There is another controversy involving a police shooting. Jermane Reid was shot and killed after the Jaguar in which he was riding was pulled over for running a stop sign by Bridgeton officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley in a Dec. 30 traffic stop. When one officer reported seeing a handgun in the glove compartment, things got tense and ultimately led to the fatal shooting of the unarmed Reid. [Warning: the video and text includes foul language]
Driver, Leroy Tutt, is seen showing his hands throughout the encounter.
The officers are heard screaming over and over “Don’t you fucking move!” and “Show me your hands!” at the driver and passenger. Days repeatedly warns Reid not to move, screaming “I’m going to shoot you . . . You’re going to be … dead. If you reach for something, you’re going to be … dead.” However, Reid is heard saying “I ain’t got no reason to reach for nothing, bro, I ain’t got no reason to reach for nothing.” He then says, “I’m getting out and getting on the ground.” Days tells him not to move, but decides to step out of the Jaguar with his hands raised to shoulder height. He is then shot.
Clearly he should have obeyed the officer but his hands appear to be in clear view and Reid made clear that he was going to get out. Both officers appear to have fired at least six times. It is not clear if it was Reid or Days who opened the door. Under Tennessee v. Garner, there would be no justification for the use of lethal force in such a circumstance.
Reid, 36, had a record, including 13 years in prison for shooting at New Jersey State Police troopers when he was a teenager. He was also arrested last year on charges including drug possession and obstruction. Notably, Days was one of the arresting officers in the later arrests. That record however does not factor into the shooting if his hands were visible and there was no threatening behavior. Disobeying an order to remain in the car is obviously not sufficient cause for the use of lethal force under the controlling standard.
“When one officer reported seeing a handgun in the glove compartment, things got tense” Ya think? The cop went nuts and wasn’t going to be satisfied until he showed his power.
Jane, Let me not waste too much time responding to your pablum. It was a traffic stop w/ a GUN IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT!! I will listen to your husband who you say was a cop. You don’t have a clue.
Nick – on traffic stops here in AZ they now ask if you have a gun in the glove compartment. Personally, I tell them I am about to reach for the glove compartment and is that alright with them.
So, a traffic stop with a gun in the glove compartment is NO big deal. Your comment to Jane was uncalled for.
The “perp” ran a stop sign, for god’s sake. Back off! slow down! Slow way down. There is no rush here. No immediate danger to anyone. Talk slow and low. Don’t escalate or freak. There are no hostages being taken here. This is a traffic stop. My husband worked for years as a police officer in high crime neighborhoods. He was a great cop. He could calm almost any situation by his voice. Yes, he was a black belt in karate but RARELY used force. He had five children at home…he was a patient man. All LOT can be accomplished by patience. This is a traffic stop. Back off, call for back-up, let things simmer down. I know that is not cool-looking, to calmly sit in your car for backup, but it works. If the citizen flees, well, then now you can call out a different code and, believe me, with the helicopters and cameras and you running a tag, they will not get away and will raise the reason for further action.You are a ‘Peace officer” meant to KEEP the peace. NOT freak out.
What is the matter with these guys? I mean, really, GOT to SLOW DOWN if nobody is in immediate danger. We had a guy here where I live, years ago pulled over at night for extremely erratic driving, he pulled over and got out of his car, started coming directly towards the officers car, looking stoned out of his mind, totally disregarding calls to stop. Thank god, the officers were experienced veterans and very observant. They protected themselves behind their doors, NOT SCREAMING, SLOWLY and loudly repeated their commands. When he stumbled again, they got him, were sort of rough with him, but by this time he was totally incoherent slipping into his diabetic coma.
I don’t know how the police used to do it, but, please, dial back the killings.
They didn’t shoot the driver who had his hands out the window they shot the passenger that didn’t obey the police. the cops knew he was a convicted cop shooter. Would you treat him with kid gloves?
When you’re a cop shooter and there’s a gun, it is a different ballgame, as we all just witnessed.
Every encounter with a policeman is a life threatening encounter. This is why we should cut our traffic laws down to the bare minimum.
Reblogged this on The Insomniac Libertarian.
Maybe I am just getting old, but I don’t recall when “failure to obey police instructions” was made a capital crime.
