Grief, Outrage In Minneapolis Suburb After Police Shoot Black Motorist During Traffic Stop | Talking Points Memo

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#21

I find this one very conflicting.

  1. Basic rule with cops is you never try to run, unless you want to have a bad day.

  2. The Basic rule is severely undermined by the fact that, as we just saw in the horrific video of the 2nd Lieutenant in VA, compliance, particularly by POC, can itself end in death or really bad outcomes.

  3. And of course Floyd, that even being in handcuffs ain’t enough for the cops to consider it over.

Somehow there has to be a way to change 2 and 3 so that the Basic rule applies.

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#22

That isn’t what the article says. It says he reentered the vehicle, was shot and then the car sped away. So he was shot for getting back into the car.

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#23

So many police are seemingly eager to shoot their weapons—and shoot to kill—when it is unnecessary.

Training (and I use that word very loosely here) is dreadful and results in escalation of events 9 times out of 10.

No excuses will suffice to explain this kind of wanton murder.

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#24

Why the hell would an air freshener be the basis for a police stop? What mortal danger did the officers face? Were they afraid this hardened criminal might get away? Enough is enough. I predict this will only stop the first time a white man is gunned down by overzealous and reckless policemen. (Yes, I’m sure it’s happened, but let’s face it, it’s all been black men and women of late.)

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#25

Air fresheners? WTF. And you just know that when they see air fresheners with a black kid driving they think they’re going to score a weed arrest. I suspect the body cam footage is going to go over worse than the Snyder Cut.

Something reeks in Minnesota.

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#26

This is another tragedy that is hard to comprehend. What ever happened to serve and protect? I’m not an expert but my first reaction to the use of weapons is, why not blow out the freaking tires?Those pieces of rubber can be replaced but not any human.

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#27

May I suggest that there’s nothing in that statement that says it’s unconditional…?

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#28

You assume facts not in evidence. He was shot before he had a chance to flee the scene. The outstanding warrant better be for murder or some similar violent charge. If it is for a minor traffic offense the officer should go away.

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#29

This makes me sad beyond belief. I have lived in Brooklyn Center for nearly 38 years, and have no memory of this type of encounter. I’m afraid that this “Warrior” training has gotten the cops so twitchy-squirrely that they just shoot whenever things get uncomfortable. I mourn for all involved.

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#30

Feature, not a bug.

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#31

Where this will go in the investigation, which will clear the officers in all likelihood, is that there’s another person in the car and, not having searched the vehicle, the cops don’t know whether he has a gun in there and may be an imminent risk to himself or others.

Which will make it an entirely legal shooting.

Note that I’m not talking about whether that’s right, it’s just the same thing we’ve seen time after depressing time.

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#32

That information should already be available, but since it isn’t (like drug trafficking or murder, as you suggest), it’s likely it is a minor offense. Again, early reports say the officers did not know about that warrant. If they really didn’t, then it becomes a non-factor in the murder of the young man.

The Right and the Blue Lives Matter crowd will insist, as they are with Floyd, that this was a bad dude and he had it coming. Fox News will push that all night tonight, whether true or not.

ETA: Thanks for the update on the prior offense, @socalista

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#33

Fleeing from law enforcement officers and for possessing a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June 2020

It’s public record.

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#34

Still not worth killing the guy over.

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#35

There’s has to be far more serious consequences for discharge of weapon than failure to make an arrest. It seems to me that more than one shooting has been because the cop was trying to stop the suspect from getting away and the cop was more concerned with the embarrassment of losing the collar than the life of the suspect.

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#36

Welp, that is decisively unhelpful if it ends up they knew about it.

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#37

I wouldn’t jump too hard on “he was stopped for hanging an air freshener” without further information. According to CNN, that’s what he said to his Mom when he called her on the phone to ask for car insurance info. Maybe he didn’t want to say what the cops actually told him? Let’s see what the police called in on the radio as a reason for the stop.

There’s a lot of missing info here. I’m ready to be outraged like everyone else, but I’d like to know the whole picture.

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#38

Well, when one doesn’t value the life…

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#39

They had his license. They knew his home address. Why shoot?

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#40

No, but Geico would.

Shop wisely.

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