Footage of two New York City police officers opening fire at a subway station as they confronted a man holding a knife shows they shot at him as he was standing still, his arms by his side and his back to a train.
In the days since Sunday’s shooting, police officials have repeatedly emphasized that the officers fired after Derell Mickles “charged” at one of them, and when their attempts to deescalate the situation and use Tasers had failed — leaving them with little choice but to resort to deadly force to protect themselves and passengers.
The footage, uploaded to the NYPD’s YouTube page Friday, offers a different view of the shooting that not only wounded Mickles but also a bystander, who was hit in the head with a stray bullet. Gregory Delpeche, 49, was sent to the hospital in critical condition, where doctors had to open up his skull to reduce brain swelling, according to his family.
A cop would rather shoot and kill a suspect and bystanders than suffer even the slightest of injury. I don’t blame the cops for being scared of a potential knife and blasting the guy without a care for anything but your own skin. But don’t do that and call yourself a hero.
Tbf, a knife isn’t “the slightest injury” but potentially deadly
Context is important.
A knife is “potentially deadly” sitting in a knife block if there are people around because someone could grab it out of the knife block and start stabbing.
This guy was not posing a threat.
I’m not so sure in this situation that I wouldn’t call him a threat. He shrugged off a taser or two?(unsure if they hit their taser darts or whatever) sprinted at an officer with a knife in his hand yelling shoot me if I heard correctly. But shooting at him 9 times is absurd. They shoulda just kept dancing around with him tbh and never drawn their guns only tasers. Or shit find a broom and just use reach he didn’t seem to want to hurt anyone but maybe suicide by cop from the whole sprinting at the cop saying shoot me. Again if I heard correctly.
His arms were at his side. He was not moving. That makes him not a threat.
At which moment in time are you referring? The only time I consider him a threat was when he sprinted at the officer. Edit: I wasn’t clear initially my apologies.
At the moment he was murdered? What other moment would I be referring to?
Yeah at that time the threat was his partner. Who shot him 😆
Honestly I think that’s a pretty low expectation.
I’m not going to watch the video but killing someone when there is no imminent threat is murder.
The threat was definitely there, the man was aggressive from the moment they approached him.
Now I definitely don’t agree with how they reacted to literally every aspect of this situation, they’re lucky more people haven’t been hurt from their idiotic decision making. But to call this a non threat situation is pretty dishonest.
He was a threat but never life threatening I guess is the best way to describe it. The only life threatening action was the police gunfire. Him sprinting at a cop with a knife in his hand is threatening but not life threatening imo. Specially not when he just casually stopped?? Then again adrenaline and all I’m not even sure the cop getting chased knew he had stopped by the time he was firing even though it seems very obvious.
yeah you’d think they’d at least have better aim
Talk to anyone that runs a gun range, and they’ll tell you that cops have the worst aim. They have a tendency to point in the general direction of their target, then pull the trigger until it goes click.
The smart ones aren’t on the streets. I imagine detectives probs have decent aim but I know nothing but conjecture and assumptions 😆
I worked alongside law enforcement for awhile and this was my experience as well. The run of the mill patrolman isn’t very bright and will spend a long time sitting in a car. The smarter ones rise through the ranks pretty quickly, taking advantage of the huge growth potential in LE.
Most departments offer huge incentives and bonuses to continue your education and advance. It’s very military in its structure and by the time you’re working homicide or major cases pretty much everyone has a Masters degree or comparable specialized training. They’re still bastards but they’re definitely not stupid.