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Question about 13yr old Adam Toledo Shooting, re: justification for a shooting, and the photo we see with him hands up facing police?

in the photo, the boy is has not yet been shot. He has mostly fully turned to face the police and has his hands up and its clear there is nothing in his hands.   According to the rules as far as I know, if a suspect has his hands raised and there is no weapon in his hands and clearly is nowhere near making a threatening gesture like he is taking aim at the police, there is no apparent justification for the shooting.  

Now the police I believe that while he was stiff facing the other way and starting to turn and still had his hands down they saw something in his hand that could have been a gun, and that this is the justification for the shooting, and that well, the police have only a fraction of a second as one police commentator said to decide whether their life is being threatened or not.  But is this not the problem with some of these police shootings?  that police are feeling their lives threatened by being shot by a suspect who either has no weapon in his hand aimed at the police or many times do not even have a gun at all in their hands.

The fact that the young man is a criminal and had been apparently involved in a shooting and even if he was seen holding a gun by themselves do not justify him being shot. The police seem to be willing to kill a citizen in many cases without true justification other than the fact that they want to protect themselves and virtually killing the potential for risk before risk even presents itself.  The guy had his hands up.

Update:

and you cannot shoot someone with your hands up, even if he was still holding the gun.  So to me, shooting him at that time, seems like saying, hey he had a gun, he is dangerous, I am killing him to make sure I am safe.   To me this is a problem that needs to be addressed.  I know police do a very dangerous job, but its what they signed up for. If they do not want to do it by the book and take the risks that come with doing the job lawfully and Constitutionally then they should not take the job.

Update 2:

In response to one of the answers. Well, maybe we should make it clear to cops being hired is that you will not shoot anyone unless it is for sure and provable that your life is being threatened and doing so will not only get you fired but liable for being sued personally by the victims and face criminal prosecution. How do you think their attitude will change then? I then that would surely change their attitude.  No cowards only looking to stay safe need apply.  Problem fixed.

Update 3:

Only an idiot would think anyone is saying cops need to wait to get shot to shoot.  Why I am saying is I wish they would not shoot suspects in cases when after the fact its clear there was no threat to them at all.  The split second justification does not hold water, because just turning is not a threat, it should be a) knowing for sure there is a weapon in hand, and b) that weapon is making a movement to shoot.  If the cop already has gun in hand aimed at the suspect, there is no way

Update 4:

that turning suspect should be able to beat him to a shot, even if he still had a gun and was planning to start shooting at them.  It should be see suspect with gun turn, see suspect making a movement to begin aiming, ok, shoot suspect.

Update 5:

Running around at 2:00am as `13 yr old is not a death sentence in a free country.  My lord, what kind of morons do we have in our country these days?  You people who harp about freedom all the time do not understand that all our freedoms are important and one freedom we must guard dearly is the freedom from a police brutality state.  The issue here is not whether the person being shot is a bad person or a criminal, its due process, its the Constitution, the right to a trial by judge or jury etc.

Update 6:

The police having the power to kill citizens so easily is not a very good sign that we are a free country like we love to think we are. 

13 Answers

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  • 7 days ago

    Leftist trolls are easily deceived by new media outlets editing the video to misrepresent the situation.

  • 1 week ago

    The cop screamed "Drop the f*cking gun, turn around with your hands up". 

    Adam Toledo dropped the gun, turned around, and put his hands up.

  • 1 week ago

    https://youtu.be/ylY31U7-l9s

    If it was you would you be willing to be shot first by an individual that is willing to kill you? He dropped the gun because he was out of bullets if he had more rounds he would have shot you.

  • Anonymous
    1 week ago

    I agree with almost all of what you are saying first of all. Wholeheartedly. In fact when you look at the cop’s own body cam stills you can see that shot where the kid has his hands up and he’s illuminated by a blindingly bright flashlight attached to the cop’s gun. He’s lit up so well that it’s so obvious he has absolutely nothing in his hands. That much is clear.

