Fortunately we have bodycam of the incident which has already been released. What that means is that the superiors are making every effort at transparency. Not because they want to but rather because the public demands it these days. With his light off the window he senses movement in the window. He shines his light on the window and his body cam captures the view that is presented to him. Below is what the cop saw. Now, I single stepped though every frame and I never even saw anything that looked like a person. The cop obviously saw movement or something but the body cam says he never got a clear look. The data says that the cop made up a scenario in his mind that is unsupported by the observable facts, and then acted way too quickly on that belief out of cowardice and fear for his own life with apparently zero concern for anyone else's. All in the name of "everyone's safety".
While this story angers me, the engineering fact dump is as follows:
- police were called on a non-emergency number by a neighbor about the potential for suspicious activity.
- the cop showed up on the property unannounced to the homeowner and began acting very suspiciously himself, shining the flashlight at all the places where a burglar might enter.
- the cop saw a hint of movement in a window and yelled put your hands up, show me your hands" as fast as he could and then immediately discharged his weapon, killing the victim in her own home. The entire sequence took less than 3 seconds from the time when the cop starting yelling put your hands up until he fired. I estimate 2.7 seconds.
- he had not finished saying "show me your hands" when the gun went off.
- later in the vid we see the statement (confession?) of a neighbor who says "10 or 15 minutes later (after he called the non emergency number) I heard a loud noise (the shot). And then he saw 5 or 10 cops surround the house.
Those are the unbiased facts. Now for the analysis of them:
- police were called non emergency. If someone dials 911 then I could see how cops might arrive all amped up but non emergency means go to the front door and knock. Call for the homeowner to come out. Pull out your cell phone and call the residence before approaching. After all, you have time since there is, at this point, no indication of emergency.
- the police were called by a neighbor. It's one thing if the resident calls 911 themselves. In that case the cops know that the resident knows they are coming. But if someone else calls non emergency and identifies themselves as being a neighbor then responding cops have to use their heads and understand that the resident has no idea what's going on. If I see flashlights in my window in the middle of the night you can bet I am going to sneak back around on the person doing it and they will be at great risk of exploding when my 12 gauge starts barking. The poor victim in this case simply didn't understand how paranoid and NOT concerned for any safety besides their own the cops really are. Sticking your face in the window is like presenting them with a wack a mole target, of course they are going to shoot.
- the cop saw a hint of movement and went through the required warning statement. But that is muscle memory we saw happen there. He's not thinking he wants to see hands at that point. He simply knows that is what he is supposed to say. If the windows on that house needed cleaning as much as mine usually do it would be very difficult to tell the difference between a burglar, a woman, a child or a freaking cat. When my cat yawns it looks like this (not photo shopped). What would the cop do if he had seen this? A clip dump? Call an exorcist? Get a flame thrower? Pee himself?? No telling when cops are that jumpy what they might do. A man who is afraid of every little thing cannot be predicted; his behavior mirrors chaos upon application of stress.- Having significant personal experience with guns, I would say the discharge was accidental. His finger was on the trigger "for everyone's safety" and his yelling caused an unintentional slow tightening of his finger on the trigger. The effort of yelling that last word, "hands" caused him to add just enough tension to the trigger that the gun discharged. In fact you can hear the cop grunt after finishing the word "hands" which I suspect was his surprise at the weapon discharging. I have trained several people on gun safety over the years down at the local gun range and one of my favorite exercises is to put a bullet in the chamber on the sly and then remove the magazine, but this act in full view of the person being trained. And then I (rather quickly and pushily) tell the person that the gun is unloaded and thus it should be safe to point at anyone and pull the trigger. I act like I am bored waiting for their answer since it "should be obvious" to anyone. I have full control of the firearm and I know where the hot casing will be ejected. Right about the time they are agreeing with me that the gun is safe I, with the barrel purposely pointed carefully down range in a safe manner, squeeze off the round that I know is in the chamber. The purpose is to serve as an emotional reminder that you must always treat a gun as if it is loaded. But the reason I bring this up is that the unexpected discharge always makes people react the same way that cop did, with a surprised little exhale of air that sounds like "uhhh". That's what the cop did and that's why I think that if they come clean they will admit that the cop accidentally discharged his weapon in a moment of stress and fear.
