On Thursday, Sheriff David Morgan defended his deputies actions as standard procedure because Roy Middleton “did not comply.”
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This post originally appeared at ThinkProgress
By Rebecca Leber
According to Florida Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan in a CNN interview Thursday, the police officers who fired 15 shots at 60-year-old Roy Middleton in the driveway of his and his mother’s home acted entirely within their limits in response to a 911 call for a suspected car theft. For his late-night excursion to grab cigarettes out of his mother’s car, Middleton is now recovering from a bullet wound in his leg, along with bullets piercing his mother’s car and the side of the house.
On Thursday, Morgan defended the officers’ actions as standard procedure because Middleton “did not comply.” Asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo how police could justify 15 shots at a 60-year-old man, Morgan said the officers saw a metallic object in Middleton’s hand as he made a “lunging movement” toward them. Middleton explained this in his account: He turned around because he thought the entire thing was a practical joke played by a neighbor.
“Right now we are comfortable from a training perspective that our officers did follow standard protocols,” Morgan said. “I believe the standard we use and train to is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case which is a reasonable test.” The officers are on paid administrative leave, pending an investigation.
Although he described the situation as a tragedy, Morgan also noted “This is a common occurrence. We live in a very violent society.” That much is true, particularly for black men stereotyped by police. A study from psychologists at the University of Chicago found that racial bias can lead civilians to make the wrong assumptions in fast-moving simulations, and without proper training, it plays the same role for police. Over the years, dozens of unarmed black men have been shot by law enforcement.
Photo: AP/File
Ivan Getting ridiclous? This has been going on for hundreads of years?! The principal reason is due to the igorance of white people.The fact is, the number of police actually killed by black people or any other persons is comparatively small to the number of peple poice killworm ngly every year.Yet people seldom research this information, taking for granted that police are risking life and limb on a daily basis,especially when dealing with minorities. In Oakland Ca, where I live,which is taken for granted as one of the most dangerous places for cops. the number of police killed by criminals… Read more »
More of the same self-serving bullshit from police departments. A lot of these incidents could be avoided with some thought before hand on avoiding violent confrontation. Instead we have instance after instance of cops becoming trigger happy or putting themselves in harms way. The “stories” of shootings is the poor police officer crying about feeling threatened or inventing a scenario where the victim lunged or made some sinister motion as the reason for shooting. This is leading to greater mistrust of police by citizens which keeps the cycle going.
Sigh, he made a “lunging movement” from 20 yards away, this is getting ridiculous for black Americans.
Yes, this IS standard procedure. Watch the news. . .