A veteran Chicago police officer faces sentencing Monday for his excessive force conviction for firing 16 times into a moving vehicle filled with teens. [More]Veteran, huh? That generally means standard and accepted protocol as his "systemic problems in the department" defense appears to indicate.
The interesting thing about a career choice which involves the strong possibility that one might come under fire is that sometimes one tends to over-react. "In all the excitement", and all that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not justifying the officer's apparent over-reaction: I wasn't there, I don't know what happened, and news reporting is "deplorably" unreliable.
Until we know more about the circumstances, it seems a "Rush To Judgement" to categorically accuse the serving officer of an inappropriate response to a situation about which we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except the reports from the media. He might have been doing what he thought was appropriate response to a threat level which, it seems, was not as he perceived it.
I don't know; do you?
Do I have enough "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence to vote "guilty" just with this? Of course not.
ReplyDeleteCan I extrapolate different treatment by ChiTown PD and prosecutors should you or I fire 16 rounds into a moving vehicle full of "teens"? I think the "Only Ones" distinction is more certain.