I've watched this police shooting bodycam video twice, and can't come 100% to a conclusion whether the officer was 100% right here.
I don't believe it was an unjustified shooting, but at the same time, I do wonder if the officer could have handled it better and avoided it getting escalated like it did.
This took place in Seville, FL. Seville is in Volusia County, which is west of Daytona Beach. It's by Lake George and the Ocala National Forest, and is fairly remote. Therefore, due to the low population density in the area, the county chooses to concentrate most of its officers in DeLand, which is 25 miles south.
A single officer was in the area when a call came in about domestic violence. The officer showed up, encountered two Hispanic males in their 20s sitting outside the house, both of whom denied knowing what it was about, calling it "the wrong address".
However, eventually it became clear that it was indeed the right address, and that the wife of one of the two men was the one being beaten. In addition, another person on a cell phone was telling the officer that the woman gets beaten routinely there.
The accused man was very uncooperative, refusing to come down the stairs and talk to the officer.
The officer remained fairly calm throughout this part, attempting to reason with the guy and get him to just come down the stairs and talk.
Then came the trouble: His wife came out and accused him (in Spanish) of always beating her. He turned around and grabbed her, telling her to "calm down", as she seemed to cower away. It didn't appear he was hitting her, but he was definitely grabbing her and making unwanted physical contact.
At this point, the lone officer had a choice to make. Does he attempt to interfere and possibly escalate it into a violent confrontation, or does he wait to see how far it plays out?
He decided to approach and tase the guy, who screamed and fell to the ground.
He then told the guy to put his hands behind his back, and the guy refused. At this point, the suspect became super uncooperative, and basically just kept saying, "Shoot me" and "You're not taking me" (presumably referring to how he would resist arrest). He would not put his hands behind his back, and at a few points attempted to grab the officer's taser.
Finally, after a few tries of grabbing the taser, the officer told him that he would indeed shoot him if he didn't let go. The guy kept grabbing, and the officer shot him dead.
At that point, the officer also had to deal with angry family members who were acting aggressively, but nothing further occurred. The officer actually retreated back toward his vehicle after this, fearing he would be attacked on the staircase.
Backup was on its way from DeLand, but was still about 10 minutes away when the shooting occurred.
No further injuries occurred.
Here is a somewhat edited video with Spanish translations. The escalation occurs at 2:45. Sound is a little distorted.
Here is an unedited version with better sound, but no translations:
Aside from the obvious -- that the county screwed up by not providing at least 2 officers to the area of Seville -- here is my opinion:
I feel that the officer was in a very tough situation. Everyone was hostile from the start, nobody would come down the stairs, and basically the two dudes at the top of the stairs took a, "Fuck you, we're not cooperating, do what you want" attitude.
I always have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone like that who ends up getting shot.
The officer constantly had to worry that he was going to be jumped from behind if he tried anything, and also had to worry that there was no backup in case he got into a physical confrontation and it didn't go well.
The problem was that he was forced into a decision when the suspect started grabbing his wife who was accusing him of beating her.
I think he probably should have given the guy more time to stand down. There were no physical blows at that point, so he could have shouted repeatedly, "Get away from her or I'm going to have to use force", but perhaps he was worried that he would lose the element of surprise at that point.
Once he tased the guy, I think he would have been better off backing up and holding the guy at gunpoint, telling him to come down the stairs, while waiting for backup. (This way, if the guy just wanted to lie there without further cooperation, the officer could have simply waited out the 10-15 minutes until backup arrived.)
However, it's not entirely unreasonable that he simply wanted to arrest the guy at this point for assault on his wife (especially combined with the other allegations from the wife herself), and that the guy basically signed his own death warrant by repeatedly grabbing at the taser.
Bottom line:
- I don't feel sorry for the guy who died. It is very likely he was a habitual wife-beater, and also had to put on the macho act against the police, including grabbing at his taser.
- I basically support any officer-involved shootings where the suspect clearly grabbed at any kind of weapon belonging to the officer. This guy did it multiple times.
- The county needs to assign at least TWO officers to the area, so this doesn't happen again.
- The officer didn't handle it optimally, but it's hard to handle things optimally in the heat of the moment. It is clear that this officer didn't want to run a power trip or hurt anymore, but was getting increasingly exasperated by the uncooperative, aggressive suspect.
Police have a very difficult job, dealing with people like this. I try to cut them some slack in marginal situations where they end up shooting someone who is crazy/uncooperative/violent. Everyone should cooperate with police orders and not make their job harder. I have personally encountered asshole/power-tripping police officers, but never have I felt like the right play was to fight them or make things more difficult. I would absolutely NEVER grab for any of their weapons under any circumstances, unless I wanted to kill myself.
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Originally Posted by MrTickle
