The Fatal Police Shooting of 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo

[ItsjustMe]

[peppertree]

1. "Shots fired! Shots fired!" (says the guy who shot them)

"You alright? Where are you shot?" (after shooting him)

That, and the "stop resisting" spiel (while beating the bejesus out of the victim), are among the most glaring examples of how police are often trained to evade responsibility - rather than act responsibly.

[Rorey]

2. Maybe I'm not seeing it clearly

It sure didn't look like he needed to pull the trigger.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

3. Tragic he is dead

But until I see or hear otherwise the officer was thinking the entire time he was armed.

[Xipe Totec]

5. What's the point of asking somebody to surrender, if you're going to shoot anyway if he was armed?

What's the point of surrendering, for that matter?

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

6. He had a chance to comply

When officer had him on ground he obviously had the gun then considering where it was found.

Did the officer see it then?

[Xipe Totec]

7. The point is he surrendered, had his hands above his head, turned around and the cop shot him

Was the cop just waiting for him to turn so he wouldn't shoot him in the back?

Hands above the heard is not an ideal shooting position.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

8. Not a situation to wait

Imo

[markpkessinger]

10. Whenever I hear someone invoking a defense of "he shouldn't have resisted" ...

. .. . or "he shouldn't have fled, here is what I say to them (and now say to you):

I have two responses to that.

First, resisting arrest is not, per se, a justification for the use of lethal force.

Second, has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself why a minority defendant, even an innocent one, might choose to resist arrest?

Please consider:

A person who is being arrested is about to be subject to a system in which, unless he is of considerable means, he will likely be stuck being represented by a public defender who, if he or she is not a total hack (as some are), will be grossly overworked, and who is saddled with a case calendar that obviates the possibility of devoting sufficient time to the development of an adequate defense, against a lavishly funded prosecutor who is handling, at most, a handful of cases at any given time. Thus, it is unlikely he or she will ever go to trial, because the defendant will be under enormous pressure to agree to some kind of plea deal. And even if he does go to trial, he will face month after month of delays due to unreadiness by either his own attorney or the prosecutor. And even absent a plea deal, if he goes to trial and is convicted, he will face a system that has been shown, time and time again, to be unreasonably harsh in its sentences of minority defendants versus white defendants charged with similar crimes.

And even IF he is acquitted at trial, the defendant's life is about to be upended in countless ways.

THAT is the reality, folks. Now ask yourself again why he might choose to resist arrest, and hear how asinine the question is!

This was a 13-year-old kid. I'm sure he was scared. When people are scared, they don't always make the best decisions. That shouldn't warrant a summary execution!

[Runningdawg]

4. I knew a guy who was a 3 tour marine and LAPD cop.

He told me there was less paperwork after drawing a gun if the guy died. He committed suicide after confiding in his closest friends that he was being asked to do something VERY illegal by his coworkers and that if he didn't, they couldn't trust a "clean cop" and no one would have his back on the street. The rot goes DEEP.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Amazing footage, but that all happened in seconds

Looks like as soon as the boy stopped, he was shot. And this really was a young kid, barely a teen. Was it that dark or did the officer panic?