with I was an idiot and had my rifle set to three shot burst. I then was a further idiot and accidentally squeezed the trigger because that is how I am trained, and I got spooked.

Still I think an "accidental discharge" is better than claiming an intentional shot.

The very dedicated health care worker is looking at a sizable settlement no matter what. If I am being tried by a jury, I would prefer to claim an accident than an intentional shooting.

they generally shoot to kill.

you should at least have the common decency to arrest them for something.

Yes, that's far more believable: incompetence, stupidity, and poor training, peppered with a (un)healthy dose of implicit bias racism. This does seem to be a plausible excuse for most of these outrageous police shootings of innocent black men and women.

But was able to hold off for a split second, which made the difference....

I am amazed that these guys with more training, constantly exhibit poor trigger discipline. Particularly in situations where they have an option to de-escalate.

to hesitate but to shoot right away.

But the types of things we are seeing with hair trigger, hesitant discharges is something completely different.

and snorted. The supposedly highly-trained cop with a rifle good for about 500 meters effective range couldn't hit his target at 30 meters? This just boggles the mind. The guy should be fired for being a terrible shot, if nothing else.

Back in the Army, the 50 meter targets on the shooting range were the ones you really could not miss.

You'd think they'd be trained better for shooting?

Regardless, I'm quite glad it was the caregiver shot (with a non-lethal shot) than the autistic client. I hope that doesn't sound bad in any way. I'm a mental health professional, and I know I would want this outcome rather than my client be harmed on my watch, especially since it seems the caregiver is going to completely recover. I guess we should all thank god this police officer wasn't a better shot? Or else it would have been a dead autistic person shot through the heart in the street, all for the crime of having a toy truck in his hand.

but I agree!

If it's tue, that cop should never fire a gun again. What a terrible shot.

at close range, and missed his target? Bullshit. A blind monkey could make that shot. Plus, he was told by the victim that he was a counselor, the other guy had a toy truck and no guns were needed. Then, after the shooting they handcuffed the guy the cop was supposedly trying to protect and let him bleed for 20 mins?

If this cop gets off with this explanation, I hate to think what will happen.

So I guess he isn't such a good shot. Still doesn't explain why he would try to shoot a guy playing with a toy truck. Or why they would put the counselor in handcuffs if he was the one they were trying to protect from a guy with a toy truck.

than one sitting upright. This guy was saying he missed his target by three or four feet. The guy hit his target once.

So he missed his target.

The arrest was an attempt to cover up their fuck up, but then the video emerges, and they can't go with that story.

even when other cops asked him.

is smart, he will come clean about it. Otherwise, the prick is going to jail. If charges aren't brought against this cop, if he sticks with this explanation, then the DA there should lose his job.

If he says "I fucked up." ND. He takes a hit on the job (maybe fired), the Department gets sued they pay out a couple million bucks.

If he persists with this bullshit, then we get into Obstruction of Justice, jail time, AND he gets fired, the Departments gets sued and pays out millions of bucks.

then it is an intentional assault. it would easily be manslaughter if either one had died. It is much worse than the guy shot reaching into his car for an ID.

Another wrinkle. If he was shooting at the autistic man, then that man also has justification for a lawsuit.

In no way does a story involving intentional discharge make sense for him or for the city.

I don't trust our justice system to do the right thing. And he shot 3 times. That's not accidental discharge.

Three shots.

and the next two were a reaction to hearing a gunshot.

well lucky for me I'm black........................AND autistic!!!

woohoo.

Negligent Discharge (the cop had his booger hook on the trigger and twitched for some reason. The weapon selector was probably on 3-round burst (another no-no in such a situation), and let off 3 shots. The rest is a lame-ass cover story to protect the shit cop.

Really, this is the first I heard it was a rifle. They brought out the hardware on this one.

But...do the police typically have selectors with 3 round burst? Seems very odd for policing in a civilian world. I was in the army when we converted from full auto to 3 round burst, and they had us do a side by side test, to convince us it was a good idea. And, the 3 round burst was much more accurate than full auto...but, it was still not a tight shot group. The rifle moves and doesn't have time to settle back in. If you're using 3 round burst, its almost guaranteed that at least one shot will miss the mark - and who knows what may get hit.

But police can use automatic weapons. Some departments do, some don't. But the facts incline me that way. He hit with one shot out of three. My theory is he hit with the first shot and missed with the other two due to muzzle climb. If he missed a stationary target two out of three times at less than 50 feet, this man should be no where near a gun.

Nobody misses by a couple of feet at that range.

No hard facts in this case, but it seems to fit the facts well.

Second only to NYPD's Patrick Lynch in assholery.

The only thing Kop Unions do is shield their members from the legal consequences of their actions.

Some questions:

How was the shooter trained?

What was the general culture of the cop department? "Them vs Us"?

When was the last time the shooter went into a simulator?

Was the shooter stressed? Personal issues? Money problems? Marriage crisis?

Did the shooter ever shoot before? Any civilian complaints against him?

These things happen when a whole confluence of factors come together in a randomly perfect alignment.

The Police Departments need a cleaning of the problems that plaque them. There needs to be system to start checking all the Police Departments for mental problems, training problems etc.. There's clearly a major problem.

Horrible. On every level horrible.

But wanted to shoot the other guy instead?

They told the therapist to "shut up" so they didn't want information as to what the situation was.

They have rifles shooting a stationary close target, couldn't miss.

Sorriest excuse I ever heard of. Funny he didn't know why he shot the man, but after a few days reflection he remembered he was shooting at the handicapped man sitting harmlessly and non-threatening to save the guy with his hands up.

Shame!

The newscasters always reported it as the caretaker being accidentally shot because they were trying to protect him.

That statement made no sense then and less now, considering they acted as if the caretaker was a criminal directly following.

while my autiistic son sleeps in the next room.

I'm terrified for him and someone will call the police, and those people will be so poorly trained that they lock him up, even for an hour, with actual dangerous men.

That lie won't stand up to scrutiny in a court of law.

Good grief....these guys can't shoot straight and shouldn't even shoot at all apparently.

What a bunch of idiots.

In what world is this not an admission of guilt?

"I hit the unarmed black guy because I was trying to execute an unarmed mentally disabled person for not listening to me. Then I had to hand cuff him and try to kill him by denying first aid, for his own safety"

weren't they Good Guys with Guns?

Common human empathy/decency demands that you put pressure on the wound. These cops bound the man and let him bleed out till an ambulance arrived a really late 20 minutes later.

assessed the situation before they arrive on the scene. Motorist calls 911 and reports two men with machine guns and cops don't wait to see what is happening.

shooting a disabled person would somehow create a more acceptable public impression of their incompetence than just the willy-nilly shooting another black guy.

I don't know if I ever read such a fucked up police brutality story. This one goes so far over the top...just wow...