A group of a few hundred people gathered at the scene of a police shooting last night in a St. Louis suburb where an officer shot and killed a teenager who had pointed a handgun at him. Officers were injured after protesters began throwing bricks and lighting off fireworks.
Police quickly released video to give a better idea of what happened, and to show that the shooting by the officer was justified.
Here is what happens during the incident:
In the nearly 2-minute surveillance video from the parking lot outside the gas station and convenience store, two young men are leaving the store at about the time a police car rolls up.
The officer gets out and speaks with them. About 90 seconds later, the video appears to show one of the men raising his arm, though what he is holding is difficult to see because they were several feet from the camera. Belmar said it was a 9mm handgun.
Then the video shows the officer, a six-year veteran of Berkeley’s police department, rapidly moving backward. The officer fired three shots.
One shot struck the suspect, another struck the tire of the officer’s patrol car and it is unknown where the third shot hit, Belmar said. Police do not believe that the suspect fired any shots.
Here’s the thing, and I am going to be very blunt about this.
This is only a race issue, because a group of people are making it one. This includes the media, and they hold 95% of the weight. The protesters and others are another 5% because they feed into the media and start taking black or white sides. Here is an excerpt from Reuters on this story:
(Reuters) – A U.S. police officer shot and killed a black man after he pointed a loaded pistol at him in a St. Louis suburb near where an unarmed black teen was killed by a white officer in August, police said on Wednesday.
“Black man”, “black teen”, “white officer”. Why they make these distinctions in the first place, I’ll never know. But what I do know is that it doesn’t make a difference what color this teenager’s skin was. Here’s why: If you point a gun at someone, you should expect that you could get shot as a result of your actions.
It’s that damn simple.
As a person who carries a firearm, if this teen had pulled a gun on me, I would have done the exact same thing. Tell me someone who says they wouldn’t and I’ll call them a liar.
This officer was out on patrol, and the last thing he wanted to do was take the life of another human that night.
If I came in contact with an officer and pulled my gun on him, I’d be expecting some bullets flying my way within seconds. The officer, in a case like this, doesn’t have time to use a taser or pepper spray and just hope it works. When a gun is introduced, that person who pulled the gun has just made the situation a matter of life or death. It’s at this time that the officer –or whoever is on the receiving end of the gun– needs to make a split-second decision to save their life.
The 18-year-old who died had a criminal record, including arrests for armed robbery, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon. Belmar said many officers in the local police departments knew him.
This teen made decisions leading up to this incident, and it didn’t end well for him. For people to protest this without looking at the facts for a second are just absurd. All they do is escalate the tensions already occurring in the area and in the country.
They are the real reason why the violence continues. They are the ones that help perpetuate the racial divide.
Don’t point a gun at officers, don’t get shot.
