re: Alton Sterling shooting - discussion thread

quote:

---

In my opinipn, from what i saw, the officers are on top pinning the man down. Alton is struggling just trying to breath and get comfortable while he is being pinned down. One officer yells he has a gun as he is able to feel it in his pants. The other officer then pulls it out and shoot Alton as when he hears "gun" he automatically assumed Alton had the gun in his hands and was soon to shoot. So under his pretense, he shot asap in order to save he and his partners lives

Case in plint, this case could have been totally avoided. And it sucks that another man had to die because of misunderstandings.

---

Honestly, it looks like the cops showed even more restraint than your version of the video, which adds the speculation of the suspect simply trying to breathe rather than continuing his pattern of resistance to police commands.

They obviously attempted to detain him by nonlethal means, as we can see when they first used a taser. The taser did not take him down nor compel him to submit. An officer then took the opportunity to tackle him to the ground and try and detain him that way. He continued to resist and being as how he is a very large man, did so with great efficiency. While both cops attempt to gain control of his arms, one officer spots the weapon in his pants and shouts "gun, he's got a gun." The other officer draws his weapon, does NOT shoot, and issues a verbal command not to move or "I swear to God." At this point, the suspect CONTINUES to resist the other officer as you can see the struggling with his right arm. At his point, the officer who spotted the gun shouts "he's going for the gun!", effectively leaving the other officer little choice but to fire. You then hear, "Get down on the ground!" before another volly of shots.

Any way you slice it, the narrative that these cops were out looking to shoot someone first is completely invalidated by the video evidence. The entire confrontation could have been avoided by simple compliance at a number of possible junctures. The suspect KNEW he had a gun in his pocket yet still chose to resist. The only way left I can see to condemn the officers' conduct once in the ground struggle is if there is some clear evidence that he wasn't in fact fighting the officer from getting control of his right arm/hand or giving the officer reasonable fear that he was making a move for the gun.

Those are the facts as I see them based on the two videos we've seen. If someone wants to point out where I'm wrong please do, but that seems to be a pretty unbiased analysis of the videos as best I can see it.