The Columbus Shooting
Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:14 pm
It's sad that we get word of another fatal shooting of a black teenager by police just minutes before the Chauvin verdict was announced. But I've looked at this footage a number of times and watched today's press conference where they played the 911 call. My thoughts:
1) The 911 call was very garbled and difficult to understand beyond the fact that there was obviously a loud argument going on and that the caller mentioned that someone was trying to stab somebody's grandmother and they needed the police now. The caller hung up a few seconds after that. There was no way for the dispatcher or the first responding police to know who made the call (which still isn't clear) or what the exact circumstances were.
2) There were at least three squad cars on the scene, but the footage they played from two other officers' bodycams didn't show the shooting clearly and missed most of the leadup to the shooting. However, the bodycam from the officer who shot Bryant showed everything he saw from the time he exited his car and seems fairly clear, even more so when they replayed it in slow motion. At actual speed, it was about ten seconds from the time he exited the car until he fired his shots.
3) The first thing that the officer does upon leaving his car is to ask the girl in pink, who had been standing a few feet away from Bryant "what's going on." Before anyone answers, Bryant starts struggling with another girl. Either Bryant pushes the other girl or she stumbles and falls backward. You can't see a knife here, but she might have had one in her hand. At this point, the officer asks, in adult man starts stomping on the girl on the ground. This is the point where the officer draws his gun and says "hey, hey, hey" fairly loudly. The man who was kicking the girl backs away immediately. Both Bryant and the girl in pink were close to the girl on the ground at this point. It's difficult to see what either of them was doing. Then, Bryant turns toward the girl in pink and away from the officer. By now Bryant has a knife in her hand. It's unclear just when she pulled the knife. The girl in pink moves away until her path is blocked by the parked car. Bryant continues toward her. The knife is clearly out and in a position to strike. The officer yells "down, down, down" and Bryant doesn't react (she might not have heard and she couldn't see the cop at this point). At the time the shots were fired, she appeared to have her left hand on the girl in pink and the knife hand raised and preparing to strike. Again, all this took 10 seconds.
4) The cop did not have the benefit of a slow motion replay, but that appeared to lend even more support to his actions. When the cop first drew his weapon, ther were two assailants attacking or near the girl on the ground, and drawing a taser at that point couldn't have incapacitated both Bryant and the adult man. Once the officer had his gun in his hand, he couldn't have then drawn the taser. He never identified himself as a policeman, and it's possible that Bryan may not have seen him or heard him in the commotion when he yelled "down, down."
5) While this incident was going on, the adult man made no attempt to break it up or de-escalate (of course we couldn't see what happened before the police arrived). Instead, he stomps on the girl on the ground. Then, after the shooting, he cusses out the cops saying that they shot a child and didn't have to do that.
6) Most of the other incidents that have resulted in fatal police shootings or other assaults have played out over an extended period of time and started out as low-intensity situations. It's proper to question how police might have reacted differently when they had plenty of time to assess the situation. This entire incident took 10 seconds. In that time, Bryant had a knife out and ready to strike and another girl in a helpless situation and very likely could have severely wounded or killed that girl within another second or two. Plus, the only prior information the cop had was there was a 911 call about a person with a knife who was threatening to hurt people. I don't think that those who have been the most critical of the cop while thinking up other things he might have done in those ten seconds gave much thought to the fact that an unarmed girl might have died had the cop not acted. If my granddaughter had been the girl in pink, I would be very thankful the cop acted as he had.
7) I do think that there is a tendency to blindly take sides in cases before seeing the evidence and often afterwards conveniently ignoring that which doesn't support your argument. Some of the left wing websites I follow have commenters who have done exactly that, even when others asked them to look at the video. There should be a thorough investigation. I'm pretty sure we don't know all the details of the domestic situation that led to the fight in the first place. As far as the cop who shot Bryant, he would be judged by what the evidence shows he did or did not do. But we can't ignore that the police culture in this country in recent years has bred fear and distrust in the minority communities, and that's how they tend to view every situation. Fortunately, there's documentary evidence here, as opposed to just the word of the cops and witnesses, which is all we had in years past.
