I WAS A NYPD OFFICER FOR 5 YEARS. I HAD A GUN PULLED ON ME TWICE.
I saw the video of the 13-year-old in Chicago. I’ve been in that situation. I’ve had a gun pulled on me twice while I was in uniform in Bedford Stuyvesant one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
The first time it was 5 AM. I was driving and this guy was walking down the street swinging his arms wildly behind his back like Mr. Jefferson. Like he was trying to bump into somebody, hit somebody to start a fight. I pulled up beside him & asked him what was going on and was he angry. He pulled out a gun pointed at me.
I tried to crawl under the steering wheel I put the car in reverse backed up by 20 feet and my partner jumped out with his gun drawn and we began to chase him. I drove ahead to speed up ahead of him and drove up on the sidewalk to the storefront and cut them off. I got out behind my car. Had my gun on him and I told him to drop his weapon & put his hands up.
He took off running. He got away temporarily. He turned one corner then turned another corner and we caught him behind his building but he didn’t have the gun with him. When we had them up against the wall, we could’ve shot him because he had a weapon and we would’ve been justified but he never pointed it back at us after the first time and I didn’t want to play God.
In the academy, you are trained that in a gun battle the first thing you do is to take cover. That’s not always possible though.
The other time was when I was first out of the academy. I was a rookie. We were assigned to street corners. A lady came up to us and said a man showed her a gun and threatened her. The man was across the street as soon as he saw us he began to run.
We chased him to the end of the block. He turned a corner. My white colleague went blindly around the corner without stopping or looking. When I got to the corner I peaked around and I saw the other cop running straight at the guy who had turned around and was pointing his gun at the other cop.
I ran a few more steps, jumped behind a parked car. I yelled shots fired on the radio and the location. I threw my radio on the ground. And I put the guy in my sights. I was a marksman in the Academy (98 out of 100.) I yelled at the guy to drop his weapon. When he noticed me in my crouched position behind a car and knew that he was dead if he had fired, he decided not to fire and I decided again not to play God on that day.
Nobody died and we got the arrest. So my point is just because you can kill somebody. Or you can shoot somebody, doesn’t mean that you have to.
People are saying that the cop had to make a decision in a split second. NO, HE DIDN’T! Deadly force is only supposed to be used to stop deadly force.
That KILLER COP gave the kid a command BUT didn’t give him a chance to comply. He told him to drop the gun and before that gun hit the ground he shot the kid. When the kid turned around with his hands up even if he had a gun that’s a non-threatening position.
Furthermore, he wasn’t nor did he ever TAKE AIM at the cop. The cop WAS NEVER THREATENED. The cop is a trained killer, probably a marksman, so his aim is deadly. Therefore, had he waited for one or two more seconds he would’ve seen that the kid’s hands were empty.
by TOMTHUNKIT™