The following is commentary by witnesses for the defense in case where a San Francisco transit police officer pulled his pistol instead of his taser and shot an apprehended suspect in the back.
http://www.policeone.com/...
The "expert witness" for the defense concluded that, “This is is a classic illustration of powerful forces beyond an officer’s conscious awareness that can shape a threatening encounter. These forces may not be readily evident even to unbiased witnesses, but in a matter of seconds they can change the lives of those involved forever.”
From the witness stand, defense “experts” explained how, in their opinions, psychological concepts such as “slips-and-capture errors” and “inattentional blindness,” along with equipment positioning and an absence of stress-inoculation training, became driving factors in the controversial case.”
According to Tulsa police officials, the cops in Tulsa are the real victims. The officer who shot the alleged perpetrator was a victim of "slips and capture," a junk science theory used to excuse officers from exercising due care in stress situations. BUT, A local officer had no problem calling this junk science in to defend the officer accused in the shooting. He indicated that his investigation of the shooting led him to conclude that the deputy committed no crime-- it was an obvious instance of "slips and capture."
This, by the way, is a great defense. As in, "I didn't mean to shoot my wife during the argument, I was just reaching for a tire iron to shut her up."
As for the officer who said those horrid three words,police officials indicate the officer was a victim of "auditory exclusion," a condition (like tunnel vision) that is sometimes associated with an adrenalin rush. He didn’t know the man was shot, didn’t hear the shot, didn’t hear the man’s screams, so he was just trash talking a perp.
Weird the way that works, a shot is fired, the victim is screaming he has been shot, but the officer only hears the much softer dying plea that the victim is losing his breath and then responds with casual cruelty.
So, according to Tulsa police officials, the officers are the victims, and the death was just "one of those accidents that happen"--nothing to be done and no one really to blame, except maybe the fates.
Oklahoma has never been a hotbed of progressive thinking or a place where the public demands sensible responses to police or political misconduct. Somehow, in the last few decades in the prairie states, good sense seems to have gone out the door with the last vestiges of the Democratic Party. Oklahoma is right there in thick of that pack.
What police officials in Tulsa don't recognize is that they are not trying to sell their tired bullshit to a bunch of red meat Okies whose first response to this tragedy will that the victim "shouldna run."
These officials are now trying to feed their barnyard crap to a nation armed with 24 hour news channels, commentators who, unlike FOX Noise, often know s**t from shinola, and a public who are learning that cops telling the truth about violent encounters happens about as often as the dish running away with the spoon and the cow jumping over the moon.
Those weak-assed defenses of the indefensible won't save Tulsa police, hopefully, from the nation ridicule and public thrashing they deserve, which might set them on the road to reform.
As for the trash talker, he needs to be someplace where they can replace his missing empathy and where he doesn't carry a shield and a gun.
The shooter (For God’s sake, who puts a gun in the hands of a 73 year old insurance executive and sends him out to chase suspects?) gets to have a court decide his fate (probably with a guy on the bench who is just a bit younger and belongs to the same country club).