“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.” — NRA CEO, Wayne LaPierre
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.” ― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
Last November 15, in Austin TX, there was no “bad guy with a gun.” However, “a [nominally] good guy with a gun” shot and killed another good guy with a gun. The dead man was Rajan “Raj” Moonesinghe, 33. His killer was APD officer Daniel Sanchez.
Moonesinghe had returned from a trip in the early morning hours and suspected a burglar might be in his home. He picked up his rifle and stood outside his home, facing the house, pointing his gun inside. Sanchez responding to a 911 call, arrived on the scene and shot Moonesinghe dead. Those are the facts.
Moonesinghe’s family maintains Sanchez gave the victim no chance to put the weapon down or say he was the homeowner.
The police seem to corroborate their version. According to the Austin PD,
“Officer Sanchez was the first to observe Mr. Moonesinghe and gave him a verbal command to drop the gun. Immediately after telling Mr. Moonesinghe to drop the gun, Officer Sanchez fired his Department-approved firearm at Mr. Moonesinghe. Mr. Moonesinghe was struck and fell to the ground.”
The cynic in me says that the Austin PD’s willingness to admit there was no more than a split second between the command to drop the gun and the cop firing multiple shots is mainly because a ring video, with sound, delineates the timeline. It offers the police no wriggle room.
As reported by NBC News, the two-minute video shows,
“Moonesinghe carrying the rifle outside his home while walking toward the street. He appears to briefly hold up the rifle before turning around and walking toward his front door and pointing the rifle.
He appears to say, “Yep, you want this?” Several seconds pass and then Moonesinghe says, “Are you sure?” “Oh my God, you’re f------ stupid. You’re f------ stupid.”
He then points the rifle toward the doorway and a loud gunshot is heard while a police car passes in the background of the video. A second police car then passes. A second shot is heard while Moonesinghe is not in camera range, according to the video.
He then comes into view of the camera and is walking on his porch when what sounds like “drop the gun” is shouted, and nearly simultaneously multiple shots are heard on the video.”
Moonesinghe then drops to the ground and shouts, “It wasn’t me.” He then yells an expletive, the video shows. “Subject is down, hands are up” is heard on the video.
Moonesinghe again appears to say, “It wasn’t me.”
The Austin Chronicle reports how Moonessinghe’s family reacted to his slaying.
“The videos and the facts they illustrate have devastated Moonesinghe’s family. His brother, Johann, the co-founder of a restaurant investing and consulting business with Raj, called the shooting “murder.”
“[I]t is evident that the officer who shot Raj did this without identifying himself, without thinking, and before giving my brother a chance to explain who he was and why he was outside,” Johann said in a statement. “Instead, he arrived without flashing lights or sirens, pulled out an assault rifle, took a hidden defensive position behind a fence 25 yards away, and killed my brother. He began firing before finishing his command to ‘drop your gun’ and continued to fire once Raj had dropped his gun and put his hands up.”
The family has released its own split-screen edit that syncs up the 911 call, the Ring footage of Moonasinghe, and the video from Sanchez's bodycam "to present an accurate timeline of events."
You can tell from his name Raj was not white. How Raj’s non-whiteness influenced Sanchez, we do not yet — and may never — know. But history demands that whenever a cop shoots a civilian of color, the possibility of racism — overt or insidious — must factor into the investigation.
Police also need to understand the majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens. And the rules in many states, including Texas, allow those citizens to carry their weapons almost anywhere. And every person’s home is their castle — subject to a doctrine.
What is the solution? Here are a few ideas. I welcome others.
- Establish a national police registry. Too often, cops fired for misconduct from one department end up with a job in another.
- Create standardized psychological/personality assessments for potential police officers. The job attracts too many authoritarians suffering from anger management issues.
- Run social media background checks on law enforcement applicants - with an emphasis on uncovering racist and white supremacist/nationalist sympathies.
- Improve training. Emphasize de-escalation and mediation.
- Require cops to maintain minimum physical fitness standards.
- Direct more law enforcement resources to mental health professionals.
- Establish civilian review boards for all police departments.
Other measures might include
- Require cops to live in the areas they police.
- Mandate that police departments better reflect the demographics of the community they serve.
- Increase community policing.
- Require ongoing professional development courses.
- Working with police unions to make it easier to fire bad cops.
“Defund the police” is a dumb slogan. We all need cops — especially in high crime areas, which are often in inner-city minority neighborhoods. But everyone, no matter their circumstances, deserves to have psychologically healthy and well-trained officers who are motivated to do a good job.
No one deserves to be executed on their front porch by a police officer hiding in the bushes who might have been scared shitless. - and was unprepared to do the right thing.