What a tragedy. We’ll never know what happened but clearly something went very wrong for the police to kill someone they were supposed to be protecting.
My first thought is there needs to be improved training towards lethal force. Maybe a knife is justifiable but not in every case. My second thought is that situations like these are why there is a low level of trust towards police. Maybe the officer is telling the truth but with no body cams and an attitude of police unions sticking with their own we will never know. There needs to be some accountability to grow trust. .
Finally I was reminded of the time my house was broken into when I was 13 and I arrived home from school through the back door just as the police arrived through the front. I found myself face to face with a big cop pointing a gun at me yelling “who are you!” Through almost ####ting my pants I managed to meekly let out a “I live here”. It was probably the scariest moment of my life and I’m glad the officer, despite having his gun ready, took the time to visually and verbally confirm I wasn’t a threat. I’ve always wondered though if this would have played out differently if I looked scarier than a bean pole white kid, it happened at night, or if I was holding something like a water gun or baseball bat.
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The masses of humanity have always had to surf.
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