I am not attacking anyone. I am asking a simple question. He does not have to answer the question, but it's trying to get perspective on what he would do in the situation. I am not a police officer, so all I can do is look at things from the outside, and right now, if it came down to a police officer being able to save me over the cost of his fellow officers life, it seems more likely he would choose his fellow officer then me. I know not all of them seem this way, but the greater culture seems to reinforce it.
He attempted to contain a tense situation with a man that was asking for him to shoot him, obviously depressed and wanting to die. The original call from the girlfriend was because he was threatening suicide. The gun even turned out to be empty. Yes, the officer has no idea of that fact, but that was what it was and he made the call to try and help the man rather then end his life, a choice that he should be rewarded for, not condemned. You also may notice that at no point was it said that he was fired for putting others in danger, only his "fellow officers", there was no mention of threat to bystanders or others. I can bet you if he did take the shot, missed, and hit some woman and apartment over, he probably would still have a job, because that's just collateral damage.
You know we have this fun little term in the courts called "innocent until proven guilty". When someone like Tamir Rice is playing with a toy gun and the officers immediately roll up and the first instinct is to shoot him dead when anything even remotely shaped like a gun appears in eye frame, it seems to be the other way around. So what are you saying? Don't do anything that can even remotely look like a threat for any instance, at any time, for any reason, for any purpose, or you die? That isn't a valid answer to the problem, that is ignoring the problem because it's just how the world works to you.
Again the issue isn't even the shooting. No one expects cops to make the best choices under all circumstances, all we ask is that they be held accountable for mistakes. If I lean over to change my music and end up running over 5 kids jaywalking to school, I would be arrested and put in prison. Yes, my choice, in the end, was a deadly mistake, but I don't latch onto the fact they were jaywalking to justify my horrible mistake. Many times, we blame the victim in police shooting cases as "resisting" or "looking dangerous" and then write it off as a justified situation for lethal force. I don't like that.
Hell, I am a white male, I have the least to fear from the police, I could ignore it all and just live my life, and probably never have a problem, but that isn't going to fix anything for those that are suffering.
