Police Shoot Unarmed Man Dillon Taylor

[LSUTiger]

I ran across this video, I was not aware of this incident until now and it raised some questions in my mind and thought it was worth discussing, I think it's applicable to us both as CHL's and citizens, whichever end of the gun your facing.

Warning: This complete video shows the graphic killing of unarmed 20-year-old Dillon Taylor who shot and killed by Salt Lake City Police August 11, 2014 By Officer Bron Cruz

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Upon further investigation, there are reasons this did not get the same media attention that the Micheal Brown case did. This was shortly after the Michael Brown case broke and it did not fit the multicultural narrative the media wanted to propagate, in fact roles were reversed.


My 2 cents based on the video:

1. Hands Kill- I understand that hands kill, that applies to both LEO's and non-LEO's.

2. Whether this shooting was justified or not can be debated . Ultimately the officer was found to be justified.

My opinion is mixed but on the side of unjustified. See the video and judge for yourself.

Although, with gun also drawn, his partner did not shoot. Ultimately, IMHO, despite the suspects action, shooting was not justified. In broad daylight, with gun drawn (and partner too!) and suspect facing me but at a reasonable distance away, I would have not fired until I could have confirmed is he had something in hand or not, after all, giving him a chance to comply then shooting him when he attempt to seems to me like the suspect never had a chance.

Every scenario is different but I feel in the totality of this scenario I could have withheld fire long enough to confirm what was in his hands and still maintained my safety in the event it turned out the suspect had a weapon.

Perhaps a different scenario would have better justification but would a non-LEO get the same justification or get sent to jail for shooting an unarmed man in similar circumstances?

3. As guy lawfully minding my own business and especially a CHL or possible future OC, I don't want to get shot by trigger happy police because I did not comply fast enough or too fast.

4. After shooting Officer try's desperately to find a weapon.

Purely for the sake of argument, although none was found in this case, simply finding a weapon after the fact does not justify shooting either. Consider as a CHL, not breaking any laws yet finding yourself in the unfortunate situation of having to comply with officers commands. When you do comply and make your empty hands visible you get shot by Police. That tells me you are going to get shot no matter what you do. Don't comply, get shot, comply, get shot. Then after posing no threat to police and getting shot they find your gun and then say ah ha! We are justified! No, if that were true then they could just shoot you anytime they pleased because everyone has the potential to be a threat.

Trying to find a good excuse to justify the actions you've already done is not good.

5. What's the best way to comply? (OK, immediately but carefully) Do you verbalize what you are doing or gonna do? " Alright my hands coming out slowly now, see my palms, nothing in my hands....."

[gemini]

wow. That was a pretty intense video. Sad too. I tend to lean toward unjustified.
Watched it more than once to come to that conclusion.
I do have a question or two regarding procedures. Like why keep the cuffs on a dead man?
(among others). I have the same questions as LSUTiger. I hate to see stuff like this.

[baldeagle]

First, the video is not very revealing. The camera is pointing downward, and it's hard to see what the suspect is doing. It's impossible to tell exactly what happened, but the officer who did not fire said he saw the suspect reaching for something. Whether he really was or the officer was reacting to the trauma is hard to say. We don't know what led up to the confrontation. Why was he singled out and three other males were ignored? What information did the officers have when they arrived on the scene? Based on the video alone, it's impossible to say whether the shooting was justified or not.

[ShootDontTalk]

I can't see enough from the vaunted body cam to really decide about this.

I do suggest that if you believe you know exactly how you would react in such a situation, you should contact a large police department and ask if they can allow you to participate in some training scenarios that will simulate this kind of situation. I believe you will find that faced with similar circumstances, you will have far less time to consider your response than you think. You may also discover that you will make mistakes that are all too easy to make. In real time it isn't like viewing a video.

Edit: I finally found the video of Quanell X doing this here in Houston. Very enlightening.
http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/20 ... /22901953/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[srothstein]

This is one of those cases where the video cannot give you enough information to make a reasonable decision on justification. What was the officer told and what did he think before the shooting occurred? He must have been told something because officers do not just go stop people or start yelling at them at random, especially not after passing a couple other people. That indicates to me that the officer was given some information from someone about this individual or someone like him where the description matches. The officer's mindest and knowledge or belief AT THE TIME are critical do deciding on whether or not he was justified, even if he was wrong in his knowledge.

Also be careful of comments made by people publishing the video if they were not the original person involved. For example, in this video, it says the officer was desperately looking for evidence of a weapon when he searched the body, implying the officer knew he was wrong. But that is an assumption because he doesn't know what the officer was really doing or why, and these type of comments bias the public.

Having said all that, I am very concerned about shootings where the officer pulls the trigger too quickly. I know that there is absolutely no reason the officer should wait for the other guy to shoot first, but I would like them to wait a little longer to make sure they have the right person and the right information. The rest of this is almost standard procedure (cuffing and searching the person who was shot).

[Jim Beaux]

More info

The officer's gun is raised.

Dillon Taylor, 20, is clearly looking at the officer but refuses to take his hands out of his waistband as he was ordered to do and continues to walk backwards.

"No, fool," Taylor is heard saying.

