The video shows Officer Ryan Westlake speaking to Tavion Koonce-Williams through his car window and seconds later firing his weapon toward the teen, whose arms were raised.
I disagree that there’s no such thing as a “non-lethal” intent when it comes to shooting. You should never point a gun at anything you don’t want to kill is the advice to prevent tragedy – it’s not some “law” about what happens.
No shooting is ever a good thing, especially in an urban area. Nobody is happy this happened (and I’d preemptively wager the officer is second only to the kid and his family). If you watch the video that officer didn’t come off as “angry” looking to start a fight or for someone to “make his day.” This wasn’t like the videos where a cop walks up to someone sitting on a motorcycle gun drawn or shoots someone sitting in their truck.
The reality is that he had a real reason to believe that kid was a threat to his life, had very little time to react, and he wouldn’t be the first police officer we’ve lost if he did nothing and it turned out to be a real gun (which again, he had every reason to believe it was one). In a lot of department’s training that kid would’ve been shot in the chest – not the riskier shot of the hand (I’m not entirely sure this guy didn’t “break policy” specifically in an attempt to make sure this kid lived).
The right answer here is ultimately to get the guns out of the hands of these kids; that’s a problem that goes far beyond this particular police officer though and has a lot of complex issues.
The new mayor is a big community policing advocate … maybe if this officer had known this kid the reaction would’ve been better. But ultimately, the underlying problem is this kid had something indistinguishable from a firearm (under the mistaken assumption that, that would make him somehow safer – he says in the video he’s carrying the fake gun to feel safe) and that’s what started this whole chain of events.
The whole thing is a tragedy, through and through.
I disagree that there’s no such thing as a “non-lethal” intent when it comes to shooting. You should never point a gun at anything you don’t want to kill is the advice to prevent tragedy – it’s not some “law” about what happens.
No shooting is ever a good thing, especially in an urban area. Nobody is happy this happened (and I’d preemptively wager the officer is second only to the kid and his family). If you watch the video that officer didn’t come off as “angry” looking to start a fight or for someone to “make his day.” This wasn’t like the videos where a cop walks up to someone sitting on a motorcycle gun drawn or shoots someone sitting in their truck.
The reality is that he had a real reason to believe that kid was a threat to his life, had very little time to react, and he wouldn’t be the first police officer we’ve lost if he did nothing and it turned out to be a real gun (which again, he had every reason to believe it was one). In a lot of department’s training that kid would’ve been shot in the chest – not the riskier shot of the hand (I’m not entirely sure this guy didn’t “break policy” specifically in an attempt to make sure this kid lived).
The right answer here is ultimately to get the guns out of the hands of these kids; that’s a problem that goes far beyond this particular police officer though and has a lot of complex issues.
The new mayor is a big community policing advocate … maybe if this officer had known this kid the reaction would’ve been better. But ultimately, the underlying problem is this kid had something indistinguishable from a firearm (under the mistaken assumption that, that would make him somehow safer – he says in the video he’s carrying the fake gun to feel safe) and that’s what started this whole chain of events.
The whole thing is a tragedy, through and through.