Not a big surprise really. America has been a mess for years now.

Too late to change the gun laws now

There world has been like this for a long time, used to be even worse.
Only difference is now everyone in a journalist with a camera in their pocket and a place to distribute it all across the globe in seconds.

Obscurum wrote

Illustrated wrote

Sanctorum wrote

Illustrated wrote The guy was a convicted felon

Totally irrelevant.

Illustrated wrote and had a gun in his pocket. It seems he was reaching for it before being shot.

There was absolutely no way he could have managed to pull a gun out of his pocket and fire it whilst two officers were right on top of him.

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Graphic video of Alton Sterling being shot by police. Don't open the spoiler or watch the video if it will make you uncomfortable.

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Doesn't look like he's reaching for anything to me, and even if he was, no way he could have done any real damage. Totally unjustifiable murder in my eyes.

It's not irrelevant. If you're a convicted felon you should be treated as a dangerous criminal. Obviously a criminal is going to be treated differently than an innocent person who's never committed a crime.
And you can fire a handgun from inside your pocket. You clearly don't know too much about the operation of firearms. It doesn't matter how much damage he could of done it's the fact he had it in his pocket and he was reaching for it after resisting. Reckless behavior gets you killed.

You responded to Sanctorum's "even if he was reaching for his gun..." hypothetical and I would agree with your conclusion there.
If he was going for his gun and did manage to get his hand on it he could have done some damage to both himself and the officers.
With that being said, you didn't respond to his statement about what he thinks really happened.

Sanctorum said, "Doesn't look like he's reaching for anything to me."
You have gone from saying earlier in this thread that, "It seems he was reaching for it before being shot" to saying in this post, "...it's the fact he had it in his pocket and he was reaching for it..."
You have moved from it being a reasonable assumption to a fact that he was reaching for his gun.
I understand that you probably didn't mean to call it a fact and were just using it as a figure of speech, unless you are privy to some new information, but you still haven't defended your assertion that it seems like he was reaching for his gun.

My point is that if you view Motivational and Sanctorum as wrong because they can't prove that he wasn't reaching for his gun, then how can you say that your position is any more defensible if you can't prove that he was?

If you can't prove that he was reaching for his gun, or prove it beyond any reasonable doubt, then your basis for defending the police on this falls apart.
At the very least you should regress to the position of, "I don't know, we need more information before we make amy judgememts."

To add to this, with 2 Police Officers being on top of him, the shooting was not in any way justified. Even if he did have a firearm on his person, it still isn't justification to shoot him when he's being restrained. If he did have a firearm and did end up shooting the two officers, it's their fault, they haven't done their job properly.

I say this as someone who has worked with the Police for nearly 4 years.

Illustrated wrote It's not irrelevant. If you're a convicted felon you should be treated as a dangerous criminal.

Really? And if you're not a convicted felon but you're breaking the law, you should be treated like what? A princess? Don't be stupid. You shouldn't be treated as dangerous(unless you are), regardless of whether or not you're a convicted felon. Having a conviction should make no difference in how you're treated. I would want cops to react the exact same way to me if I was being aggressive, as they would act towards someone who's been locked up before.

Illustrated wrote Obviously a criminal is going to be treated differently than an innocent person who's never committed a crime.

Well, that's wrong. It doesn't matter if you've committed a crime in the past or not, if you're being criminal or dangerous, then the police should deal with you.

Illustrated wrote And you can fire a handgun from inside your pocket. You clearly don't know too much about the operation of firearms. It doesn't matter how much damage he could of done it's the fact he had it in his pocket and he was reaching for it after resisting. Reckless behavior gets you killed.

This is a discussion, not an argument. No need to take it to heart and try to start flaming. "You clearly don't know too much..". Of course you can fire a weapon from within your pocket, but considering his arm appears to be under the front bumper of a car, as well as pinned by two officers, there was no chance he'd do any real damage to either officers, or any civilians.

You think he was reaching for it, many other people don't. I even included the video, and you can slow it down to 0.25, or 0.5x speed on YouTube, absolutely does not look like he was reaching for anything since it would have been near impossible. Reckless behaviour shouldn't get you killed. Children are reckless, does that mean it's okay for police to shoot them? Even if they're not actually being reckless? Also, "being reckless" wouldn't be a valid reason to shoot and kill someone, you think that would hold up in court if that was their excuse for killing a man?

Also, I find it weird how the police here, in Scotland, will manage to disarm a knife wielding maniac trying to slash officers, and civilians, without having to shoot him 5+ times in the chest, and that's without them having him pinned down. Maybe your police should go though some more thorough training?

