often we talk about officer-involved shootings where suspects are actually
unarmed but where officers have some reason to believe that the suspect is
armed whether reasonable or unreasonable such as the recent hamburger parking lot
case but you know things are getting out of hand when officers are now shooting
at empty cars where there's not even a suspect holding a hamburger would
you like to see a video of this happening stand by because I have one unfortunately
this happened in Grand Rapids Michigan on March 18 2022 Kent County deputies Paul Romer and Pat
Albert Not Fat Albert but close we're sitting in a police cruiser at the scene of the accident where
a vehicle adjust struck a power pole the vehicle was now unoccupied the driver who had fallen
asleep before hitting the pole was now sitting on the side of the road nearby waiting on a tow truck
the deputies had been in their police cruiser about 20 minutes when Deputy Albert yelled all
of a sudden go go go because he saw the power pole giving way he thought the lines were going
to come down on their car so Albert runs away but Deputy Romer who had just been hired by that
department a couple months earlier did not run away instead he ran behind the cruiser pulled his
handgun and fired Two Shots towards the unoccupied wrecked car as well as its driver nearby go go
43 21 seconds shots fired
Patrick
fortunately nobody was hit he was apparently a terrible shot because he didn't even hit
the empty car the department publicly stated that they planned to complete an internal investigation
as well as issued the following statement quote this is a difficult circumstance for any deputy
and we're ensuring Deputy Romer has support from the employee assistance program and co-workers
no doubt that was true on May 3rd 2022 the Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker announced that the
shooting was justified Becker said that although the officer fired in the direction of a civilian
with the bullet striking some unknown location the officer was nevertheless Justified because
quote he thought someone was attacking him by the way since when is that the standard
any shooting is Justified so long as the shooter thinks that someone is attacking him of course
if only there was some legal jargon to insert into that sentence to account for irrational
or unreasonable thoughts or people something like the word reasonable the 800-pound gorilla
in any shooting case is reasonableness most officer-involved shootings are going to involve
allegations from the shooter that he thought that someone was attacking him the question is whether
that belief was reasonable based on the totality of the circumstances the problem with the recent
hamburger case for instance was that the totality of the circumstances did not provide reasonable
justification for a belief that there was any imminent threat here the only imminent threat was
the power pole and the electric lines there was no suspicion of any criminal being at the scene
there was no suspicion or indication that the driver of the wrecked car posed a threat to anyone
assuming that that's who he was shooting at the known danger the only known danger here was the
electricity which cannot be killed with bullets so as Deputy Romer just shooting at nothing was
it Justified for a police officer to shoot at some unidentified Target with an unidentified backstop
of course not and what other vocation do you get to royally screw up in this way and completely
Escape consequences as I've discussed before even if some innocent bystander was hit he'd probably
Escape liability anyways because unintentionally injuring bystanders does not generally meet the
intention element that's required to win a section 1983 lawsuit for civil rights violations and even
if it did with the lack of a prior case of an officer shooting at an uh attacking power pole
he'd probably get qualified immunity in any event I just want you to see this footage so that you'd
remember never assume that your government at any level is above any level of incompetence including
shooting at an unoccupied vehicle or even electricity live your life accordingly as always
thanks for watching you'll find more information in the link below to my blog at the Civil Rights
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videos and also comment with your thoughts about this situation do you find this excusable should
this officer ever be trusted with a firearm around civilians how do you think this would have played
out if it was or say the tow truck driver who did this when he got to the scene rather than a police
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