They swerve to try and hit him. Mann dodges out of the way. They turn around and try to hit him again, and again he jumps out of the way. They stop and exit the car and chase him on foot and they or other cops shoot him to death (the shooting is obscured by another car in the video).
I’m no longer surprised by this. Some significant number of cops want to hurt people and use their job to hurt people. A larger number defends and protects them. An even larger number refuses to acknowledge that there is a significant problem in police culture.
Also they really need to teach them how to park, as in not on the train tracks.
But yes it’s bad, yes there are hateful demons working there and some very bad people morally who would otherwise be criminals, those people are the same as those they are trying to arrest, just these have found paying jobs doing it.
I’m not a police apologist by any stretch, but apparently, this guy was waving a gun. I can understand them wanting to stop him by any means in that case.
From the article in the OP, “Officers said they later found a four-inch knife beside Mann.” IOW, I don’t believe he was waving a gun. So do you still “understand them wanting to stop him by any means”?
Years ago, there was an article which mentioned a man who joined the military “because he wanted to kill people and not go to jail for it.” I’d guess that a few people become cops for the same sort of reason.
I’ve not seen anything more than the facts in the OP and subsequent posts, but based on that I don’t have a problem with killing the guy.
If you’re walking around waving a gun or knife, and you refuse to engage the cops or respond to their orders, then you have it coming.
It doesn’t seem that difficult to either refrain from brandishing deadly weapons in public, or, if you have some need to do this, then to at least cooperate with the cops when they ask you what you’re up to.
The priority here has to be protecting innocent people. Not protecting potential threats who refuse reasonable attempts to assertain that they’re not threats.
I think this is the big difference – I don’t think anyone ‘has it coming’ unless they present a clear and imminent danger to others, and this mentally ill person dancing in the street, even with a knife, didn’t present such an imminent danger according to the video.
I’ve not seen the video. But I’m not sure how much you can tell as to how much of a danger he was from the video.
Certainly the assessment of the guy who called 911 was that he was a danger. And the cops thought so too.
In sum, I agree that if it was somehow clear that this mentally ill person waving a knife about was not a danger then he shouldn’t have been shot. But I’m skeptical of your claim that you’ve determined that he wasn’t.
I don’t think NYPD - Nock Your Punk-ass Down, as Will Smith put it - is a bad strategy in such a case. They weren’t moving fast enough to splatter the guy, but certainly knock him ass over teakettle and render him that much easier to subdue.
IME, Sacramento cops went above and beyond to be “nice” - such as the bike cop who pulled me over for 15-over and his first question, not particularly aggressively put, was “Sir, do you have some reason for using excessive speed today?”
And the 15-30 Sacramento Sheriff’s Deputies who drew down on me in a very touchy and suspicious situation, late at night, did not shoot me before asking very politely what the hell was going on. I am not black, but at that time I wasn’t super respectable-looking, either.
There is another video, in the right margin, on this page that shows the shooting. It is titled “I’m not gonna force it, second officer says seconds before fellow cop shoot Joseph Mann.” Just before the shooting, someone yells “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!”
So someone on the scene does not believe he has a gun. And it does not look like anyone was on the sidewalk or in the parking lot except the police and the suspect.
I’m not sure how you define “imminent”, but for me, a mentally ill guy waving a knife around very possibly had some intention of using it in the near future, and that’s imminent enough for me.
Not for me, nor for the first cops to arrive in this situation. The first cops to arrive tried to talk him down, even after he threw a thermos at them. When the second pair of cops arrive they immediately tried to run him down, then killed him. I believe that de-escalation is appropriate if the disturbed person isn’t attacking someone or similar.
The police, as I understand it, have authority to kill if they believe that the alternative is being killed themselves. They can exercise this power without going through the courts, though afterwards the killing will be reviewed and may lead to criminal proceedings against the officers, depending on the facts of the case.