Can you see the gun in his hand?

[Egnever]

I cropped this from the body cam footage directly from the CPD you can download it yourself from their website here

http://charlottenc.gov/newsroom/Pages/BreakingNews.aspx

It is just below the video in the middle of the page.

In this crop I put two arrows. The top arrow is pointing to what I think is his hand around the handle of the gun with the mag facing the camera. The bottom arrow is pointing to what I think is the barrel. It is black and has very hard edges unlike anything else in the pic.

Am I wrong?

[Chemisse]

1. Could be.

I thought he had a gun in his right hand in footage at a different angle, but it was very far from clear.

All the evidence indicates he had a gun: the cops yelling 'drop the gun' a dozen times, the wife yelling 'keith, don't do it'.

If that is the case, I think the wife was absolutely wrong to claim otherwise and to let demonstrations occur based on a presumption that an unarmed man was shot. It cheapens the cause.

I still have questions as to why the cops approached him in the car to begin with, possibly instigating and creating the whole crisis to come.

[uponit7771]

2. There IS STILL no photo evidence of a gun.in Scott's hand no.matter what the alt right tries to

... bullying (via typical ad homs) people into thinking.

There's more evidence pointing towards a gun on his person vs a gun in his hand

And "drop the gun" has been said before in orange wallet shootings...

Even if there was a gun it's clear the reason they engaged him in the first place was pure bullshit... they are even making shit up now claiming Scott was smoking while holding the gun

Fuck the cpd in this one....bad shooting

No doubt

[bigtree]

18. you just have to wonder why

...so many posts by a few here trying to convince members of a majority progressive community that this man was culpable in his death, with zero effort by the same to cast doubt on the officer who shot him dead.

The conclusion I get is that these posters are working to exonerate the cop. I find the effort reprehensible, insensitive, and curiously in line with most of the conservative commentary on this incident.

The focus of progressives should be on police accountability, not victim blaming.

[uponit7771]

19. Yeah... They don't even think people notice

[Rex]

34. I think they just don't care.

They can get away with it, so they do.

[tonyt53]

29. No, the focus should be on responsibility - by EVERYONE.

[bigtree]

35. that's rich

...'responsibility' from a dead man.

[loyalsister]

22. Our local FOX news commentators are doing their job

Our local FOX news commentators doing their job. Present a narrative to support a foregone conclusion, smear the victim, smear the protesters, and hopefully rope BLM into all of it.

[Lee-Lee]

3. Looks like it, and with the totality of the evidence it's clear it was

They approached him because they saw the gun. Had it been in the ankle holster how would they have seen it?
Despite police having guns aimed at him yelling to drop the gun he held his arms down on the pose seen- a pose that is consistent with a gun in the right hand. Any normal person work react by dropping anything else in their hands and raising them to show they are empty. He doesn't- why?
The gun was down next to him within seconds of him being shot and you can see one officer move it away with his feet. The "on he person" conspiracy theory doesn't work because the video shows this whole period and doesn't show anyone remove it from his person.
He was wearing an ankle holste that matched his gun, blowing the "throw down" gun conspiracy theory folks away. If the gun was in the holster there is no way they would have been able to get it out in that video.
The person who stole the gun and sold it to him has further admitted to doing so.

The totality of the circumstances and all the evidence paint a clear picture to anyone who is looking at it. Some people seem to be demanding pure IMAX 3D quality footage or else they will clink to their conspiracy theories, but rational and logical people by no can see that all the evidence points to a gun in the hand.

[ManiacJoe]

4. The video quality is not good enough to make any accurate conclusions.

On a side note, this is why head-mounted cameras are far superior to body-mounted cameras.

[Lee-Lee]

5. I'm kinda shocked CMPD bought such cheap cameras

They not only went with low resolution units but low memory ones that require the officer to constantly remember to turn it on and off at the beginning and end of calls. That's asinine and increases officer workload, increases chances for errors and means things that happen suddenly or unexpectedly worn even have the footage saved.

I know Charlotte can afford better and am pretty shocked the city council only funded the cheapest ones available on an item like this.

[Travis_0004]

6. Battery life is a limiting factor

They simply can not design them to have a 10 hour battery life while still having a small battery. The technology is not there yet.

[Lee-Lee]

11. There is

It requires battery packs in the shirt pockets, but they do work. We use them at work for some of the guards.

http://www.wolfcomusa.com/wolfcom_vision_police_body_worn.html

[ManiacJoe]

7. While the camera do seem to be low quality,

all cameras used by police departments require the camera to be manually turned on and off.

[Lee-Lee]

10. There are some out there now that will work a full 8 hour shift like CMPD does

I know the Wolfcom units will last a full 8 hours of continuous recording, but the battery won't always do a full 12 hour shift. They list it as 6.5 but they do ore, and with the optional extended batteries in a shirt pocket that can go up to 14 hours. And do 1080p quality.

