This from Willis Eschenbach:

Here's a sane analysis of the police shooting of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old running from police in Chicago at 2:30 AM ...

From the article:

The video clearly depicts a tragedy—but it is far from clear that it depicts a crime, let alone one motivated by racial animus. Consider four freeze-frames from the body-camera footage of Officer Stillman.

In the first (pictured below), Toledo is seen holding what appears to be a gun in his right hand. Notice the timestamp, which shows the second-marker at 39 seconds. At this point, Toledo, who had led Officer Stillman on a foot-chase through the dark alley, had come to a stop and was beginning to orient his body toward Stillman.

The second freeze-frame (pictured below) shows Toledo as he turned to his left toward the officer, at which point both the gun and his right hand were positioned behind Toledo’s body, hidden from the officer’s view. This seems to be the point at which Toledo began to toss the gun behind the wooden fence, which the officer could not have seen through. Again, notice the second-marker on the time stamp, which is still at 39 seconds. The time that has elapsed between these two freeze frames is in the range of a few-hundred milliseconds. Notice also how blurry both the arm and hand of officer Stillman are, reminding us that, while the media has fixated on a single freeze-frame we can all pore over while sitting still in well-lit rooms, the picture before Stillman was dark and in motion.

The next frame (see below) shows that Toledo is still turning toward the officer, while his right hand (and the gun) are still hidden from view. Notice how blurry Toledo is in the frame, indicating that he and/or Stillman are still in motion. And take note of the second-marker, which is still at just 39 seconds.

The final freeze-frame captures the moment Officer Stillman fired his weapon—as Toledo was completing his turn to face Stillman, while raising his now-empty hands. This is the point at which journalists and commentators have decided to both start and end their analysis of this case.

Notice, again, the time stamp, which shows the second-marker at 40 seconds.

Sometimes, police officers simply don’t have the luxury of even ten seconds to assess a situation. Consider another disturbing video(released just five days ago) which depicts the murder of New Mexico State Police Officer Darian Jarrott. While this incident got far less attention than other recent officer-involved shootings, it shows just how quickly a suspect’s hands can go from empty to armed.

Less than one second elapsed between Toledo beginning his turn toward the officer with a gun in his right hand, and the officer firing a single shot from his service weapon. And these were not ideal conditions in which to make a split-second decision: it was dark, and Stillman’s heart rate and adrenaline levels were likely elevated due to the foot chase. Furthermore, Stillman and his partner had encountered Toledo and another man, who was taken into custody at the scene, because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. ShotSpotter is a system of sensors that detects gunfire in real-time and provides that information to nearby police, so that they can respond to shootings more quickly. When Stillman and his partner arrived, there were only two people in sight. One of them took off with a gun in his hand.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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