Julian Lewis didn’t pull over for the Georgia State Patrol cruiser flashing its blue lights behind him on a rural highway. He still didn’t stop after pointing a hand out the window and turning onto a darkened dirt road as the trooper sounded his siren.
Five minutes into a pursuit that began over a broken taillight, the 60-year-old Black man was dead — shot in the forehead by the white trooper who fired a single bullet mere seconds after forcing Lewis to crash into a ditch. Trooper Jake Thompson insisted he pulled the trigger as Lewis revved the engine of his Nissan Sentra and jerked his steering wheel as if trying to mow him down.
“I had to shoot this man,” Thompson can be heard telling a supervisor on video recorded by his dash-mounted camera at the shooting scene in rural Screven County, midway between Savannah and Augusta. “And I’m just scared.”
But new investigative details obtained by The Associated Press and the never-before-released dashcam video of the August 2020 shooting have raised fresh questions about how the trooper avoided prosecution with nothing more than a signed promise never to work in law enforcement again. Use-of-force experts who reviewed the footage for AP said the shooting appeared to be unjustified.
I was scared when I was a 19 year old doing a patrol through Sadr City in 2003, while manning the .50 cal and having dozens of kids suddenly show up and throwing rocks at me. Did I waste them even though I would have been justified because it wasn’t uncommon that patrols would go through markets and peopled start throwing produce and mix a grenade in?
No. Because I was well trained and realized that life is precious. And I was dealing with those rocks a lot longer than 1.6 seconds.
Because I was well trained
Well you see, many of these cops joined the force because they would’ve flunked or did flunk basic.
If the cops want to be militarized, they should be bound by the UCMJ and face the same consequences.
How dare you advocate for destroying the entire police force!
/s… Cause that’s what would happen. I’m pretty sure more than half would quit outright if they thought there was a possibility they’d see consequences for their actions.
Just one example https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/10/04/police-union-says-sdpd-officers-are-quitting-because-of-oversight-commission-that-doesnt-exist-yet/
I really don’t get why people don’t start shooting police. As I understand it guns are allowed to “defend yourself against the government”. Police is the government and they clearly are out of control shooting people.
So either use your weapons against the government or make guns illegal if you don’t use them anyway.
So in the end there are less cops which in return means less people shot dead by cops or cops are less scared because people don’t have guns and so they also don’t get shot by cops.
What I am saying is: either use your guns or make them illegal if you don’t use them anyway.
Most people don’t wanna kill each other. And shooting back is probably going to raise the likelihood of getting murdered (i don’t have any source for this). That said it is still absurd how the police flagrantly disregard peoples liberties, extra judicially execute them and get away with it with impunity. The societal contract is dead.
In my opinion shooting back raises the likelihood of getting out alive as you are not just a sitting duck.
And I to think people generally don’t want to murder. But what people want more than not to kill is to not be killed.
So use your gun or lose your gun. Doesn’t make sense otherwise.
How old are you?
