Originally Posted by
joeymagz
I'm not justifying what the police officer did, and I'm definitely not defending Castile.
Here's how the traffic stop should have gone down:
Officer: Sir, do you have a weapon on you?
*Castile has hands at 10/2 on steering wheel*
Castile: Yes, I do.
*Officer draws weapon*
Officer: Where is the weapon?
Castile: In my waistband.
*Castile's hands should STILL be at 10/2, visible, no movement*
Officer: Get out of the vehicle, SLOWLY, put your hands on the hood, spread your legs. DO NOT reach for the weapon, DO NOT do anything else unless instructed to do so.
Castile: *Does what he was instructed to do*
Officer: *Searches Castile and pulls firearm from waistband, places it out of reach from Castile.*
Officer: Do you have a permit for this? *traffic stop continues on, no one gets shot*
This particular traffic stop did not go down like that, obviously. When asked if he had a weapon, Castile chose to reach for something. The police officer yelled at him not to reach for it - whatever the IT was - and Castile reached anyway. Castile's actions will get you shot, tasered, or beaten, 99.9% of the time. Whether that's his wallet, or the weapon, none of us will ever know. What we do know, is that a jury of 12 ordinary citizens, including 2 black jurors, found this police officer innocent. That means that all 12 of those jurors were presented all evidence from both parties, including testimony from the girlfriend, and declared there was no wrong-doing. For us to sit here and pick apart piecemeal evidence presented by our favorite biased media organization over a year after the fact is ridiculous.
Also, the video that the girlfriend took AFTER THE SHOOTING means nothing to this case. "Feels" aren't evidence. Speaking of feels, you can clearly hear the police officer is upset, knowing that he just took a life. People act as if killing someone is easy because they do it all day in their video games.
Honestly, in all of these cases my thought has always been, "Why is the Police Officer alone?" With the way society is today, and people wanting cops to be hung, I don't understand why cops don't have partners in every situation, and body cams. Juries would have two angles of every situation, and there would be no guesswork. I can also guarantee that police shootings would go down as well because police officers would feel safer having a partner covering their ass.