Even if you need to swap batteries mid shift thats still preferable to the constant on/off.

http://www.wolfcomusa.com/wolfcom_vision_police_body_worn.html

[kentuck]

8. Was it cold?

Why have a glove?

[jmg257]

9. May be. An interesting question is why was he prepared to take on a 1/2 dozen cops

with a gun loaded with only 1 round.

[tonyt53]

30. He wasn't going back to jail. His decision.

[MrScorpio]

12. Not really, but I can see a gun in this other guy's hand...

Last edited Wed Sep 28, 2016, 08:51 AM - Edit history (1)

He's pointing it at police, police who for some unexplained reason chose not to shoot his ass to death.


Gee, I wonder what's so different about this guy.

[uponit7771]

20. +1, could it be his shoes? No?....hmmnn / sarcasm

[Vinca]

13. It could be, but is deadly force the appropriate action for failure to drop a gun

that is legal to carry thanks to the crazy laws of the state? If he spun and aimed at the officers, it might be appropriate, but being a pain in the ass and refusing to obey orders isn't a reason to shoot to kill.

[Lee-Lee]

14. Its not Hollywood

Studies have shown that a man in the posture he is in can raise and fire a gun faster than even well trained officers can detect the movement, process it in the brain, make a decision to shoot and pull the trigger.

Read this to see just how fast it all can happen.


https://www.policeone.com/Officer-Safety/articles/3705348-New-reaction-time-study-addresses-whats-reasonable-in-armed-suspect-encounters/


Nobody has the flawless lightning fast reaction times like the movies show. The wait until he aims it is just not realistic and plays an undo risk on officers, as this study proves.

[Vinca]

15. As I told you before, I was also a cop.

Personally, I could not shoot unless a gun was aimed at me or someone else. If he made an action to raise the gun and aim, I would probably shoot, but I would rather risk being hurt than to take the life of an innocent person. Lots of cops hold the opinion that if it turns out the bad guy didn't do something this time, it doesn't really matter because they know he has done bad things or will do bad things so it's one less to worry about. I'm sure as a deputy you heard that, too.

[Lee-Lee]

17. I heard it, thankfully that generation was retiring out

And as bad as the footage is we don't know if he didn't make a start to raise the gun- even the slightest move upward or perception of it by the officer is enough to justify firing once he is refusing to drop the gun, and you know that.

I'm leaning more and more to this being a heat of the moment suicide by cop. He made stupid decisions and was caught and knew that he was facing a long time in prison for the gun and likely as a habitual felon and may have made the decision in the heat of that moment that he would rather provoke the cops into shooting him than go back to prison. And his wife's screams to him of "Keith don't you do it" may be because he had said to her he wouldn't be taken alive to go back to prison in previous discussions. I can't go into his mind, of course, but the theory makes sense.

[lame54]

23. a split second raise and fire would be very inaccurate...

as you point out - it's not the movies

[Lee-Lee]

24. Read the link I posted above- you are wrong there

They have actually down studies and measured the time a person takes to raise a gun from thier side and fire. The average was .38 seconds.

That is, in fact, the very definition of a "split second".

The study also showed the average reaction time of a well trained officer who already had a gun aimed at the person was .39 seconds. Just a hair slower, so in most cases both would get a shot off. Human reaction time is only so fast when seeing a threat, making a decision to use force or not then having the muscles squeeze the trigger.


https://www.policeone.com/Officer-Safety/articles/3705348-New-reaction-time-study-addresses-whats-reasonable-in-armed-suspect-encounters/

They list the methodology and results in the link, so if you doubt what I say read it.

[lame54]

25. you skipped right over my point...

yes, a person can raise and fire a gun quickly but hitting your target is another story - especially if your target is hiding behind a car

[Yo_Mama]

28. It looked to me (and the video is not good), that the cop fired

when he started turning toward the other cop. The yells to "drop the gun" having not been heeded, I think it was his movement toward a target that caused the shooting.

I also thought I saw a slight heft to the shoulder or shift in arm position as the turn started. The video isn't that great and I am an old fart with no expertise, so I could well be wrong. But that's the way it looked to me.

The video I am talking about was the dashcam in which the back is mostly toward the camera, so we are not seeing what the officers saw. If blood was on the gun, it was not in the holster though. It is not just what we all think we see - it is the forensic evidence.

[kcr]

16. No

Last edited Fri Sep 30, 2016, 11:32 AM - Edit history (1)

I also didn't see the cops planting a gun in the video, either.

[uponit7771]

21. +1

[Agnosticsherbet]

26. This image is too grainy to make that determination. I see a bad photo, not a gun.

[Yo_Mama]

27. I thought I saw the gun, but I am not sure. n/t

[gratuitous]

31. I see a butterfly on a . . . puppy?

What? This isn't a Rohrschach test?

[KG]

32. I lulz'd

[Rex]

33. That is the correct response.

Anything else would be a waste of time.