Charles Hill ‘allegedly’ threw a knife at a BART policeman on July 3 and was killed for it. Witnesses say Mr. Hill did throw the knife. But did he deserve to die for it?
Law and Order fanatics will no doubt respond with a loud and forceful ‘YES!”. I’m for law and order. But this man did not deserve to die at the hands of a public servant.
Police are trained to respond to an attack on them or the public with deadly force. I think they should be.
Police should also be trained to look deeper into the situation. After the knife was thrown Mr. Hill was now unarmed. So, the police officer now retaliated against an action taken towards him rather than defended his life and public safety. Retaliation is NOT an acceptable reason for a police officer to use deadly force.
Witnesses say the homeless Mr. Hill was drunk. I’m willing to bet that the unidentified police officer could see that Mr. Hill was drunk. Given that situation, the act of throwing the knife was most certainly an act of defiance. Had Mr. Hill pulled a gun I would be one of the first to applaud the officer for the shooting. But, this is not the case.
My use of the term ‘excessive use of force’ in this situation will no doubt be challenged by policemen everywhere. It was clearly unnecessary for this police officer to fire his weapon at Mr. Hill. This weapon was fired because the officer was pissed off at this civilian for having the ‘audacity’ to strike out at him. This type of behavior is unbecoming a peace officer.
This type of ‘split-second’, reactionary behavior breaks down the respect that the civilian population should have for its police force. This type of behavior breeds ‘fear’ from the civilian population. We should never ‘fear’ our public servants.
In the long history of ‘officer involved shooting’ investigations nearly 100% of the time the officer involved is found to be free of any wrong-doing. In the eyes of the public and especially eye witnesses to these shootings, the police have become a ‘government sanctioned street gang’ who will stand by each other no matter how atrocious and culpable their actions against the general public.
Our nation’s police forces need to start working WITH the public whom they are sworn to protect and check their ego and machismo at the door.
The retaliation killing of an unarmed, drunken individual is not acceptable.
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