Video released of American police shooting dead 13 year old.

Goonie said:

Adam Toledo: Chicago police release video of officer shooting boy

After being chased by the police the kid finally obeyed instructions and stoped turned round with empty hands in air and was promptly shot dead.

Click to expand...

Not so fast. The kid had a gun in his hand, it can be seen in the video just a moment prior to turning around on the officer, the officer had no way of seeing the kid ditch the gun, the officer had every reason to use deadly force under the circumstances. It is unfortunate, no one wants the kid to be dead, you can hear the officer crying while he makes every effort to help the kid who by the way had gun powder traces on his hand. The gun was found just a few feet from the kid. It is sad, we all feel bad about it, but the officer did what was reasonable considering what he knew when he fired.

Goonie said:

So he dropped the gun, hands up as instructed then shot dead.

The police officer did not have the time to see that. He did not see the gun thrown. It is just a tragedy.

Click to expand...

anyone who thinks they could have been able to tell that the kid no longer had the gun and was not turning around to fire at the officer is not being honest. Look at the video, keep playing it over and over, what would a reasonable person have done under those circumstances.

In this instance I don't necessarily side with the police, but I can certainly see how it reached the point it did.

Yes, the suspect dropped the gun, but given the circumstances and environmental factors, it's understandable why the officer fired. Could he have given more time to assess the situation? Perhaps, but in that time he could have also been shot.

What's up with the torch flashing like a probe? That certainly didn't help things. That could easily cause something to resemble a reflection off a firearm.

Either way, it's sad a 13-year-old was in the position he was in and that it came to this. I imagine that instance is going to visit the officer every night for a very long time.

disciple Clint said:

Not so fast. The kid had a gun in his hand, it can be seen in the video just a moment prior to turning around on the officer, the officer had no way of seeing the kid ditch the gun, the officer had every reason to use deadly force under the circumstances. It is unfortunate, no one wants the kid to be dead, you can hear the officer crying while he makes every effort to help the kid who by the way had gun powder traces on his hand. The gun was found just a few feet from the kid. It is sad, we all feel bad about it, but the officer did what was reasonable considering what he knew when he fired.

Click to expand...

I haven't heard the story but I figured the press would leave out any mitigating circumstances because they love to make police into Snidely Whiplash melodrama villains for the Two Minute Hate.

The kid obeyed the officers instructions EXACTLY... and was still shot dead. He dropped his weapon, stopped, turned around and put his hands in the air. His empty hands. These comments make it seem like there was no way this kid was not getting shot. What could the kid have done differently in the moment to avoid getting shot?

So, hands up in submission does not work? Police still shoot?

Goonie said:

If they don't see him drop the gun, the assumption is that he is armed. His mistake apart from being apparently involved in an armed crime, was to turn to face the police, instead of dropping to his knees, hands up facing away.

Click to expand...

Why is the suspect, a child whose adrenaline is pumping just as much as the cop's, required to act with calculated perfection, apparently to include anticipating and performing actions the cop did not tell him to do (get down on his knees), in a split second but not the trained professional?

Police should be required to take bigger risks with their lives and better assess what's actually happening before they act. That's the job. The citizens they "protect and serve" should receive the benefit. The cop need only take a half a breath pause to actually see what was happening before reacting and the kid might still be alive.

Tragic for all involved

The IbanezerScrooge said:

What could the kid have done differently in the moment to avoid getting shot?

Click to expand...

We can argue about the officer's actions all day but let's not ignore the fact that had the child not started this series of events, we wouldn't be here.

Life is full of what ifs and it's very easy to critique someone's actions when we weren't in their shoes; their shoes in this case being chasing an armed suspect at night and being full of adrenaline because of the danger.

It's obviously sad it happened but again, the officer didn't force the person to do what they did, faced difficult factors and made a decision in response to everything going on in a fraction of a second which could easily have been the time it took for the officer himself to be shot.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of trigger happy cops in America but this is not one of them.

High Fidelity said:

We can argue about the officer's actions all day but let's not ignore the fact that had the child not started this series of events, we wouldn't be here.

Life is full of what ifs and it's very easy to critique someone's actions when we weren't in their shoes; their shoes in this case being chasing an armed suspect at night and being full of adrenaline because of the danger.

