Whether Albany police were justified in killing Nahcream Moore on South Pearl Street Thursday night will depend on whether their story holds up under investigation. But the statements critical of police by Willisa Marshall, driver of the SUV in which Moore was a passenger, do not persuade me.
She said, "He didn't shoot at your officer, so you should have been trying to get the gun away from him, not to shoot him in front of us," as recorded by Channel 13 news (that's my transcription; I think their printed story on that link slightly misquotes her). In the TU story (first link above), that quote does not appear, and instead she is quoted as saying: "I didn't see no gun. If he did have one, I'm sure he did not approach them with his." Moore got out of the car before he was killed.
Marshall obviously would not have been surprised if Moore were carrying a gun, and apparently thinks that if he did brandish one, police should not have responded with deadly force. Nor is her opinion unusual. It was apparently applauded at the public meeting where she spoke Friday, and echoes similar comments made earlier this year in England by people connected to Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by London police served as the spark for several days of rioting across that country.
While "racial profiling" and other alleged injustices are being cited in this case, it seems to me part of the problem is popular entertainment. I don't so much mean the modern rap music or other media demonizing police, but the long-conventional scenario in which the cop or cowboy hero waits for the bad guy to fire at him before shooting back. In the real world at close range, doing that would likely get you killed or badly wounded, and is not what police are trained to do.
I've actually written about the growing militarization of our law enforcement here:
http://farenellphotography.blogspot.com/2011/11/tasers-and-police-brutality_21.html
...& have openly called upon my own police department to explain some of their positions.
I don't pretend to know the facts of the case but considering how much the Albany PD's own positions changed during their own Occupy eviction enforcement, I wouldn't be so quick to side w/ them. It'd also behoove them to define how they themselves "deadly force" as well as how they define "imminient danger."
Point being just because a person has a deadly weapon (like a knife or firearm), doesn't grant them the automatic right to apply that "deadly force." Or at least that was my own pre-9/11, peacetime Marine training dictated.
Posted by: Matthew | January 01, 2012 at 09:58 PM