Shoot first, ask questions later
That seems to be the motto of cops these days. We are still incensed over the fatal shooting of a 13 year old boy at the hands of Santa Rosa, CA deputies because he was carrying a toy gun.
First, even if he was carrying a real gun he shouldn’t have been shot. There are many locales and areas in America where it is perfectly acceptable and legal to carry a gun exposed – like when you are hunting.
Second, in this case it was a toy gun, real looking or not, since when did that give police the right to shoot someone, let a alone a KID? When I was a boy I regularly played with toy guns (as I’m sure many of you did) out in the street and around my home. I never remember back then (when crime was much more serious than it is now) being afraid I would get shot by cops.
Third, don’t cops have Tasers? They didn’t think to use them instead of deadly force?
What the hell happened to the police in this country? They are supposed to have better training than ever, but it would seem from all these incidents of innocent civilians being shot and killed that the reverse must be true.
According to the cops and media reports the police asked the kid several times to drop his weapon and when he failed to do so they fatally shot him.
Could this be where the problem lies? Imagine your son is walking down the street with a toy gun. A police car pulls up and two cops jump out and aim their all too real guns at him. They yell “Drop your weapon!” over and over.
Your imaginary son is frozen. ‘I don’t have a weapon’, he thinks, scared to death. He can’t even process what they are yelling at him about. He knows he only has a toy, he doesn’t have any weapons…
If the cops had yelled “Drop what you’re carrying!” – could that have saved his life in a situation that shouldn’t ever have occurred in the first place?
Yes this was tragic. Yes the cops involved probably feel horrible. But shouldn’t we not gloss over this as a terrible mistake and look into what is wrong with police training?
