Guys..... Please. Everyone take a deep breath and slowly let it out. With no pun intended towards the thread or the people involved we are indeed
beating a dead horse in the last few pages.
Please watch the personal attacks.
Now...with that said...I will agree with Xcathdra, that people who post a video with no backing info annoy me too. I did however give info. All from
the video at first I know, but it was from an actual TV station news report as well as images from the dash cam. I honestly can't remember why I
posted it before I had other written sources to back up the story, but apparently I did feel the story itself along with the dash cam video had enough
merit to post while I searched for additional sources. Another member beat me to it and posted 2 articles.
I will also agree with Xcathdra about not shooting to wound. Police are taught to eliminate the threat they are facing. And standard procedure for
almost every law enforcement agency I know of is to shoot center mass. You are shooting to stop...not kill, but center mass often does result in a
kill. Shooting center mass and being off by 2 inches might result in your hitting the suspects shoulder, but aiming for the shoulder and being off by
a couple of inches could result in a miss or hitting something or someone else entirely.
With all of that said though, and knowing by watching the video his backup was only a minute or less away, it might have made better sense for the
officer to wait. There was apparently an updated 911 call which stated the 66 year old no longer had the weapon, and the situation had been resolved,
however, I do not know if this was passed on to responding officers before they arrived or not. I am only speculating here, and I may get flamed for
it, but the actions of the first responding officer to me....make me think he had had prior contact with this individual before. Possibly often and he
was now going to "teach him a lesson."
I can think of no other logical reason to turn off the dash cam. Or try to. And the audio. I thought it was fairly apparent there was no knife visible
in the video. To answer others questions though, not every officer has pepper spray or a tazer for that matter. But to me, it seems the officer does
have what appears to be a weapon on both hips. Which usually means one is a tazer. Additionally, after the initial kick from the officer, the suspect
had at least from what I can see had been subdued, and should have been turned over and cuffed. Instead he was continually pummeled. And never once
from what we saw did the officer ever attempt to cuff him.
I did read and think I already posted an update where the charges against Mr. Flowers had been dropped, but had not been aware until Xcathdra pointed
it out the officer had been "disciplined" by having his patrol area changed. Maybe there was more and department policy forbids releasing personnel
issues, but to me this officers actions deserved more than a daily change of scenery...at least to me.
I am not a "cop hater" and do not think all cops are bad. Not even most of them to be honest. But we almost never hear about them. It is usually
only something reprehensible like this video shows. Then again...if we actually had the audio from this incident, I might well have sided with the
cop. Who knows? He may well have told him 12 times to stop or something, but we don't know. However, when I find a video like this, and do have
additional info to back it up, then it becomes quite obvious this is police brutality and becomes worthy of civilized discussion on ATS. Several
people have made some good points in the last couple of pages, but please...let's keep it civilized.