I get in peoples face who throw out Jacob Blake was reaching for a knife bull shit.

[Ninga]

A feeble look at the frame of the video Showing the shooting
SHOWS there is enough muscle in blue uniforms close enough, in arms length, to grab him without having to shoot.
No more needs to be said.

[brush]

1. Exactly. There were three cops on the scene. That's enough...

manpower right there to physically subdue one man (I don't buy the knife bit either, much too convenient, seems an attempt to justify the shooting. And rogue cops have been known to plant weapons near or on victims).

All three of the cops had their guns out in their hand, ready I guess, to shoot, when they should have been seeking to de-escalate the situation, a concept that always seems to elude shooter cops.

It's time to get physical cowards off police forces all over the country. If your only response in confrontations on the job (and Blake didn't even confront them. He was walking away from them), if your only response is to shoot, you need to be in another field. In this shooter cop's case it'll have to wait until after he gets out of jail though.

The other two who stood by, we'll see what happens as they had no control over what the cowardly, rogue shooter was going to do.

[unblock]

3. Police get way too much training and practice shooting guns

And far too little time in training and practice de-escalating, distinguishing guns from snickers bars, practice in retreating to safety, training in using the minimum violence for the situation, training in shooting *not* to kill, etc.

[Phoenix61]

4. I had a conversation with a ex-pat in Germany.

Police training there is 2.5 years with a lot of time practicing de escalation techniques. Actually doing role plays. What a concept. He said they do carry guns but shootings are rare.

[unblock]

5. it's nuts how institutionally trigger-happy we allow our police to be.

[unblock]

2. "Reaching for a knife" isn't a justification to shoot to kill anyway

Even if a someone reaches for a knife and grabs a knife and turns toward the police and starts moving aggressively, the police can still retreat to safety and try to talk the suspect down, reach for a net or at least something less lethal.

Even then the training to shoot center mass, many bullets, is ridiculous unless the situation is completely clear that there is no reasonable way to proceed other than by killing the suspect. If the suspect has a suicide bomb, ok I get it. If the suspect has a gun, maybe.

But a knife? If violence is a must, try using a baton to break their leg at least. Shoot to kill as a first line of defense is indefensible.

[Devil Child]

6. Do you acknowledge he was in possession of a lethal weapon?

[lostnfound]

9. For all we know it might have been a plastic eating utensil

Cops lie.
“He admitted he had a knife”, saith the policeman who killed him.
Was that after he had eight gunshot wounds, or before? Did he say that very softly as he was wheeled away by the medical people who will try to fix the holes in his body that you put there? Or maybe in the recovery room, while drugged up on anesthesia? What has he been charged with, anyway? Anything?

Will you charge him for the bullets? Or are we not that Russian, yet?

[Devil Child]

11. I'm really interested in more info on the officer that killed Mr. Blake.

Considering the fact that Mr. Blake is alive.

[lostnfound]

12. What kind of information? Nt

[RockRaven]

7. There is a giant gulf between necessary and justifiable, and that's the problem

That is one of the biggest differences in how cops treat white versus non-white people. They shoot white people when they must. They shoot non-white people when they can. [and of course that is a generalization]

That gap between must and can has thousands of dead Americans in it. We have to close it, completely.

[MissMillie]

8. Didn't he tell them he had one in the car?

If he were planning on using it, why would he tell them about it.

How much you want to bet that he was thinking, "I'm a black man, there's 3 cops here. My kids are in the car. I'm not under arrest. Maybe I should just leave."

[Brainfodder]

10. At worst, could have cattle prod stun him quite easily, the blue is not our brightest, that is clear