Posted by: chupacabra
Posted by: syncro
So what about the Rayshard Brooks shooting? How does that one fit into everyone's ideas of police brutality?
Unless the guy running away is an imminent threat to the public, I don't see why cops should ever pull a gun and fire. Or get into a car chase. They could have just gone looking for him later if they are too slow to catch a guy drunk off his ass. It's not like they didn't know who he was. I also don't see why anyone should have to be cuffed and taken in for a DUI. They could take his keys and call him a cab. Charge him later.
I am willing to bet that the majority of cases where death was avoidable go 2 ways. One is like George Floyd where they use overuse force to restrain people and the other is where they use their gun when their hearts are pumping and they can't think straight. If white-collar criminals don't need to be cuffed and hauled away to a cell they can do the same for other non-violent crimes.
Well he had pulled a taser off the one less experienced officer and turned and fired it at the officer who shot him while he was running away. I don't agree with the shooting, but under those circumstances and depending on the training and experience of the office I can see them using lethal force.
Re the DUI the police had been pretty good with him and he had been co-operative up until the point they tried to cuff him. Brooks was a recently paroled felon and would have been going back to the clink if arrested fur DUI. I would guess that's why he tried to run, which wasn't really a smart decision. Considering he was buzzed at least it's no surprise to me that panic took over and he tried to bolt. In terms of the officer pursuing him, well he took a taser off of one guy and the officers were at that point more than likely informed of Brook's recent parole status so I would guess they didn't have much choice but to pursue him. So Brooks was fucked either way, whether they took him in on the spot or let him go to pick him up later - he was going back to jail. Did he deserve to die? No. But what are officers supposed to do in that situation? You can't just let the guy go. Maybe they should have called for more backup before they tried to arrest him so he couldn't bolt?
It's a shitty situation and in the current climate is being treated as just another typical cop killing a black man. I tend to think this situation is far more nuanced than that and I don't know if there is a right answer on what should have been done. I would guess based on the vids if Brooks had just accepted his fate and let the officers arrest him he would still be alive today. He clearly didn't want to do that tho. I would also guess that Brooks would still be alive if there had been more cops and he was fighting to get away, but you never know in that situation. Brooks looks like he was a bigger guy, over 6ft and 200lbs so he wouldn't have been easy to coral. Trying to pin down a larger human who is hopped up on adrenaline and basically fighting for his life is not an easy thing to do. He for sure would have been hurt in some way, maybe he dies in that situation too.
White collar criminals seem to accept their fate and let officers take them in. It seems that most criminals who are from the streets tend t fight to get away. I would guess if you ran the stats that for arrests or police contact, people who put up a fight and try to flee have a much higher incidence of injury or death than for people who don't.