Moments later, Taylor quickly lifts his shirt and takes his hands out of his waistband. Salt Lake police officer Bron Cruz reacts by firing two quick shots, striking Taylor in the chest and stomach. Taylor died as a result of his injuries.

"I was scared to death. The last thought I had go through my mind when I pulled the trigger, and I'll never forget this … was that I was too late. I was too late. And because of that, I was gonna get killed. Worse, my (partner) was gonna get killed."
–Officer Bron Cruz, SLCPD

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=31772096

"Nothing that Mr. Taylor did assisted in de-escalating the situation," Gill said. "If anything, it escalated things."

Taylor's shooting was justified, Gill said, not because he posed an actual threat, but because Cruz reasonably perceived a threat.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58472 ... l.html.csp

[gemini]

I'm not trying to cop bash. I guess we'll all just have to have different opinions on what
the video shows and what it does not show. Like, maybe the officers finger was already
putting pressure on the trigger and yelling commands caused his grip to tighten....
(brings to mind the SF Bart officer shooting, or female deputy shooting at the cuffed, face
down on the ground suspect / check youtube for videos, I won't do that for you)
or maybe out of two highly trained officers only one felt the need to fire even though
both were approaching the suspect, seeing the same "perceived" threat or not.
I too am concerned in police shootings where the officer pulls the trigger to quickly.

[JSThane]

I'm no fan of cop-bashing, or cop-bashers themselves. However, feel free to bash those self-appointed "speakers" for cops, the unions and their leaders. Most of the time, they say the exact opposite of what their members believe.

[LSUTiger]

The police did have PC to investigate, someone at the store called police. However PC alone does not equal justification for shooting.

I have spent time on a simulator at my local PD so I have some idea of what it is like to have to decide shoot or no shoot. What I learned is it's easy to overreact or underreact.

I just hope that if the unfortunate ever happens I am judged with the same idea of what I perceived to be true as sufficient justification.

I am not trying to bash cops but rather look at it as a learning opportunity, from both sides of the badge and more importantly, the gun.

At which point is it ok to shoot and which point are you gonna get shot? The graphic nature of the video was a exacty like a simulator in that it puts you in a first person POV in a scenario and you have to make decisions.

When you see the reality of the bloody aftermath of an real life event, on either the giving or receiving end, it drives home the need to get it right should the occasion arise.

[MechAg94]

As they tell us about traffic stops and such, the time to argue or cause a scene with police is not the side of the road. The two guys who stopped and put their hands up didn't have any problem. IMO, this is separate from whether the shooting was justified or not. Many if not most of these cases of shootings or police misconduct involve people confronting police or otherwise behaving badly. Regardless of what your opinion is of police in general, keep it in check when dealing with them.

[Charles L. Cotton]

I get the impression that some folks who have not been in situations LEOs face seem to think that it is always clear whether or not a subject is a threat, if you wait long enough for it the facts manifest themselves. Simulators are better than no simulators, but they are no match for force-on-force training with Simunitions. Houston's convicted felon and rabble-rouser Quanell X has condemned pretty much every shooting of a black person by a police officer as murder. However, after recently going through force-on-force scenarios (See ShootDonTalk's link to the TV news story), Quanell changed his tune. He had very good advice for everyone - when the COPSs tell you to do something, do it! As he learned, facts are not always clear and as stress levels increase, the human brain can fill in factual gaps. When a subject refuses to comply with a LEO's commands, he may be doing so out of defiance or disrespect, but the LEO is likely view his failure to comply as being a tactical threat.

It often takes time to determine what are the facts, so give yourself and the LEO that time by complying with their commands.

Chas.

[cb1000rider]

determine what are the facts, so give yourself and the LEO that time by complying with their commands.

What would help in determining the actual facts and go a very long way to promote public confidence, protect good officers, and make sure that people with "inaccurate" accounts are treated properly is requiring body cameras on officers.
There are simply too many instances where we have only one surviving narrative. And we've certainly seen instances where public sentiment is so anti-police that it wouldn't take much for several people to concoct the same story against a single officer.

The sooner this gets done the better.

[ScooterSissy]

This video - http://www.ksl.com/?sid=31772096" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - referenced earlier, puts it all in a different perspective. I didn't understand the "no fool" response when he was told to take his hands out of his pockets. The "I've hit rock bottom" on Taylor's FB page is also telling.

I wish I could find it again, but I often think of a video I saw where a guy had his hands in his pockets (very much like this guy), leaning against a car with three cops facing him. It was unbelievable how quickly he pulled a gun out of one of the pockets, shot two of the offices (the one closest was hit in the chest, but had a vest and survived, the other did not survive), and out ran the third. They did catch him, but he's doing life and one poor cop is gone.

[ShootDontTalk]

Forgive me, but body cams are not the answer. Now if we're talking body cams on every person who decides that there is no authority on earth they must obey, then absolutely...body cams with good clear audio on those people would help. As would 24 hour video surveillance.

IF there has been a rise in police shootings, and I think the jury is still out on that, it is precisely because we have a generation that now feels empowered to disobey all authority. Back to Vietnam days. Oh joy!