I think it's pretty clear that the officer never should have discharged her weapon, and for that matter maybe she didn't even mean too. I obviously am speculating but it looks accidental to me. Cops can't make those mistakes though. That does not mean the officer did not commit a crime per our laws. That being said, due process people. We don't string people up on a whim anymore.
Easily the most disturbing thing about the whole situation was the apparent indifference to a man bleeding to death on the pavement. I know it was probably only a minute or two but watching the videos it felt like an eternity. There were multiple officers on site, were they concerned about him attacking or something? Again, is this really protocol? Even the comments requesting EMSA seemed pretty lackadaisical.
And someone earlier mentioned that cars being left in the middle (literally the middle) of the street was normal in North Tulsa. Really? It's not a whole other country or anything for goodness sake.
Hearkening back to Conan's words earlier about getting a CCL, and this is something I have been thinking all week. I have been comparing this situation to not wearing a seat belt. If I chose not to wear a seat belt, that doesn't necessarily condemn me to death, nor do I deserve to die, however I have to live (or die) with the consequences that my life may be out of my hands at the moment, that the actions of another could end my life in the blink of an eye.
I'm not blaming the victim, because he WAS unjustly killed, but before the officer shot him, there were a lot of choices made, choices that ultimately had several officers weapons drawn. I don't know what they were but I'm guessing different choices would not have led to weapons being drawn. I have yet to hear of a police officer shooting when their weapon was still holstered. And it would have to be a lot more than he was a big black person. And again, the choices that the police made could have been unwise too. Maybe they are too jumpy. I just don't know. All speculation.
Or is that just the mentality of cops when in North Tulsa? Admittedly I do not have intimate knowledge of the workings of North Tulsa, even less so the workings of police altercations in North Tulsa. Do a higher proportion result in drawn weapons? Do police officers act differently in certain parts of town, certain parts of North Tulsa? If so, is it justifiable, or are we still working off of old realities? Big questions, difficult answers. And sometimes the answers are difficult because they are not what we want them to be (not that it is necessarily the case here, but it can be sometimes).
Paragraph by paragraph...not intending to be dismissive of your comments, but have some response.
First; Yeah, we do. Well, maybe not quite a whim, but for way too casual an excuse, people get dead.
Second; Heinous!! They just stood around - a long ways away - waiting for him to die, so they could get the Fire Dept to come hose off the road. Probably talking important stuff like where to go for donuts that time of day...or how to plant some evidence to make him look like a bad guy.
Third; Yeah, it kinda is a whole other country. I and friends lived at 36th N near Lewis in the 60's/70's. Still have family members - north Harvard, near Pine. One lived in Apache Manor - Cabrini Green in Tulsa. Even white folks are looked at differently and treated differently in that area (applies to paragraph 6). As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be....world without end,...Amen,...Amen!
Fourth; I got nothing....
Fifth; That paragraph is really kind of passive aggressive offensive - and I don't blame you personally for that, it is a product of a different life experience. Says he didn't deserve to be shot, but maybe he did something that got him shot that we don't know about... We have way to many examples of people doing EXACTLY what they are told and still being shot. There was a guy at a car wash a couple years ago who was getting his drivers license - told the cop it was in the car, then got shot just for opening car door to get it.
And then there was this - autistic man caregiver laying on the ground with arms up, trying to talk to the cops - shot anyway;
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article90905442.htmlSixth; Tough to say specifically about Tulsa as a stand alone entity - I suspect it is the same - but we do know that overall on a nationwide basis, blacks are treated very differently in virtually every instance of police contact. This follows through to the court system, incarceration, and parole opportunities. This is not conjecture or just an opinion - it is a fact.
And even more, we know for another fact that de facto segregation is a huge problem that directly leads, like day follows night, that every aspect of life in America is affected. From 1972 until 1988, there was 'forced busing' in this country. One of the obvious, incontrovertible FACTS of that event was that when blacks from less privileged areas were sent to white suburban schools, the gap in performance was cut in half over those years. Black kids performing at grade level in their home schools were over 40% behind white kids in their home schools. By 1988, that was cut to 17%. In one generation. At the end, the black kids overwhelming returned to substandard schools, with substandard facilities, substandard resources, and the worst teachers. Gee....no wonder the net effect was a regression back to previous performance levels. And worse.
Some of the biggest problems we face as a society are directly and verifiably traceable to the huge differences in educational opportunities afforded our kids. One of the guys I work with lived this just in the last 3 years - he was living in a little gerrymandered Norman, OK school district of mostly lower economic class housing. His neighborhood was much more upscale, but had been brought into the district to gain a little extra tax money boost. But the school couldn't accommodate ANY type of special needs student (Asperberger's), so they literally sold their house - bought one across the street - less than 1/2 mile away - just to get into a 'better' school district that did have the resources to work with and help their kid. Now, consider the HUGE differences that exist between even the "poor area" of Norman, OK, and some true inner city school, like maybe Chicago, Detroit, Philly, Atlanta (I have been to a couple of their elementary schools - one of the contractor guys I was working with got shot that day in the elementary school parking lot! Survived, luckily. That's a whole other 'adventure' story!) It's no wonder we have inner city problems.
Yeah, kind of a drift... the problems are not easy and certainly are not being adequately addressed anywhere in the nation.