Charlotte Police Officer Arrested in Shooting Death

[Denali]

The victim was running; not simply approaching the officer faster than he liked.

So say they, and if I might add, since when is running toward police an excuse to end a life?

Nonetheless, much remains unknown here, I want to know why the taser was deployed, pending that, this whole thing appears to be completely unjustified, which is heavily substantiated by the swiftness of the charges....

[Gutshot John]

Lots of speculation. I understand the desire to give LEO the benefit of the doubt but sometimes they do make bad calls and I'm uncomfortable with the whole "shooting first and asking questions later." I'm confident the local department is handling this seriously. Comparisons to trayvon martin are overdone. We are ALL responsible for every shot we fire. This should be especially true of police, the standard should be higher than it is for us...oh wait it is (at least on paper).

As for the young man's behavior, it is EASILY explained by the mechanism of injury.

I've seen a lot of serious car accidents, involving numerous types of injuries. No one acted the same, except that they were all at least a little bit freaked out.

You cannot know nor anticipate how someone will react especially with a mechanism of injury that is EASILY capable of producing a traumatic head injury. People have been known to act irrationally in a traumatic event even without obvious injury. Likewise such brain injuries are capable of producing not only deafness, but are certainly capable of producing diminished LOC. Yes you can kick out a window and climb out of a car and still have significant impairment of your mental capacity...seen it many times. Mental and physical trauma does weird shit to people's minds.

I recall having to tackle a woman running onto a major interstate (I-279S, now I-376W), who had just seen her husband killed while changing a tire on the side of said (always a bad idea, your rim is toast anyways). She was running out into a busy highway to get help even though there were plenty of public safety types around. She wasn't in her head and had to be restrained and sedated.

People don't act like themselves when they get hit hard on the head.

Tox reports will come back and confirm either intoxication or other. In the meantime, one unarmed guy, three armed police, I'm skeptical that the shoot was justified, apparently the coroner and law enforcement agreed but I reserve the right to be wrong.

My bet is that the speed of the arrest indicates that the other officers on the scene were pretty damning of the shooter's actions in their statements and weren't willing to take the hit for such an egregious error. It sounds like the officer simply panicked and made a very bad decision.

Oh yeah and the evidence is what the evidence is. It's entirely probable that the evidence indicated criminal or at least negligent homicide.

Let's wait till all the facts are in but I see no reason to argue with the investigation at this point.

[T2C]

This is a bad situation for everyone involved. The loss of life is tragic. We don't know that the officer's perception was when he fired, but it appears the prosecutors did not agree with his assessment of the situation at the time of the shooting.

Let's hope the media does not paint this incident as racially motivated, but I am not optimistic.

I don't view this as an incident where a white officer shot a black suspect; I view this as an incident where an officer responded with deadly force and a suspect is dead. The political and community leaders need to step up and take measures to curb any civil unrest before it starts.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Saw a blerp on this, the way it plays out will be interesting.

I suspect that the civil rights industry will make it a point to drag the home owner who called 911 though the mud, after all why should a woman home alone at night not open up her door to an unknown huge guy banging on the door?! He played football so I'm gonna ass-u-me he was a big guy. I don't care if his face was on fire my wife knows not to answer the door for ANYONE, if we know a person they have our cells.

Getting back to the man killed, he played football so he was big and could move. If they officers told him to stop and he didn't and ran at them I could see how they would take that as a threat. Tazer didn't work on top of that. So, why did the big guy not stop and comply with officers so he could ID himself and explain to them why he was there and that people needed help in a nearby auto accident?

[Sensei]

Calm down bro. He was referring to the fact that the usual race baiter shit is going to happen because a white shot a black.

Thank you. You are correct.

Lots of information is missing. I saw this one on police one. I imagine the car wreck was not a simple accident but rather a DUI. Someone looking for help does not charge a police officer. This makes me believe drugs were probably involved. The fact the taser failed shows the LEO felt he may have been out of options. He tried less lethal force first. I would like to have known the size, age, differences between the officers and the suspect. Again its easy to make assumptions but on its face it sounds like the department is hanging the officer out to dry because of the number of rounds fired and the race politics. As for the number of rounds fired we know that is not unusual as well all know because hand guns suck at stopping power and a good shooter can fire about 4 to 5 rounds a second at close range. I have a wait and see attitude right now. I want to know more information.
Pat

Pat, I new someday this would happen. After almost 4 years, I finally agree with you on something. It kinda makes me feel dirty. LOL

[Eurodriver]

Any way you look at it, the officer's life is over.

LOL, WHAT?!?!?

[Moose-Knuckle]

I believe that a lot of LEO have too much confidence in the use of an ECD to stop a suspect. I also think that when the ECD does not subdue a suspect, some LEO are surprised and caught completely off guard.

Rodney King was almost shot instead of being "beaten". For those who haven taken the time to review that case and the FACTS, the early Tasers of the day were ineffective and so were various hands on techniques. When those measures failed the batons came out and the rest is history . . .

[T2C]

Rodney King was almost shot instead of being "beaten". For those who haven taken the time to review that case and the FACTS, the early Tasers of the day were ineffective and so were various hands on techniques. When those measures failed the batons came out and the rest is history . . .

I read a great deal about the Rodney King incident and it could have turned out the same way as this one did.

Last year a co-worker had a subject who did not respond to a new ECD, so the problem still exists.

[Irish]

So, why did the big guy not stop and comply with officers so he could ID himself and explain to them why he was there and that people needed help in a nearby auto accident?

Possible traumatic brain injury from the car accident.

[T2C]

Possible traumatic brain injury from the car accident.

Or possibly an adrenaline dump from the car crash.