didn’t have a knife because he pulled up his pants is silly (I can pull up my pants with my Samsung Galaxy S9+ in my hand, so doing so while gripping a knife would be no problem at all.), but whether he did or did not is irrelevant.
I know several people in law enforcement related rolls, and was recently present for a discussion about the weapons agencies are using, because several have recently (measured in both months and years) switched from more effective calibers to 9mm, usually due to cost. While I’m not invested in the argument/issue, the evidence and examples I heard do indicate that one or two rounds from a 9mm don’t always slow down the bad guys, especially if the adrenaline is flowing, and even more so if they’re on drugs. They referenced several incidents where police forces were using 9mm, and had to put a ridiculous number of rounds into the guys before they went down, like 80, 100, or more. Crazy! The discussion was not about any of the recent shootings, but it does raise questions… Were the police using 9mm? If so, would the guy have gone down faster if they were using .40 or .45?
Either way, the guy was a troublemaker and not following instructions from police, but fighting the police. That is never going to end well.
And this is why all police departments should use bodycams. If you have a visual record of what happened, it takes a lot of the “was it/wasn’t it” away. I know that bodycams aren’t the be all and end all, but they do provide a measure of protection/verification for both the police and the public.