Broken country with a very corrupt government and infrastructure right now.

No real action is taking place; the only people who can are the government - ironic

Sanctorum wrote

Illustrated wrote It's not irrelevant. If you're a convicted felon you should be treated as a dangerous criminal.

Really? And if you're not a convicted felon but you're breaking the law, you should be treated like what? A princess? Don't be stupid. You shouldn't be treated as dangerous(unless you are), regardless of whether or not you're a convicted felon. Having a conviction should make no difference in how you're treated. I would want cops to react the exact same way to me if I was being aggressive, as they would act towards someone who's been locked up before.

Illustrated wrote Obviously a criminal is going to be treated differently than an innocent person who's never committed a crime.

Well, that's wrong. It doesn't matter if you've committed a crime in the past or not, if you're being criminal or dangerous, then the police should deal with you.

Illustrated wrote And you can fire a handgun from inside your pocket. You clearly don't know too much about the operation of firearms. It doesn't matter how much damage he could of done it's the fact he had it in his pocket and he was reaching for it after resisting. Reckless behavior gets you killed.

This is a discussion, not an argument. No need to take it to heart and try to start flaming. "You clearly don't know too much..". Of course you can fire a weapon from within your pocket, but considering his arm appears to be under the front bumper of a car, as well as pinned by two officers, there was no chance he'd do any real damage to either officers, or any civilians.

You think he was reaching for it, many other people don't. I even included the video, and you can slow it down to 0.25, or 0.5x speed on YouTube, absolutely does not look like he was reaching for anything since it would have been near impossible. Reckless behaviour shouldn't get you killed. Children are reckless, does that mean it's okay for police to shoot them? Even if they're not actually being reckless? Also, "being reckless" wouldn't be a valid reason to shoot and kill someone, you think that would hold up in court if that was their excuse for killing a man?

Also, I find it weird how the police here, in Scotland, will manage to disarm a knife wielding maniac trying to slash officers, and civilians, without having to shoot him 5+ times in the chest, and that's without them having him pinned down. Maybe your police should go though some more thorough training?

It doesn't really matter who thinks what of it though. The officer clearly thought he was reaching for a weapon and thought their lives were in imminent danger that's why he shot. Cops don't shoot people for absolutely no reason. Even if it looks like no reason to you, who can sit here comfortably and watch a playback as many times as you need, the officer only has a split second to register a persons movements and decide if it's a threat or not. And if they think it is, they react.

Illustrated wrote It doesn't really matter who thinks what of it though. The officer clearly thought he was reaching for a weapon and thought their lives were in imminent danger that's why he shot.

Then your opinion is irrelevant too and you should stop replying. If your attitude towards this is that it doesn't care what people think, then why do you care enough to actually talk about it? The officer never "clearly" thought anything. I don't understand how you can sit there and claim that you know what this officer was thinking, don't be ridiculous.

Illustrated wrote Cops don't shoot people for absolutely no reason.

Well, they do though. It's happened loads of times in the past, and been proven without a doubt that there are corrupt officers who shoot people with no valid or justifiable reason. So, yeah, cops do shoot people for absolutely no reason.

Illustrated wrote Even if it looks like no reason to you, who can sit here comfortably and watch a playback as many times as you need, the officer only has a split second to register a persons movements and decide if it's a threat or not. And if they think it is, they react.

Fair point, but I didn't need to watch it several times to understand that two officers pinning down a man should've been more than enough, and was more than enough.

Sanctorum wrote

Illustrated wrote It doesn't really matter who thinks what of it though. The officer clearly thought he was reaching for a weapon and thought their lives were in imminent danger that's why he shot.

Then your opinion is irrelevant too and you should stop replying. If your attitude towards this is that it doesn't care what people think, then why do you care enough to actually talk about it? The officer never "clearly" thought anything. I don't understand how you can sit there and claim that you know what this officer was thinking, don't be ridiculous.

Illustrated wrote Cops don't shoot people for absolutely no reason.

Well, they do though. It's happened loads of times in the past, and been proven without a doubt that there are corrupt officers who shoot people with no valid or justifiable reason. So, yeah, cops do shoot people for absolutely no reason.

Illustrated wrote Even if it looks like no reason to you, who can sit here comfortably and watch a playback as many times as you need, the officer only has a split second to register a persons movements and decide if it's a threat or not. And if they think it is, they react.

Fair point, but I didn't need to watch it several times to understand that two officers pinning down a man should've been more than enough, and was more than enough.

I can't even debate this with you because you simply don't understand.
And that's alright, you're entitled to your opinion.

Our world is reallly corrupted its not even safe to live on earth

True that.