Police Shootings and Worst Case Scenario Mongering

Distrust of the government is not only common with just the CIA, FBI, and Defense Department. It goes all the way down to your local police department.

Often this distrust comes from scary and messed up things the government has done in the past. Whether that’s lying about a war, illegal spying of citizens, unethical human experimentation, or covering up a murder. With police departments it’s police misconduct and corruption. So it’s not like this distrust is baseless at all. Even with local police departments there have been shocking corruption scandals throughout American history that go all the way up to superiors of the police departments.

You can respectfully question authority. And you have an obligation to as a citizen. Exercise your rights.

That brings us to a contentious topic when it comes to distrust of authority. And that is police involved shootings and killings of citizens. A police officer shoots and kills someone and the debate that comes up is whether or not that specific shooting was justified. Often these debates attract a lot of passion and emotion. 

No you may be asking why am I discussing such a topic? Well paranoia is my specialty. This topic breeds a specific type of paranoia I call “worst case scenario mongering.”

Worst case scenario mongering goes like this. Someone is shot and killed by the police. The details are limited and don’t come out for days, weeks, or even months. If the cop is white and the person shot is black the shooting is especially focused on. Especially in those cases people react alleging the worst possible scenario. Worst case scenario mongering includes claiming that the cop shot an innocent person, that the person shot wasn’t even doing anything wrong, the cop shot someone surrendering, they planted the gun on the suspect after the shooting, or even that the shooting was racially motivated. All these are possible scenarios because they have happened before. But they are often suggested with a complete lack of evidence. Even when investigations and evidence is presented disputing the initial claims the people making the accusations often stand their ground. 

DeRay McKesson is a perfect example. McKesson has been in the Black Lives Matter movement since it started. One of his worst hits was the Sandra Bland suicide in police custody. Investigations found Sandra Bland killed herself while in police custody. But McKesson relentlessly and without apology suggested over and over again she was murdered by the police and it was covered up.

The most common pushed worst case scenario mongering is that someone was shot who is not a threat and was unarmed. Therefore the shooting was unjustified, unlawful, and murder. That is not the case with most police involved killings. Why? Because most police shootings are legally justified. That’s not me saying that. That’s the data saying that.

There are tons of actual unjustified police shootings and killings you could point out. 

But extensive investigations and research shows that a vast majority of the people shot and killed by police were engaging in activities and behavior that would justify deadly use of force. Such as shooting at a police officer, pointing a gun at a police officer, taking an officer’s gun, approaching an officer with a weapon, refusing to show hands when repeatedly ordered to raise them or show them, or even attempting to kill a police officer with their bare hands. Those videos are allover YouTube. You can see them for yourself.

“Unless there is irrefutable evidence to indict an officer, activists remain forever suspicious. That’s why, when hundreds gathered over the weekend to honor VonDeritt Myers Jr., shot and killed last year by a St. Louis cop, there was no mention that Myers was found to have fired at police with a stolen gun and then fled before being shot. That is according to a 272-page report made public by the St. Louis Police Department that was separate from another investigation carried out by prosecutors. That investigation also found Myers shot at the off-duty cop, who was justified in returning fire.” - Daily Beast

Some police shootings do not have video but rely on forensic physical evidence as well as eyewitness testimony consistent with that evidence. Black Lives Matter has seemed to adopt the principle that unless they see the shooting on video they will not believe an investigation’s findings when saying an officer was justified. But if there is video of someone shooting at cops they will just stop talking about and stop using that as an example for their narrative. Black Lives Matter has an epidemic of leaders making extraordinary claims about shootings, proven wrong, and never taking it back.

This is especially common with high profile shootings that get national attention. Even when the shootings are ruled justified based on the evidence Black Lives Matter will still use that shooting as part of their cause because they’ve already marketed so much with it. That’s no exaggeration. 

The most notable case is the Michael Brown shooting. This led to a whole movement of “hands up don’t shoot.” That was because of the allegation that Brown was shot dead while surrendering. Extensive investigations all the way up to the President Obama’s Justice Department found that Brown never surrendered with his hands up and police officer Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Brown. Forensic physical evidence as well as eyewitness testimony show that Officer Wilson was attacked when approaching Brown. Officer Wilson was punched by Brown multiple times in his vehicle and Brown had been trying to take Wilson’s gun. Brown gets shot at the vehicle, runs away, then turns around and bull rushes the officer. This large individual had already tried to take the officer's gun which demonstrates intent to kill the officer. He’s already refusing all lawful verbal commands even after already getting shot. The officer only has only seconds to react. What would any reasonable person do in that situation? That’s the question asked in any reasonable use of force incident. There are multiple other factors that have to be considered when determining whether or not deadly force was justified. If you try and fail to take an officers gun and get shot it would be misleading to claim you were unarmed. You failed to get armed.

Some cases have people shot who were not armed. Like the man shot by police because they mistook a shower head he for a gun. Probably because he was acting like it was a gun. There is video of him on surveillance video pointing the object at men women and children all around the street. It looked exactly like a gun from a 

distance.

Or when a police officer killed a burglary suspect having reason to believe he was armed. The officer was approached by the suspect with his hand behind his back refusing all verbal commands. 

They are rules when it comes to use of deadly force. And police are taught to follow them. Anybody who takes a shoot or don’t shoot scenario knows exactly what it’s like. 

What will fix this distrust? Probably cameras and a lot of them. Body cameras are certainly closing that gap showing police interactions firsthand and reaffirming the word of a police officer as well as physical and forensic evidence. That’s ultimately up to local police departments all over the country to close that gap of distrust that still exists. Criticism of police practices is perfectly fine. However there's no justification for worst case scenario mongering. Nothing needs to be more horrible than it actually is. The most meaningful changes and reforms come from what we know happened.