     So many people on here are always blaming civilians who get shot by cops because they didn’t “comply”. Here is a situation where this child dud everything he was supposed to do....stopped fleeing as he was told, put up his hands as he was told....and he STILL got shot in the chest and killed. 

    And if he had kept running who’s to say he wouldn’t have been shot in the back? And possibly been killed that way? I’m sure it would’ve been a very likely scenario. Regardless, he did as he was told. Every step of the way.

    I wish other people would have the same insights and observations into this type of an issue that you have.But I was wondering where you got the information that this 13-year-old was a “criminal” and was involved in a “shooting”? 

    So far I have heard no reports that this child or even his companion had any criminal record. From what I understand, the neighborhood where this occurred has an audio monitoring system where the sound of gunshots can be detected 24/7, recorded and the location of the shots immediately relayed to the police.  

    Apparently that is what happened in this situation, that eight gun shots were picked up by this monitoring system and a police officer or officers was/were immediately dispatched to the location and arrived within two minutes apparently.So again, there’s no evidence thus far that the 13 y/o child had a criminal record. In fact, they are saying that he had wanted to become a cop when he got older. 

    For all we know it might just have been a situation where this child was being influenced by this older 21 y/o who had gotten the gun somewhere, maybe a parent left it lying around at home (?) and maybe they were just fooling around and shooting it because they had nothing better to do with that particular moment on that particular  morning. Maybe they just wanted to make some noise like kids will do when they are bored and decide to light off fireworks for example. Who knows?

  • 1 week ago

    Just admit it. You support the police shooting people that in the final analysis did not deserve to be shot because the police are scared and pooping in their pants doing their jobs.  Just admit it and we can move on, for this is my entire point. I was scared because the guy ran, I was scared because the guy moved suddenly, I was scared because the guy was holding a knife 20 yards away from me...I was scared because the guy sneezed.  Its all sounds like cowardly sniveling to me.

  • 1 week ago

    It's amusing that you sit there on your mom's couch in the basement leisurely making decisions that the cop had less than 1 second to make.

    It was dark.  The kid was carrying a gun.  And when the kid stopped to turn around, his hands weren't full up in the air, as you pretend they are.  Were you aware that having an arm level to the ground is also a firing position?

    For all the people allegedly concerned about this kid, why weren't they concerned that a 13 year old was running around committing crimes at 2:30 am on a school night?  Where were the parents then? Where was his "concerned" family then?

  • Ivan
    Lv 6
    1 week ago

    That picture was a still taken from a video. In real time the moment of the shooting happened very fast. The gun was found there on the ground, and the kid had gunshot residue on his hands. He used that gun for something, and the cops claim he shot at them.  That boy was probably a thug in training. I suppose you'd be ok with him using his gun to kill some innocent for his initiation into his gang to go on with his criminal life. Remember. it was a 14 year old the murdered a young female college student in a robbery last year and it was another 14 year old that murdered the pizza delivery and then stole his money and his car. The only difference between old thugs and young thugs is time and experience.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    1 week ago

    The little kid's parents/guardians will hopefully be held responsible for allowing him to be out..... with a firearm.... at 2:30 in the freaking morning.  Those parents/guardians got the kid killed.... not the cop.

  • Anonymous
    1 week ago

    why is a kid running down an alley with a gun at 2:30 in the morning

    the problem isn’t the police

  • ?
    Lv 6
    1 week ago

    he ditched the gun behind the fence, turned around and raised his hands in the same action, what the cop saw was a gun in the hand that then disappeared behind his body as he turned towards him and the hand that had the gun raising as he turned, the cop didn't see him chuck the gun behind the fence, the cop was completely justified in his actions, it's too bad the kid felt like ditching the gun would change anything, instead of just dropping it, and it's too bad that he decided to turn around to put his hands up instead of just stopping and putting them up, it's a series of unfortunate events, but the cop made a split second decision, and his decision was based on defense not malice, I don't know why you idiots think a cop needs to wait to be shot before shooting

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