12-03-2014, 02:42 PM
(12-03-2014, 01:51 PM)username Wrote: I feel vindicated.
This one is definitely a questionable incident.
From the dispatcher's communications, to the responding officers' approach, to the speed at which fatal force was exerted, to the failure of responding officers to provide aid to the victim immediately after the shooting... I have a lot of questions.
There may be explanations for some/all of it and the experts who weighed in for that article certainly don't have access to the officers' statements or other information that the investigators are gathering. But, it's in no way off-base to question the police tactics and whether use of deadly force was appropriate in this case, IMO.
It could be that converging factors led to Tamir being shot and killed in the park, but that the officers acted appropriately given what they had to go on. The three tactical experts cited in the article, however, do not believe that to be true based on the case facts they've reviewed.
Whether Tamir was playing aggressively, whether his parents should have known better than to let him go to the park with a real-looking fakie, whether one believes family values are lacking in black communities on the whole, whether laws should be introduced to abolish certain types of toy guns...all viable topics of general discussion and interesting to ponder. None of them are relevant, however, to investigators determining whether the police officers were justified in the use of deadly force against Tamir Rice. This was a 12-year-old boy who did not rob or assault or shoot at anyone -- it's not "he said/he said/they said" as was the case in the Michael Brown shooting where there was no video. Tamir Rice is not a bad guy here in any rational set of eyes, IMO.