10-11-2015, 10:24 AM
Thanks for the update Six.
I don't think anyone questions that police shooting someone thought to be an adult waving a real gun with people all around is reasonable, if the gun-waver fails to drop the weapon or put up his hands on request. That was the original police false narrative, from which they retracted when the surveillance video showed otherwise.
I wish the parts of the reports released to media had addressed the issues of assessment, approach, and warning. The portions of the two particular reports selected for release seem to indirectly put the responsibility on the (now resigned) 911 dispatcher for failing to relay that the male could be a junvenile with a toy.
To me, that does not explain the fact that the officers rolled right up on Tamir when it was obvious that they were not approaching an "active shooting in progress" and there were no civilians near Tamir. Police reps lied at first and said the officers essentially decided to rush in because Tamir was around a group of people brandishing the weapon, then blamed it on wet grass when surveillance contradicted that false narrative.
I also wish the report addressed what commands (if any) the experts believe the responding officers could have reasonably and clearly given Tamir from a rolling car in the less than 2 seconds before they shot him.
Hopefully, the full independent investigations solicited by the prosecution addressed all of those key issues. If so, the prosecutor chose not to release those portions of the reports to the media at this time, so again we wait. This has been dragged out a long time.
Anyway, if the grand jury fails to indict based on the information presented to them by the prosecution, then a wrongful death verdict from a civil jury will be the only recourse for the family. I believe the family wants both a criminal conviction and civil award.
I don't think anyone questions that police shooting someone thought to be an adult waving a real gun with people all around is reasonable, if the gun-waver fails to drop the weapon or put up his hands on request. That was the original police false narrative, from which they retracted when the surveillance video showed otherwise.
I wish the parts of the reports released to media had addressed the issues of assessment, approach, and warning. The portions of the two particular reports selected for release seem to indirectly put the responsibility on the (now resigned) 911 dispatcher for failing to relay that the male could be a junvenile with a toy.
To me, that does not explain the fact that the officers rolled right up on Tamir when it was obvious that they were not approaching an "active shooting in progress" and there were no civilians near Tamir. Police reps lied at first and said the officers essentially decided to rush in because Tamir was around a group of people brandishing the weapon, then blamed it on wet grass when surveillance contradicted that false narrative.
I also wish the report addressed what commands (if any) the experts believe the responding officers could have reasonably and clearly given Tamir from a rolling car in the less than 2 seconds before they shot him.
Hopefully, the full independent investigations solicited by the prosecution addressed all of those key issues. If so, the prosecutor chose not to release those portions of the reports to the media at this time, so again we wait. This has been dragged out a long time.
Anyway, if the grand jury fails to indict based on the information presented to them by the prosecution, then a wrongful death verdict from a civil jury will be the only recourse for the family. I believe the family wants both a criminal conviction and civil award.