So the scenario is a familiar one. Cop stops a black motorist who isn't that happy about being stopped. Words are exchanged. And more. But in this case the Officers doesn't choose to pull out his gun and immediately shoot the "suspect" in just 1, or 2, or 3 seconds. Instead he hesitates.
So I'm sure you know how this story ends, right? You'll be wanting to know where to send flowers for condolences to the family of this so obviously viciously killed Officer, because since he hesitated and didn't shoot down an unarmed man in the street and the "suspect" even took his gun away so - he must. have. lost. his. life. as a result.
Right?
Well, um, no.
What happened is he got his ass kicked. The "suspect" took his gun from him, as we're constantly told that so many of these now dead suspects must of tried to do - including the claims of the defense in the Jonathan Ferrell case, but here that actually happened, he did lose his gun - but he's still alive. Somehow.
Video over the flip on how this got under CNN's skin over the flip.
Via CNN.
(CNN)A Birmingham, Alabama, police detective who was pistol-whipped unconscious said Friday that he hesitated to use force because he didn't want to be accused of needlessly killing an unarmed man.
"A lot of officers are being too cautious because of what's going on in the media," said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous for the safety of his family. "I hesitated because I didn't want to be in the media like I am right now."
Heath Boackle, a sergeant with the Birmingham Police Department and president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police, said Thursday that cops are "walking on eggshells because of how they're scrutinized in the media."
So what apparently happened, according to the Birmingham FOP, was this Detective, who was in plainclothes and driving and unmarked vehicle while on the way to interview a robbery witness says he saw a car "driving erratically" and decided to stop them.
After the officer spoke to the driver, Janard Cunningham, who was fairly upset about being stopped he called for backup to handle the stop while he went on to his interview. While he made the call Cunningham exited the vehicle and continued to complain and asked of an explanation for the stop. That's when the altercation occurred where the Officer must have IMO unholstered his weapon, but didn't shoot Cunningham - because of "the media" - then he rlost control of his weapon, and ended up unconscious from the beating.
I assume he unholstered weapon, the FOP rep doesn't say that but then he's hardly an unbiased sourced, and if he did and the Officer didn't immediately fire it makes sense of Cunningham to defend himself by taking the weapon out of the equation. If I am correct about the Officer escalating things, as we've seen in many cases, I wonder if things wouldn't have gone further than an exchange of heated words?
There are those who are outraged that some are celebrating - on twitter of course - that the officer received a beat down, but I want to raise two other questions.
1) Why exactly is it acceptable that the Officer - who remains unnamed, but his attacker has been named - didn't consider not shooting and unarmed man, because he's an UNARMED MAN?. He was more bothered with getting on the news, than killing somebody? There's something deeply wrong with that.
2) Why has Mr. Cunningham been charged with attempted murder? Seems to me if he gained control of the Officers gun and he actually wanted to murder him, he'd be murdered. Are we supposed to believe he's such an incompetent murderer he couldn't figure out which end of the gun did what?
Are these people serious? Basically they're arguing that it's become Politically Incorrect for police to shoot down unarmed people in the street. Cops are second-guessing themselves because they might end up on the evening news? (Or not, since this Officer's ID remains undivulged)
I don't condone pistol-whipping cops, but this is a complete disconnection with reality.
It seems like the expectation of deadly force by the Officer - even with an unarmed person - is such a foregone conclusion that they have to play head games to explain why the Officer's first inclination wasn't to do the horrible thing and then when the "attacker" also doesn't do the horrible thing he gets treated like that must have been his goal all along, he just sucked at it.
In 2014, 133 Police Officers were killed in the line of duty. But you'll find interesting is how.
Line of Duty Deaths: 133
9/11 related illness: 7
Assault: 2
Automobile accident: 27
Drowned: 2
Duty related illness: 3
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 47
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 18
Motorcycle accident: 4
Struck by vehicle: 5
Vehicle pursuit: 5
Vehicular assault: 10
47 Officers were killed by Gunfire in 2014. That's 35.3% of the total. The number of heart attacks (18), Auto Accidents (27) and Motorcycle Accidents (4) combined is actually 49,
which is greater. Numbers in
2013 (26%) and
2012 (36%) are roughly similar.
The most accurate numbers we have, so far, seem to indicate that the number of people killed by police each year are over 1,000 and many of those killed were in fact, unarmed.
That is more than a 20 to 1 ratio yet it's supposed to be Cops who tremble in constant hair-trigger mortal fear? That's not rational. This officer did the right thing by not immediately deploying lethal force, he paid for that with a concussion but not his life, in fact I find the suggestion that his life was ever in actual danger to be completely ludicrous. He wasn't wearing a uniform, he wasn't driving a clearly marked car, Cunningham could have thought he was being car-jacked for all we know. It's not like that hasn't happened, it has.
It's this kind of disconnect that drowns out the voices of common sense when they make the simple statement that #BlackLivesMatter - ALSO - not just the state of #EveryOneElsesLivesMatter that we are living in.
Vyan