It's obviously sad it happened but again, the officer didn't force the person to do what they did, faced difficult factors and made a decision in response to everything going on in a fraction of a second which could easily have been the time it took for the officer himself to be shot.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of trigger happy cops in America but this is not one of them.

Click to expand...

You can literally say that in justification for the very existence of cops... "well if people just wouldn't commit crimes then..."

It's a lame argument. OF COURSE if he hadn't been the one with a gun committing crimes he wouldn't have been in the situation. No one is disputing that. No one is dismissing the crime the kid was committing. We get it. BUT COPS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO EXECUTE GUILTY PEOPLE EITHER.

It was a child. He was 13. Under the influence/coercion of a 21 year-old man. Kids make mistakes. Big ones. Life altering ones sometimes. The trained professional has to give a half a breath more deference to the situation than the child. A child that complied with the officer's commands. Isn't that the refrain? "If he would have just complied..."

He did. He's dead now.

The IbanezerScrooge said:

You can literally say that in justification for the very existence of cops... "well if people just wouldn't commit crimes then..."

It's a lame argument. OF COURSE if he hadn't been the one with a gun committing crimes he wouldn't have been in the situation. No one is disputing that. No one is dismissing the crime the kid was committing. We get it. BUT COPS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO EXECUTE GUILTY PEOPLE EITHER.

It was a child. He was 13. Under the influence/coercion of a 21 year-old man. Kids make mistakes. Big ones. Life altering ones sometimes. The trained professional has to give a half a breath more deference to the situation than the child. A child that complied with the officer's commands. Isn't that the refrain? "If he would have just complied..."

He did. He's dead now.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately given the circumstances of these events, things like this will happen.

I'm one of the first people to highlight Americans' propensity for shooting one another, but in this instance I can't lay blame on the officer.

Sadly the consequences of our actions, mistakes or otherwise, can be fatal.

Pavel Mosko said:

I haven't heard the story but I figured the press would leave out any mitigating circumstances because they love to make police into Snidely Whiplash melodrama villains for the Two Minute Hate.

Click to expand...

Multiple time, The liberal news, that I watch. Said the boy had a gun.

The cop shouldn't have been so trigger happy, but I can't see a criminal case against him here. The kid had a gun, and the cop didn't see him drop it. Let a civil lawsuit sort it out.

The IbanezerScrooge said:

The kid obeyed the officers instructions EXACTLY... and was still shot dead. He dropped his weapon, stopped, turned around and put his hands in the air. His empty hands. These comments make it seem like there was no way this kid was not getting shot. What could the kid have done differently in the moment to avoid getting shot?

Click to expand...

Not be out at 2:30am would have been a good start. I'm definitely believe that we have some trigger-happy police out there, but from my very uneducated eye, I'm cautiously siding with the officer on this one.

Yttrium said:

The kid had a gun, and the cop didn't see him drop it. Let a civil lawsuit sort it out.

Click to expand...

Sadly the family will get money. When they are part of the problem.

The IbanezerScrooge said:

What could the kid have done differently in the moment to avoid getting shot?

Click to expand...

He could have not had a gun.

We ask police to make these decisions in what is often a high stress and very short amount of time.

Sometimes it's a good decision, sometimes it isn't.

Unless you're going to eliminate guns...and we aren't....this will happen.

The weird thing is that at some point, we stopped examining the role of the subjects shot by police.....as if they didn't make any decisions and they are just victims of circumstance with no control over their fates.

If this kid shot and killed the cop....there would be no examination of the event. We would just say that the cop should have shot him and that would be the end of any analysis.

This kid was what? 13?

Let's be clear, he's not choosing violent crime because of a lack of opportunity. He's 13. He didn't apply at a bunch of jobs, get turned down, and end up with no choice but a life of crime. He was in a community where violent crime is the norm at 13. He was likely part of a culture that normalized and glorified criminals. He was in an environment that teaches him cops are the enemy.

We can tinker with the police and police practices forever and we won't be able to stop this from happening. It's not a problem of policing. If anyone seriously wants to avoid this in the future....we have to have that uncomfortable discussion about the "victim's" environment, it's culture, and it's views.