As you say, I think the element of surprise worked, but not in the way the officers hoped. Imagine being fast asleep, and pretty much ‘dead’ to the world. When suddenly you are woken by shouting from several people armed with guns and I think at least one had a baton of some kind. At what point might someone be able to figure out exactly what’s going on after being awoken like that. What might our reaction be, even if we were in a similar situation but where no crime was committed? After waking up, how long would it take to fully understand what’s happening around us when being surounded by several men shouting, at the same time.
I don’t say this next thing in hindsight; it seems obvious to me. Why would a trained police officer put himself in a vulnerable position inside the rear of a vehicle, when the person they are apprehending is sat in the driver’s seat and therefore in control of the car?
At 0:52 in this longer video, (link below, with 4 police cameras playing at the same time) an officer says to another, “
But don’t get inside that car until we we…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/04/park-police-bodycam-footage-dalaneo-martin/
The BBC article on the first post says of this threadreads, “
A Washington police officer can be heard in the video advising Park Police: "Please don't get caught inside [the vehicle]."
From the point where we first hear the engine rev up and drive off, to the point where the teenager is shot, is just 13 seconds. The police officer shouts, “
Stop, stop all I’ll shoot”. The teenager doesn’t even have the time to comprehend the order and the threat. Because literally as soon as the officer says, ‘shoot’, he shoots the teanager, 4 times in the back. Is this what we all expect from police officers? Is this as good as there training gets?
In a different video, on YouTube, after showing the bullets enter the teanagers back, it then shows the car running into what looks like a residential building. The officer is still shouting. The officer gets out of the vehicle, walks backwards and shouts, “
Don’t f@#!ing move." Is this the best that this particular police force has?
This whole thing is very sad. It’s also very ridiculous. Why would anyone think this is acceptable. What on earth is the “Park Police”?
I don’t want to turn this into one nation vs another. But if this happened in the UK the police would refer themselves to the "Independent Office for Police Conduct". A police watchdog that oversees complaints against the police. The police themselves would probably do it as a matter of procedure.
