According to the cited news report -
Springs wearing a red shirt and blue pants similar to an anime character
Yeah, you shouldn't blindly believe incompetent journalists when there is clear pics of his normal street clothes. His clothing was "similar" to an anime character only in the sense that there is character with a red shirt. What his clothing was similar to was that of millions of normally dressed people and what is on the rack at almost every department store. Those are the objective facts and any effort to pretend that his clothing indicated to a "costume" is purely dishonest.
Unless you have seen a picture of the victim in his clothes, the objective fact is you have no objective facts to back up these particular claims.
The point is that the cops could not tell it was fake and Hunt deliberately reinforced their idea that it was real by calling it "a sword" and not ever attempting to point out that it was fake, as every sane person not looking to get shot would have done in that situation.
The objective fact is that the police did not discern it was fake not that they necessarily could not tell.
Hunt deliberately tried to make the cops think his sword was real and thus he was a threat. There is no psychologically plausible explanation for his behavior.
First, the conclusion he was a threat does not follow from your premise. And, of course there alternative explanations. He was playing a joke or he was confused come to mind.
It fully supports my narrative and fully falsifies any notion that he was shot merely for being black and holding an apparent sword, since the pic shows he was black and holding the sword when the cops arrived and yet they stood there and talking to him without being close to shooting him until, as the autopsy supports, he swung the sword toward them than ran away. It is perfectly consistent with Hunt acting to deliberately increase his perception as a threat and only then being shot.
I see reasoning is not your strong point. It is entirely consistent with them mistaking him for a threat because he was black. And it does not support your narrative that he was a threat to others.
If did read the article, and those shots to the back fully support that the cops continued to fire because he ran in the direction of other people. The facts really could not be more supportive of the cops story and more definitively refuting of the notion that he was shot just for being black and holding a toy.
Once again, you are simply wrong. You don't know if he ran in the direction of other people. And, of course, instead of firing into the back of someone running away, the police could have chased the man in order to assess what was likely to happen.
Again, your narrative predicts that he should already be dead in that pic and never had a chance to "chat" with the cops
Since I have called the police's actions into question without offering any narrative, your claim is factually false. Moreover, it assumes a rather specific narrative -that these police shoot black men with swords on sight. It is dishonest to pretend that is the unwritten narrative.
Who is "Springs"? The guy was Darrien Hunt and your own cited autopsy plus and eyewitteness supports that he threatened the cops with his sword after refusing to put it down, then he ran with what he reinforced the cops to believe was a deadly weapon toward other people.
He "jabbed" the sword towards them. Did it come close or not? And you don't know he was running towards other people.
Shooting him was far more justified than would have been letting him run. The only reasonable alternative would have been disabling him with a less deadly weapon, all of which are less reliable and accurate in that situation with a fleeing suspect who given his age and seeming fitness would have been much faster than them.
More assumptions and unsubstantiated claims on your part.
No, its a recognition that the police are only human and they didn't have your 20/20 hindsight of knowing it was fake only because you've been told that, a fact you would not have had you been in the situation.
Again with the alleged mind-reading. You have no clue what I could have known or what they could have known. It is either the height of arrogance or the depths of intellectual dishonesty to make such claims.
IT is an only an "indictment" if you are a egomaniacal narcissist that cannot imagine the psychological reality of the situation the cops were in and the split-second decision they needed to make about a man who went out of his way to reinforce the possibility that the sword was real and he was a threat. By the time they shot him, his actions and words greatly favored the sword being real and he being a mentally unstable threat.
Your response is based on a number of unsubstantiated assumptions about reality. First, there is no evidence you are an infallible (or even reasonable) arbiter of other people's psychological states. Second, there is no evidence anyone had to make a split-second decision about anything. Third, you confuse your opinion about the victim's "going out of his way..." with fact. Fourth, you assume the only course of reasonable action was to shoot him multiple times (4 times in the back).
My defense is not reactionary, it is reasoned and unbiased, something you should try.
Your arguments are based on mind-reading and confusions of fact with fiction which makes them consistent inconsistent with reasoned and unbiased analysis.
Your condemnation of the cops is what is based purely on ideology and emotion, without a shred of thought to how all the facts logically cohere together and with the possible accounts.
Thank you for providing more evidence on the reactionary nature of your responses. You are arguing against a straw man. I think the police acted prematurely. From the accounts, no one was in immediate danger even if the sword was real.
