Unbelievable. Another black life taken. Another wanton waste of human life that should have been a routine traffic stop. This time the policeman (a university cop, I believe) stopped a black driver for missing the front license plate. The driver ended up shot in the back of the head.
A huge difference with this one is that the officer is being charged with murder.
I’m glad the officer is being tried, but when will these police departments catch a clue that they would be better off training their people on proper threat assessment rather than trying their officers for murder after the fact.
They have yet to release the body cam video, but the police chief and prosecutor both said it’s “really bad” for the police officer and they wanted to prepare for retaliation from the public. If those two would say that, then it must be really bad.
This is messed up. I have not seen the video, but it reads almost as if the cop was targeting this person. Was there any struggle of any kind even (does anyone know?)?
The video has been released. I watched it today. It appears as if the driver was reaching to release his seatbelt as the officer asked, and the officer shot him in the head.
I looped the WLWT video at the same 10 second frame trying to see what was going on with not much success. WVXU’s is clear and also has the full footage of the aftermath (i.e. the officer’s statements and recollections to other officers and medical).
So glad this officer is being charged with murder. Even from the better quality video tape, I can't tell what prompted him to pull his gun. He seems to be telling DuBose to unbuckle and get out and before there's even two seconds of response, he has his gun out and is firing into the car. How do these idiots get hired in the first place?
I watched it intently ten plus times or so. I can’t fathom why he didn’t let Dubose drive away. His left hand on the door and his right hand was in the car…and then it went to pull the gun. He shot Dubose in the head inside his car.
The sequence of events don’t make sense. But amen he is being charged.
Additionally, his statements afterwards and just how often he was repeating them. It was intriguing. Statements like “He dragged me”, “I thought he was going to run me over”, and how he goes right back to his arm being stuck to the car when it took off. Just interesting.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, my arm just got hit. I don’t need medical” -> “My arm is hurting. It wouldn’t hurt to get it looked at.” -> “My arm is tingling. I need someone to look at it.”
I am glad he was indicted. To say everyone was shocked the Joe Deters called it a dumb stop(my words) was shocking. The prosecutor is very pro police, so when he said flat out it was murder, I knew the tape would be bad. Hamilton county is known to be a very conservative area, so while I am glad he was indicted, I wont be shocked if he is acquited or there is a hung jury.
I also hope they look into the other officers on the scene. Before the tape was released, they all said the officer had been dragged by the car. If other officers stop covering for bad ones, maybe this will stop. The prosecutor also said that UC shouldnt have their own cops, they should let the city patrol the campus. Thats the the bad part of this, the officer shouldnt have really been that far from campus, all for a missing front plate. It is Ohio law to have a front plate, but I dont have one on my car. Heck a lot of newer cars dont have holes for plates.
Off topic, but why don’t you have a front license plate on your car? Is it not a ticket-able offense? There are ways to put one on without drilling into your car, no?
If it started rolling, you step back…maybe call for back up if you’re so very concerned that the missing-front-license-plate offender might be getting away.
Seems like the same thing that happened to Walter Scott — stopped for something minor and then shot to death because he ran. The officer had his license plate number…cops could have tracked him down and arrested him later if it was that important to apprehend a guy for a broken tail light and failure to pay child support. No, he shoots to kill instead.
And Michael Crawford shopping in Walmart holding a bb gun Walmart sells…very little conversation before a trigger happy cop blows him away.
And Tamir Rice, the boy with the toy gun in the playground…less than two minutes before he is shot.
How can anyone argue that these killings are not connected to race?