First, let me say that it misses the point to concentrate on
one violent act, whether justified or not.
We constantly deny it, but the world is a violent place. People die by violence every day. Not many people are involved with violence,
and those who do really do not talk about it.
So it’s one of the many avoided topics of our society. But it’s real,
whether it is violence from a motor vehicle accident, a fall, a shooting, or
any of the many, many ways that violence can intervene in life and death.
Rayshard Brooks was asleep at a Wendy’s drive-through. That is a distinctly odd place to fall asleep. Management called the police, which was
entirely proper. The police responded and interacted with Brooks and both
police officers and Rayshard Brooks were low-key, polite and friendly. One officer did a preliminary blood alcohol
test on Brooks, and we don’t know what it showed. Presumably, it showed the use of alcohol,
probably more than 0.8%, because one officer said that he had had too much to
drink and proceeded to start to handcuff him.
A word about handcuffs – when one is handcuffed, one is
largely defenseless. When one is handcuffed
by an officer, it accomplishes two things. First, the individual is far less
dangerous to the officer and the officer can relax. That is why, in the event
of a citizen-shooting, one should expected to be handcuffed when the police get
there because the police do not know what happened. And that’s okay. Second,
the person handcuffed has to trust that the police will not assassinate him or
her. In a vast majority of the cases, in all but cases which make the news, that’s
true. But it takes only one or two occasions contrary to make people doubt. The
video of the George Floyd murder is there for anybody to see, and an example of
now you CAN be dealt with while you are handcuffed. That is unfortunate, that
is this distinctly improbable, but still, many citizens have a little bit of
doubt. The fact that the George Floyd murder might have had personal causes has
been lost in the discussion. Apparently, the officer had worked with him and knew
him and, so far, we have no idea what the officer was thinking when he killed
him.
(There, I violate my own role. I do realize that it is not a
murder until 12 old darlings on the jury unanimously agree. But I can have an
opinion, and the First Amendment applies to me, too. It does point out that it will be DAMN hard
to get an impartial jury in the murder trial.)
So to continue with the Rayshard Brooks story: When the
officer started to handcuff Brooks, Brooks resisted and fought the officers. He
was apparently strong and in good shape for he fought to officers to a
standstill. Mind you, the officers should have been trying to avoid hurting
him, but we don’t know as we were not in the officers’ minds. Brooks seized a
Taser and ran. As he was running, he turned and fired the Taser at a pursuing
officer, The officer then drew his
weapon and the killed Rayshard Brooks.
Another word: Here, the undeniable images of video tell us
all what happened from the perspective of the camera. It doesn’t tell us what
people intended, but it tells us more than mere witness testimony, particularly
where one of the witnesses is dead.
The Atlanta mayor immediately fired the officer and suspended
the other officer.
Now, we have a advantage which is inherently unfair. We get
to judge the videos by looking at them repeatedly, judging what what the
officers intended and whether they were justified. Mind you, this happened in
real time for the officers and they could not and did not have the time to the
reflect that the we now do. But law enforcement requires real time awareness. So what do
we determine?
From here on, it is my opinion. My opinion may or may not be
a knowledgeable one, but it is merely mine, and not binding on anybody. And I approach this from the aspect of being
a former prosecutor who very much sympathizes with the police.
In my judgment, the officer did not need to shoot Brooks. It
was an excessive use of force. It is nothing vaguely like the George Floyd murder.
But we have to examine each case without being our judgment being affected by
any other particular case. In this case, Brooks had a Taser. If you look at the
video, you will see that the Taser is a bright yellow. There is a reason for
that. Police carry a number of weapons. One is a pistol, which introduces lethality
into the mix. Usually, it is black, dark blue or stainless and it is worn on
the predominant hand side. So when an officer reaches for a pistol, it is
the only weapon located on that part of that officer’s body. This comes from a
San Francisco case where a “security officer”, who was armed and not trained
very well, meant to pull his Taser and pulled his gun and shot somebody by
accident. With the body alarm reaction being what it is, the makers of Tasers
recognized that they needed to delineate their products clearly. That’s why it’s
a bright yellow and that’s why it is worn cross-draw, so the officer needs to
reach across his body to draw it.
Is it murder? Frankly, it beats me, it looks more like a manslaughter,
but bear in mind that any homicide results in a dead person. Should he had been
fired? It may have been driven by politics, but it was not clearly wrong and in
the end, it should not matter because he should stay fired. It may be unfair. But we expect police
officers to exercise good judgment in lousy circumstances.
This is a very rough time to be an officer. It is also a
rough time to be arrested, because we have been sensitized to realize that when
an officer has arrested us, we are essentially helpless. Only the passage of
the time will help. We need to relearn, again and again, to trust officers. One
guy, the George Floyd murderer, has caused many people to fear officers. That
may be justified, it may not, but the important thing to remember is that the
condition exists. We have to deal with it.
God, save this nation. And I don’t know exactly what that
means yet.
Mizpah!
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