From Shaun King’s instagram (warning video included):
This was Tuesday morning in Corpus Christi, Texas. In the past 5 years I’ve studied over 1,000 videos of police violence and have watched some of them hundreds of times so that I can understand just how each incident could have been prevented. This shooting WOULD NOT have happened in most countries.
Notice that the man is barefoot. This is a clear sign of distress. Before the shooting, people called 911 because they saw him and believed he was having a mental health breakdown. He clearly was. At that point, a mental health emergency team should have been called and dispatched to the scene. 99% of American cities don’t have such teams. They should. That team, as has happened around the world, would have then surrounded the man with plastic shields, and disarmed him, and used other less lethal methods first. I’ve seen it happen over and over again when men had knives, machetes, and pipes.
Notice that the officer continues to fire after the item was dropped. After the man’s back was turned he shot him in the back. In some states, 50% of people killed by police were having a mental health episode and needed an ambulance and a hospital, not a gun and bullets. Hospitals face moments like this almost daily. And they don’t shoot and kill people.
How is it that social workers, EMTs, rehab specialists, nurses, doctors, teachers, etc. are all capable of de-escalating a situation without pumping half a dozen bullets into a person?
When I got de-escalation training the instructor, who was older, literally told us that in all her years in social work she’s NEVER had to restrain an individual and emphasized how there are always ways to calm a situation down. This cop was told the man was having an episode, walked up to his face and then shot him down. Absolutely none of these actions indicate de-escalation was even considered. They just kill and move on.