Victor Perez, 17, who also had cerebral palsy, had been in a coma since the April 5 shooting, and tests Friday showed that he had no brain activity, his aunt, Ana Vazquez, told The Associated Press. He had undergone several surgeries, with doctors removing nine bullets and amputating his leg.
The shooting outraged Perez’s family and Pocatello residents, and about 200 people attended a vigil Saturday morning outside the Pocatello hospital where he was treated. Another crowd of protesters gathered outside the Pocatello City Hall building, which also houses the police department, on Saturday afternoon. Police snipers were stationed on a nearby rooftop during the protest, though no violence was reported. Many of the protesters held signs with phrases like, “Do better, PPD” and “Justice for Victor,” and passing cars honked in acknowledgment.
Fair enough, but it seems like the cops should have the intelligence and situational awareness to understand the stopping power of a chain-link fence.
Im not a TRAINED cop, but I know that as long as he’s on the other side of the fence, armed only with a knife, I’m in no immediate danger, and I would use my words and my intelligence to try to talk him down.
If he jumps the fence, then it’s a different situation, but as long as he is caged, there are a LOT more steps to go through before we land on a magdump by multiple cops.
Frankly, I think the situation here is that one super-cowardly (or overly aggresive and trigger-happy) cop panicked and fired, and the rest unloaded, too, just to cover for the first one. Now they can’t just blame one bad cop, they have a bunch, which makes it look more justified. They probably talk about this strategy in the locker room - “If one fires, we all fire.”
I have heard multiple firearms trainers give statements to the effect of
And if you watch police body-cam footage, you can see their panic switch pull the trigger, and then the cadence of gunfire rapidly picks up after that first shot.
Go look at any police force in Europe where the ‘suspect with a knife’ gets vastly different treatment.
Euro cops almost always have a pistol, but the mentality is completely different regarding shoot v no-shoot
Yeah - it’s the panicy bit that’s such a problem. They failed the moment they opened fire. Cops need to be better trained to understand the difference between life threatening and not. And that frankly that their job is to accept some risk on behalf of the public.