1) The 911 call was very garbled and difficult to understand beyond the fact that there was obviously a loud argument going on and that the caller mentioned that someone was trying to stab somebody's grandmother and they needed the police now. The caller hung up a few seconds after that. There was no way for the dispatcher or the first responding police to know who made the call (which still isn't clear) or what the exact circumstances were.
2) There were at least three squad cars on the scene, but the footage they played from two other officers' bodycams didn't show the shooting clearly and missed most of the leadup to the shooting. However, the bodycam from the officer who shot Bryant showed everything he saw from the time he exited his car and seems fairly clear, even more so when they replayed it in slow motion. At actual speed, it was about ten seconds from the time he exited the car until he fired his shots.
3) The first thing that the officer does upon leaving his car is to ask the girl in pink, who had been standing a few feet away from Bryant "what's going on." Before anyone answers, Bryant starts struggling with another girl. Either Bryant pushes the other girl or she stumbles and falls backward. You can't see a knife here, but she might have had one in her hand. At this point, the officer asks, in adult man starts stomping on the girl on the ground. This is the point where the officer draws his gun and says "hey, hey, hey" fairly loudly. The man who was kicking the girl backs away immediately. Both Bryant and the girl in pink were close to the girl on the ground at this point. It's difficult to see what either of them was doing. Then, Bryant turns toward the girl in pink and away from the officer. By now Bryant has a knife in her hand. It's unclear just when she pulled the knife. The girl in pink moves away until her path is blocked by the parked car. Bryant continues toward her. The knife is clearly out and in a position to strike. The officer yells "down, down, down" and Bryant doesn't react (she might not have heard and she couldn't see the cop at this point). At the time the shots were fired, she appeared to have her left hand on the girl in pink and the knife hand raised and preparing to strike. Again, all this took 10 seconds.
4) The cop did not have the benefit of a slow motion replay, but that appeared to lend even more support to his actions. When the cop first drew his weapon, ther were two assailants attacking or near the girl on the ground, and drawing a taser at that point couldn't have incapacitated both Bryant and the adult man. Once the officer had his gun in his hand, he couldn't have then drawn the taser. He never identified himself as a policeman, and it's possible that Bryan may not have seen him or heard him in the commotion when he yelled "down, down."
5) While this incident was going on, the adult man made no attempt to break it up or de-escalate (of course we couldn't see what happened before the police arrived). Instead, he stomps on the girl on the ground. Then, after the shooting, he cusses out the cops saying that they shot a child and didn't have to do that.
6) Most of the other incidents that have resulted in fatal police shootings or other assaults have played out over an extended period of time and started out as low-intensity situations. It's proper to question how police might have reacted differently when they had plenty of time to assess the situation. This entire incident took 10 seconds. In that time, Bryant had a knife out and ready to strike and another girl in a helpless situation and very likely could have severely wounded or killed that girl within another second or two. Plus, the only prior information the cop had was there was a 911 call about a person with a knife who was threatening to hurt people. I don't think that those who have been the most critical of the cop while thinking up other things he might have done in those ten seconds gave much thought to the fact that an unarmed girl might have died had the cop not acted. If my granddaughter had been the girl in pink, I would be very thankful the cop acted as he had.
7) I do think that there is a tendency to blindly take sides in cases before seeing the evidence and often afterwards conveniently ignoring that which doesn't support your argument. Some of the left wing websites I follow have commenters who have done exactly that, even when others asked them to look at the video. There should be a thorough investigation. I'm pretty sure we don't know all the details of the domestic situation that led to the fight in the first place. As far as the cop who shot Bryant, he would be judged by what the evidence shows he did or did not do. But we can't ignore that the police culture in this country in recent years has bred fear and distrust in the minority communities, and that's how they tend to view every situation. Fortunately, there's documentary evidence here, as opposed to just the word of the cops and witnesses, which is all we had in years past.