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Thursday, July 14, 2016

What the fuck?!

So, I've just read about and watched the the latest video of police pulling a young man over in Fresno, for suspicion of having a rifle on his person, and carrying it in an illegal fashion. I dunno the details further in that regards, nor was there presented any history of the boy, and weather or not he was known to these officers.

What I do know is that he pulled into a gas station, rather than the side of the road, and hey I might have done that myself, just to avoid creating traffic congestion. What baffles me, is when the officers have clearly shown the measure of a threat they feel he represented by exiting their cars with guns drawn and orders to place his hands on the driver door, is why he failed to comply.

OK, I'll admit that if this was happening to me write now, my objectivity would be tossed out the window along with the heart that would have leaped from my chest by the wholly unexpected escalation of the situation. I have been pulled over by the police, and I have NEVER had guns drawn on me before. So yeah, I could see being dumbfounded by the situation, and perhaps not complying immediately to the steadily unfolding events. I'd like to think that my critical thinking mind would have finally stepped up and realized, OK...take a deep breath and listen to what they're asking you to do, and then do it if you wanna live through this.

Folks, I don't give a fuck what your attitude is towards the police, but if this ever happens to you...and you want to live, you do what ever it is they ask of you, and you answer yes sir and no sir and if anything else comes to your mind that is not asked for, you shut your fucking mouth.

Aside from pulling over, this kid failed to comply to all of the officers instructions, everything he did elevated and escalated the danger of that particular scenario. The very first thing they asked him to do, was to place his hands on the drivers side door. This is standard police procedure to insure he didn't have his hand on a gun, to safely approach the vehicle and further access if he had a gun in the truck.

He didn't do that, he opened the door, and was told that was not what they'd asked him to do. They instructed him to put both hands into the air, he held one into the air, they repeated that he show both hands. He then proceeded to exit the vehicle and walk away a few feet, he then turned around as they were asking him to put both hands into the air, again to determine what level of threat he was. He raised one hand and held his other behind his waist, just out of view and started walking towards the officers. By this time the request for him to raise both hands into the air for clarification that he was not in possession of a dangerous weapon, had been repeated multiple times. The boy failed to comply and he died as a result of that.

So this is where we arrive at the reason for this blogs subject line, "What the fuck?!" 

What the fuck are we teaching our kids today in school? I dunno, what I do know is that perhaps we need to bring back things like, critical thinking. Maybe along with a course in home economics we need to create a mandatory survival course in the event of natural disasters, terrorism, and lastly what to do if your pulled over by the police.

As a citizen in this country, acquiring a drivers license is a right of passage, and so too is your eventual encounter with law enforcement while operating your vehicle. Most of you will never experience that sort of encounter with the law while behind the wheel, but you need to know the dangers involved. This is a person authorized to stop and detain anyone they feel to be suspicious, or having broken a rule of the road. They are armed, and they approach everyone with a measure of detached aloofness that they hope will keep them aware and alive should anything bad happen that threatens their safety.

As to the officers actions, I was with them up to and including the first shots fired. I totally accepted their decision to fire, not sure I'd have done it myself but based on the events and where their own hearts were beating, I totally excepted it. Where this instance goes from an act of defense to an act of criminal negligence is where the officers failed to detain him after he fell to the ground, and then repeatedly shot him until they felt he had succumbed enough to the gunfire that he could be safely handcuffed. This again leads me back to the subject line of this blog, "What the fuck?!!"

Is there no training done with officers to show that they can respond to an event without drawing their guns? Is there no other way to detain a suspect then without the use of gunfire, or in this case the repeated use of gunfire? I know, I know, who am I to second guess what it is they do out there, these officers of the law....Wait! I know why, my taxes pay their salaries and fund their retirement benefits. If anything, my duty as a citizen is to question the actions of those people paid and sworn to protect us, these officers failed in this event, and so too did the system that trained them.