Comments by "Life\x27s Adventures" (@bigphillyed) on "How Stephon Clark Was Killed by Police in His Backyard | NYT - Visual Investigations" video.

  1. Shocking, Comments full of all those anti-law enforcement viewers and lead by the words from one of the most liberal news papers in the country. All that being said, here is my take on the situation, take it or leave it. Police officers are trained to eliminate a threat when the situation warrants. For example, a person points a gun at you, you defend yourself by firing your firearm. A person comes at you with a knife you could try a taser, but they have a high rate of failure, you could use OC spray but would that protect you? So now you see, officers eliminate the threat when necessary. Which means firing your sidearm until the suspect falls or drops the weapon. Police officers have the same reaction time as a MLB batter does to a fast ball, 450 milli-seconds. Think about that! What do you think would happen if I put you right now in front of a major league pitcher throwing a 95 mph fast ball? Think you could hit it? Or do you think your swing would be real late? Now put yourself in these officers shoes. Its late in the evening, almost pitch dark except for the flash light your holding, you begin to turn a corner to approach a unknown suspect who just smashed windows down the whole block. The 911 operator says he is armed or carrying some type of large tool. Now as soon as you turn that corner, you announce yourself, and then you see this person turn at you, pointing what appears to be a shiny object. Now remember, your 450 milli-seconds starts as soon as he begins to turn at you. So what do you do? Do you shoot, or do you risk being shot? And for all the people who are going to comment about less lethal, tasers, blah blah blah. That is good to question that, except its good to question it after the incident, not during, when someone is turning and pointing something at you. Also officers cannot simply say, oh let me shoot him in the leg instead. We hear that all the time. First of all, you are trained to fire center mass so that what your shooting doesn't miss for your safety and the safety of the public and anything beyond your suspect. You can also just as easily die from a leg shot, as a neck shot, or torso shot. Then there is the other people who say let him go till you know if he is armed. Well lets say they did that, and he wasn't in his own yard. Now the suspect knows your there, he kicks in the back door and takes the family living there hostage, now what? Now a family is fearing for there life, now a whole familys life is at stake. You can try and pan it our anyway you want, but the one time police stop taking potential threats so real, is the day innocent people begin to die. Sorry this is the evil fruit of the tree, but it is the world we live it, there are evil people doing evil things and hurting people and taking people property. Law Enforcement and shootings and young people dying are the evil fruit that I wish we didn't need in society. But until the day evil and crime are gone this is the very rare things we must incur.
    1