If there were charges to be filed in this case, they should have been filed against the police officer - for his unprovoked and illegal assault upon the OC'r. If any citizen were to draw his firearm and point it at another citizen in such a manner, he or she would certainly be charged with a crime. The police officer has no special authority to point a weapon at anyone who is not posing a threat and is not breaking any laws.
In this case, the citizen had every legal justification for drawing his own weapon and shooting the police officer - and in fact was the victim of an assault and had no way of knowing how much further the officer might carry the assault.
The officer in this case is an exemplar of a troubling trait I see in more and more LEO's - the desire to obtain compliance and control in advance of identifying whether a crime is in process or has been committed. As a result, the incident is immediately and needlessly escalated into a potentially deadly situation because he didn't care to ascertain how the circumstances he found himself in corresponded to the law, or didn't care to do so and applied his own version of the law (which in my opinion is exactly what he chose to do).
In this case, the citizen had every legal justification for drawing his own weapon and shooting the police officer - and in fact was the victim of an assault and had no way of knowing how much further the officer might carry the assault.
The officer in this case is an exemplar of a troubling trait I see in more and more LEO's - the desire to obtain compliance and control in advance of identifying whether a crime is in process or has been committed. As a result, the incident is immediately and needlessly escalated into a potentially deadly situation because he didn't care to ascertain how the circumstances he found himself in corresponded to the law, or didn't care to do so and applied his own version of the law (which in my opinion is exactly what he chose to do).
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