The officer gave ambiguous at best instructions. He asked for identification, and then after being told about the firearm, did absolutely nothing to defuse the potential horrible outcomes in that situation. He told Castile not to reach for the gun once, and then as he was giving the order the second time, was already firing. Not a whole lot of time in there to respond to much of anything.
A normal person, not being told NOT to attempt to get his license would have done the last thing he had been told to do, which was produce identification.
The question is this…what did the officer actively do to negate the threat he may have felt about Castile being armed, as that isn’t a crime? The answer is nothing. He did absolutely nothing to defuse the situation, and it cost a man his life.
I’m not making anything up…the officer overreacted after failing to take proper control of the situation, That he didn’t get charged with murder (which i dont even think the charge should have been. more like negligent homicide at best) doesn’t change that.
Every time you interact with a cop your actions have the potential to result in death and likely will if you give them a reason to believe you are about to shoot them.
And yet you completely ignore the fact that if that had been his intent, he could have simply shot the cop the second he reached the window to start the traffic stop.
For Gods sake, how about instead of simply always assuming a cop is in the right, you apply at least a modicum of logic to the damned situation.
Reality…the cop should have (or at least could have) attempted to diffuse the situation before it got to a point where he all of a sudden feared for his life. He didn’t do any such thing. The idea that it isn’t the responsibility for the cop to assume that duty is just plain idiocy. If that is the case, you are correct that a moron cop can do something stupid every time they interact with the public…and we both know that isn’t what they being paid to do.
They are paid to protect and serve…not fear and kill.
“Innocent until proven guilty” is the bar, not “Guilty until you are proven innocent”.
Everything he did was reasonable and legal given the circumstances. It only takes a split second for someone to draw and fire on you and that’s all the time he had to decide what to do.
The fact remains, if the man had simply placed his hands on the wheel and asked the cop specifically how to handle the situation as your own cited link instructs, he’d be alive today.
And neither you or I have any idea if he was actually reaching for the gun, or the wallet he needed to obey the previous order.
Keep this in mind…there wasn’t a ■■■■■■■■ of time between the first order to “not reach for it” and the shooting starting. I contend that even if Castile was going to place his hands on the wheel and ask for clarification of the officers orders, he didn’t have the time to do so because Yanez started firing as quickly as he did.
And I’ll address this before you try to bring it up…in the absence of an order to put his hands on the wheel after telling the officer that he was armed, it is fair to assume that the previous order to produce his license was still valid, and needed to be adhered to.
Except for the fact that had that been his intent, he had the entire time it took for the officer to reach his window to draw his weapon and be ready to shoot him when he got there. He didn’t do that.
Video shows that there wasn’t enough time to do that. There was one order to no reach for his gun, which neither you or I actually know he was reaching for, and the with the second order came the shots fired. If he was reaching for his wallet, and the officer said don’t reach for it, he still didn’t have the time to react, put his hands on the wheel, and ask any questions.
And for the record, your allegation that he had handed the officer his license flies in the face of logic.
Most people keep thier license in thier wallet. All we see in the video is Castile lean over and take documents out of the glove box.
Had he given the officer all of the documents he had asked for, it is fairly assumable that the officer would have told him to sit tight while he ran his information. He didn’t do that. So its fair to assume he was waiting for something.
Again, logic would tell a reasonable person that Castile hadn’t given him everything because he informed the officer of the weapon so there would be no surprises when he reached for his wallet.
And even if that is the case, he may have needed to remove it to get to his wallet.
Again, being armed isn’t a crime in this country, and as such, it is on the officer to take proper control of the situation. Exonerating officers for not doing so is just bad practice.
The mention of the wallet comes when the officer asked for a license.
I’ll grant you this much…Castile could have simply stated that he needed to remove his weapon to get to his wallet, but even then the officer should have taken control of the situation prior to that.
