Conclusion: the firearm was not holstered; it was in his hand. He was told repeatedly (24 times), without verbal or non-verbal response, to drop the weapon that was not holstered, but in his hand. Instead of dropping the weapon, he reached for it with his other hand.
Today I learned that pointing a gun at people in public, then ignoring cops as you kneel beside an occupied car with a gun in your hand is "legal OC."
OP needs to go back to Reddit to wallow in his recreational outrage, which is undoubtedly where he found this crap.
It looks to me like there is plenty of stupid to go around here.
First, as far as I am concerned, anyone who preaches the live in fear/don't agro the mad dog approach to interacting with police is too damned stupid to be a citizen of a free republic.
Second, police should not act like mad dogs. This includes finding better ways to address tense situations than bursting onto the scene chaotically screaming.
Third, when being officially addressed by police, especially with guns drawn, apparently ignoring them is generally not a good idea whether they or reasonable or acting dumber than owl sh*t.
Fourth, an argument for RAS is pretty shaky at the point of police arrival. In the event of a person open carrying, encountering two of Shannon's Mommies who need some action who make separate 911 calls detailing a fictional event they worked out before calling is no stretch of the imagination whatsoever.
Fifth, regardless of all of the above, blasting someone full of holes who has made no aggressive moves is a bad shoot.
It absolutely amazes me how strong confirmation bias can be.
Many reasonable people with some similar interests have access to the same info and reach such different conclusions.
It absolutely amazes me how strong confirmation bias can be.
Many reasonable people with some similar interests have access to the same info and reach such different conclusions.
It absolutely amazes me how strong confirmation bias can be.
INGOers have access to the same info and reach such different conclusions.
I'm trying to assess the situation from the perspective of the police officers, based on available information at the time of the incident. (Including without the benefit of slow-motion review of a select portion of the body-cam video.) I don't view that as confirmation bias, but I will certainly admit that I tend to have a strong, opposing response to seemingly knee-jerk, "eff the police" type reactions.
If there is more information available, I welcome it. Based on what I've seen thus far, the use of deadly force may or may not have been justified, but I have a very difficult time second-guessing the reasonableness of the officers' actions.
With regards to what?
Some things said here can be used as justification for SWATting. Is the onus on the responding officer to know when is right to pull that trigger? Or is it on the person making the 911 call?
I seem to recall a story of a man in Walmart shot by police because some frantic ******* made a 911 call that he had a gun. But it's ok. Because the cop was told a story about how the man was doing bad things. That makes it all good.
I know they can only work with the information they're given, I get that. But they still have the choice to look at an unfolding situation and realize, "Hm, is right now the right time to shoot this person? No, no it's not."
The Charlotte rumor mill going around is his girlfriend worked there, and she dumped him for some other BK employee (high standards, apparently.)
He allegedly went there to confront her, maybe scare the guy with the gun.
If true, obviously, put him in jail for intimidation with a deadly weapon. Don't kill him in the parking lot when he seems to be complying with your ecstatic and not-very-calm demands.
Even if that rumor is 100% true, there's still no grounds to kill a guy based on 911 call info that definitely is not always 100% accurate, or dripping with embellishment.
I don't want to come off as a "**** the police" sort of person, that's very far from the truth. I prefer to be a "**** this specific police officer" with regards to bad shoots, like drunkenly going into someone's apartment and killing them.
I also think bringing race into this (not you) wasn't necessary or related to the situation at all.
I look at this encounter as a gun owner and a gun carrier. If someone calls the police on me for having a gun, maybe throws in a little story with their call, I want to be sure that I can do whatever is necessary to make it to tomorrow alive if I end up having a police encounter.
100% legal/good guy with a gun, or guy that might have waved it around... I don't care. Both of those people need to live, especially when being told to do something stupid like put the gun on the ground, or reach for the gun. Just muddies the waters and gives the responding officer an out. "Well, he reached for it..." "But you told him to." "Yeah but I was scared."
The "seems to be complying" conclusion is where we disagree. It appears to be based on a 20:20 hindsight review of information available after the incident, rather than based on the totality of the situation at the time deadly force was used. Someone who fails to act after repeating an instruction 24 times would not "seem to be complying" with those commands. Someone who responds with, "I heard you the first time" (as indicated by an earlier comment above - note that I've not watched the full video, and am taking that as factual based on the comment) is not demonstrating a compliant attitude.
And, no, he wasn't killed for failing to comply or for failing to demonstrate a compliant attitude. Rather, that failure to comply and his apparent attitude contributed to the context of how the officers responded when Franklin started making movements that involved the gun.
This particular straw man drives me crazy, and it gets applied to every one of these circumstances. Trayvon Martin wasn't killed for "walking while black." Mike Brown wasn't killed for "stealing cigarillos" or "jaywalking." And Franklin wasn't killed based on the 911 call. It is doubtful the responding officers even knew the contents of the 911 calls. The only information they had was what was relayed to them by the dispatcher - which, as far as we know, was only that they were responding to reports of assault with a deadly weapon.
You and I both agree that the Dallas incident you reference was an utterly inexcusable, bad shoot, and the officer is rightly being tried for murder.
Would you react the same way he reacted in this type of situation? Would you even be in this type of situation? IIRC you open carry, which means that it should be pretty plain for any responding officer to see your firearm, safely holstered on your hip. (De-escalation #1.) Even if they approach you with guns drawn and yelling commands, I'm guessing you would either show them your hands, and/or make calm/not-sudden movements. (De-escalation #2.) Finally, you would at least make an attempt verbally to acknowledge them - probably but not necessarily quite respectfully/calmly. (De-escalation #3.)
I do not consider such actions, or responses to seemingly unwarranted actions/attitudes toward me, to be onerous or unreasonable on my part.
Do I share some concern about the level of escalation of police encounters in general? Sure. But police officers also deal with a different overall threat level (responding to reports of violence are part of their job), which changes the calculus for the reasonable-man standard, as far as I'm concerned. That the man clearly disregarded them and their instructions, made no effort verbally to indicate compliance, and then manipulated the firearm all weigh in favor of the reasonableness of the officers' actions.
If you watch the slowed down video DD posted, you will plainly see he was not holding the gun. He pulls it out of his pocket to drop it when he is shot.There's a pretty big difference in how this incident played out, compared to what happened to John Crawford III. In his case, yes ye was SWATted (and the SWATter was considered for charges, but not charged - which he should have been, IMHO), and the police, responding to false information, shot Crawford without any hesitation or instruction to surrender the weapon (which was merely an air rifle).
In this case, the officers instructed Franklin 24 times to drop the weapon. At no point did he give any indication of compliance. The officers had no reasonable way of knowing how to interpret his movements when he finally began to move.
(Was Franklin SWATted? I don't think we know at this point. Even if he was, though, the police would have had no way of knowing that when they arrived, so it isn't relevant to determining the reasonableness of their actions at the time of the incident. The default circumstance is not that reports of assault with a deadly weapon are false reports.)