Officer's first words after shooting Rayshard Brooks twice in the back: "I got him"

[StarfishSaver]

“There’s one good thing about video,” [Fulton County District Attorney Paul] Howard told CNN. “Because in the video, we actually get a chance to hear the officer’s first statement after the shooting took place. And what the officer said is not that his life was saved. What his statement was, is ‘I got him.’”

https://www.cbs46.com/news/fulton-da-murder-or-felony-murder-fit-if-charges-are-filed-in-rayshard-brooks-shooting/article_c3e516d6-ae79-11ea-b4df-1b99cd01b118.html

[Goodheart]

1. The officer is in big trouble.

[brush]

2. Yep, he's going to jail. Such a dummy. All he had to do...

is take the guy's keys and let him walk to a close-by relative's house as he requested. Then it would've been end-of-story instead of end of life and end of a LEO career.

[Aussie105]

3. What is wrong with police training?

You got him!
Well done, you just ruined 2 lives!

/sarcasm

In some police forces, every single bullet used requires lots of paper work afterwards, with justifiable reason.
A single upward warning shot may have been justifiable, but 3 in the back, not so much.

[Goodheart]

7. This seems like a simple rule to install:

If somebody is running away, and he isn't lethal or likely to cause great bodily injury, and he hasn't done anything lethal nor caused great bodily injury, DON'T SHOOT. Round him up later.

[StarfishSaver]

9. That is both the law and the policy

The problem isn't that there are no rules. The problem is that the cops ignore them too often, and usually get away with it.

[sir pball]

13. Never warning shots, ever.

You have no idea where that bullet will go or what it will hit, that's a violation of one of the basic rules of firearm safety. To put it another way - firing into the air in Atlanta?!?! Shooting should be an absolute last resort, but it should always be aimed. Not to kill, but to stop, with the understanding that it's also probably going to kill.

As an aside, "got it!" is what I yell when I plink a tin can with a .22. The idea of blurting that out after shooting a human is utterly, monstrously incomprehensible.

[bullwinkle428]

4. Two shots in the back. Just this morning, there were people here at DU trying to

make the argument that he wasn't shot in the back; that he had turned to face them and use the Taser against them, which would somehow justify the shooting.

I really don't see any fundamental difference between this, and the Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina, and that cop is serving 20 years in prison. Hope you look good in orange, dude!

[Chemisse]

10. I thought they shot him while he was facing him - based on limited video footage.

Even then I could not see how it was justified to kill someone who is too far away to hurt you with a taser (a nonlethal weapon) and who is clearly trying to retreat.

I am so sick of these cops who kill because they have the power to do so with impunity. I hope he is charged with second-degree murder.

[DeminPennswoods]

5. Coward is the word for a person

who shoots another person, especially one who is unarmed, in the back.

[jmg257]

6. That SOB cop has got to go away for a LONG time.

ATLANTA – Hours before police shot him outside a Wendy's fast-food restaurant in Atlanta on Friday, Rayshard Brooks had done what dads do: enjoyed a father-daughter day in honor of his little girl's eighth birthday.

The party was supposed to roll into the next day with a skating celebration. But Brooks, 27, would not be there.

The father of four was shot by an Atlanta police officer while fleeing during a struggle at a Wendy's drive-thru late Friday night and died at a hospital, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

[Chemisse]

12. Every birthday that child has will contain the memory of this horror.

It's terribly sad.

[enough]

8. I think there is an element in our police forces which sees killing a black man

as an initiation into white manhood.

[Me.]

11. Doesn't That Prove Intent & Motive

[Ferrets are Cool]

14. It's target practice for these motherfuckers

[Bettie]

15. For each of these cops, I'd like to know if they have

been through the "warrior" or "killology" classes.

It won't excuse anything, but it would give us information about their general mindset.