I personally doubt that. Nobody disagrees that being black makes any Police interaction more dangerous; but you are basically suggesting that this cop would have murdered this guy no matter what. It doesn't make sense to me; this the first black guy he's pulled over in 5 years? Like I said not interested in continuing to argue about it; I simply disagree.
I'm in line with you on that idea.
The issue is the predisposition to believe harm is coming. That's not always based on race, but in many cases, that also feeds into officer interactions. Someone else brought up our ready access to gun as another potential issue. Or poor training. Or a system that places the officer's life above that of the citizen. There's a number of issues that feed into situations like this and compliance is only one small facet. And that's before we get into the idea of compliance in the face of unlawful requests.
I'm not attacking you. I've seen tons of your posts and think you're pretty open minded on things. I'm just defending people who seem to have been attacked unfairly despite not trying to justify the cop, by people suggesting the risk of death by complying may be the same or worse than resisting a man with a gun.
S'all good.
The reason for the part of the anger on the part of some is what I brought up earlier, where we seek overall to minimize the prepetrator's culpability in the actions that they caused.
The idea of "victim blaming" comes from discussions around sexual assault, where in the past, people would say, well if "she hadn't done A, B, or C she would not have been placed in a position for that crime to happen." And in some cases, that may even be true. Taking a different path or not ending in a comprising situation may may led to a different outcome. The problem is those statements did little to actually deal with the real problem at hand, which was the sexual assaults themselves. As individual advice, or prior to an assault, that's fine. You can say those things to your friend or loved one prior to a situation like that taking place in an attempt to minimize potential harm. But after the fact, it doesn't actually tackle the issue. It's just useless obfuscation. At best, it feeds into people's mental construction of the
"just world": if the person was potentially responsible for the crime committed against them, then you can justify why you'll never find yourself in such a situation. That's comforting. I get that.
This is actually a similar case. This was a traffic stop that ended in a man's death with little hint of lethal force against the officer. There might have been things that could go differently, but that's true of any situation. But the problem is the officer's jump to lethal force. That should be the focus.
As for your question to me, NO. I've seen the video. The guy did not comply, but no reasonable person should expect to be killed like that for simply not having a license and not letting the door open. If you are asking if I wished the whole thing happened differently in any respect that would have avoided the killing, then the answer is yes. But I don't blame the victim for his death, because he did nothing to deserve it.
I too wish it had gone in a different direction.