- The neighbor who called is obviously conflicted by what happened. His conclusion was simple and clear: "I don't know what happened on the inside of the house, but all I know is that my neighbor (a young woman) is dead". The commentator indicated that the neighbor expressed the feeling that if he hadn't called, she would not be dead. He also made the important statement: "if you don't feel safe with the police department then who do you feel safe with. Do you just ignore crime?? Something's just not right". Well geeze Louise. Maybe we should each take responsibility for our own safety. Maybe the cops should not be called for every little thing seeing as how they are so skittish and and scared about everything. Also, if there is some unknown situation, cops should be taught to fall back. I don't mean puss out like the Coward of Broward. The Broward cop at the school shooting did not take a step back to assess; he ran away from a situation he which knew was happening; he was a coward. That guy did not join the police to serve but rather to cash in on the pension and benefits which no other job in society pays. Instead, I am talking about taking a very short, 15 second tactical retreat so that you can clearly process the situation and not have to act out of emotional response.
Additionally, if the neighbor in this case was so damned concerned, why not just call over to the neighbor's house? Maybe he doesn't know her phone number so he could just yell over the fence, "hey lady, are you OK? I'm worried that your doors are open. IF you are OK please let me know". In other words, calling the government should be the LAST resort not the first. In any case, this guy now feels at least partially responsible for the death of of his neighbor and that is something that is never going away for him. Importantly, he finally recognized the fact that calling the police is very dangerous. He realized that the police cannot be trusted. Wakey wakey.
- The neighbor said that after he called, 10-15 minutes later he heard the shot. And then he saw 5-10 cops surround the house. Now folks, this is what the cops do when the scene has not been cleared yet. So what it looks like happened is the cop fired a shot and then followed policy and called in shots fired. Within 5-7 minutes several other units (individual cops) responded to the scene to help get it under control. Once they had the place under control, they entered and supposedly began trying to resuscitate the victim. Do you see what's wrong here? The cop certainly did not know who or what he shot. Had he realized it was just a woman he might have gone in on his own after yelling shots fired on the radio. But had he done that, the responding cops would not have tried to clear the place, they would have come inside to assist with the resuscitation effort. Bottom line is that because he was unsure of his target, the cop did not enter the residence until after backup arrived and by that time the victim had already bled out. Had he gone in there right after accidentally discharging his weapon he would have had at least some odds of saving her and at least getting the EMTs rolling. But everything instead waited for the backup to arrive and clearing procedure to be completed, "for everyone's safety". Everyone of course, except the public.
- Later in the vid Jefferson's sister fights back the tears, visibly upset saying "I just don't understand, like these are men and... trained... what kind of training is that??!!". What kind of training indeed. Well I'll tell you what their training is:
-The public is dirt, you have to deal with the dregs of society here.
- You are out there alone and it will take minutes for backup to arrive. You have to watch your own back because we don't want to have to tell your wife she is now a widow.
- If you fear for your life, take action. We got your back. We set the procedures. Follow procedure and the law can't touch you if something goes sideways. The most important thing is to go home alive.
One final thing. In a very, very lame attempt to deflect blame, the cops made a point out of saying there was a gun in the home. If the woman had been carrying the gun they would have said so. Thus we know that they only found the gun after searching through her stuff looking for a reason to downplay the shooting. Example, finding drugs, illegal this or that. The fact that they mentioned the presence of a gun shows they are clutching at straws big time and I can tell you from the comments in the vid, nobody was happy about that mention.The days of easily getting away with this kind of shit are pretty much over. Even stupid liberals who bought into the notion that government should be our close protectors, etc. know that the optics on this are not good. Check the tight lipped but pensive expression on the female reporter. It's pretty hard to dust this one under the rug. I predict that this incident will be the straw that broke the sheeple's backs in Ft Worth. They will now be demanding new procedures, new training, etc. No way is the death of a beautiful young woman going to just be dismissed. There is also the liberal guilt of the guy who called the cops. He is already appearing on several interviews. His guilt at having been the well meaning but not-so-bright moron that called the cops is being clearly communicated and it will send a message to others like him.
RIP Atatiana. You didn't deserve to get snuffed like that. Nobody does, really.
Dear cops, it's time for change. It's coming for you now. The fools that put their faith in you are finally waking up to the fact that you're not heroes. Most of you are just everyday men with no special skills, no special intelligence, no nothing that should allow you to have guns while other cannot. And many in your ranks are just the opposite of heroes. They are zeros. And you let them get away with it for fear of not crossing that thin blue line. It makes all of you crooks. It's time to clean this shit show up.
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