“Just one witness” LOL!! That wasn’t a candid camera, it was a dashcam!! The cops knew it was there. There are probably 10 million witnesses by now, many more to come. LOL!
It would have been helpful for whomever released this video onto the internet to not have censored out the foul language and let the full audio be reviewed because some pertinent details are lost in doing so.
The officer on the right of the car fired at least six but possibly seven shots. The debatable shot might have been fired at the end but the censored audio does not make this clear. The officer on the left seems to have fired once.
What I saw is that the officer on the right pulled out of the car what appeared to be a handgun, possibly an auto, and appeared to continue to hold it in his left hand in addition to holding his duty pistol in the right. If that was the only gun removed, that should have de-escalated the incident in that if this was the gun seen in the glove box.
I have a feeling the officer on the right knew the man who was shot as I interpreted it to be he was talking to him by name. It is possible the officer could have known about the deceased’s prison sentence for shooting at other officers so this would certainly show a need to use a much greater show of caution or command presence to control the situation.
To me it appears the deceased pushed the door open with a force enough to overcome the right officer’s efforts to hold it closed. That in of itself is a threatening gesture as far as use of force is concerned. It’s probably going to come down to a case of whether or not the deceased was coming at the officer with the purpose to disarm him. The holding of palms forward is not a completely reliable method of showing pacifism coming from a person trying to continue and overcome someone else.
We’re going to have to wait until the investigation comes out for better details.
“How little a threat” He was a cop shooter. This cop knew the bad guys history. And HE WAS MOVING TOWARD THE COP defying a clear and direct order.
Steve is right. As one who has turned slowly around after putting a comforter in the backseat of his car to stand up to shouts of ‘hands up don’t move’ to see two cops with AR-15s pointed at you, accusing you of putting an assault weapon wrapped in the aforementioned comforter in the car….Steve is right. I didn’t even own a weapon like the one the female officer accused me of owning – but that didn’t stop them from accusing me, or stomping through my house with muddy boots looking for it (given my innocence I protested vehemently, told them I didn’t own one, and let them into my home when they asked if they could enter – never again). I instinctively do not trust police officers – especially in smaller municipalities and city police in general. The comforter incident happened in the most affluent suburb of one of the three largest Midwestern cities. And though I’m as ‘dead white European male’ as they come, my instinctive distrust stands.
Once again. NO concern for medical or first aid for the victim of this crime! I guess they figure it is better to have just one witness, themselves.
I have related this story previously. I was doing surveillance in a tough neighborhood when I saw cop cars flying around the block. All of a sudden a cop car came up to and a cop jumped out w/ his weapon pointed @ me. As he approached from the front I slowly put my hands on the dash and DID NOT MOVE. This was just before he told me to not move. He screamed several questions @ me and I responded w/ “sir” before every answer. The situation was diffused quickly when he got a call the perp[rapists] was in custody down the street. He thanked me for my cooperation. You have to understand adrenaline. Too many young people have too much testosterone and too little intelligence in situations like this. Total compliance is antithetical to how they live. It got this guy killed.
Actually from an insurance standpoint it helps that he has priors. Was there a gun in the glove compartment?
As blatant of an unjustified shooting that you’ll ever see, yet you still have people who want to excuse it because the victim had a criminal history and didn’t follow police orders, regardless of how little of a threat he was to the cop. Cop needs to be criminally charged and fired before his trigger happy ways kill someone else.
one of the reasons black men and women don’t want to be cops is because they know just how dangerous it is. In some respects it is more dangerous for a black cop because black bad guys[this was a bad guy by any measure] think they can cozy up to a black cop. I got that sense here. The other reason black men and women don’t choose to be cops is because they often get more crap than white cops, w/ fellow black people seeing them as traitors and Toms.
Many people are clueless to what adrenaline does to your body in an instance like this. The suspect was advancing toward the officer disobeying a clear order to not move. I hope the cop isn’t hung out to dry on this. Does Al Sharpton get involved if it’s also a black cop???
Far side of the car? There was an officer on BOTH sides of the car. Guns drawn and pointed at two with hands out the window and they’re at a disadvantage?
“When will people learn to do what cops tell them to do?”
Cops need to follow the law – if they can’t, then they are criminals.
Law covers everybody. Nobody gets exemptions.
When will people learn to do what cops tell them to do? The cop was at a distinct disadvantage with the perp on the far side of the car.