Should armed citizens be worried about confrontations with police?
Jul 7, 2016, 12:56 PM | Updated: 1:29 pm
Two videos surfaced this week of black men carrying guns being fatally shot by police.
Alton Sterling, the man shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was reportedly carrying a gun, but reports say he wasn’t holding it, nor is it clear whether he was even reaching for it. Reports say Philando Castile, the man shot in Falcon Heights, Minn., told police he had a gun in his vehicle.
These instances prompt the question: What are you supposed to do if you’re stopped by law enforcement and you’re carrying a gun?
Related: Is this proof that gun control is doomed?
A lot of people these days are carrying a gun for protection, KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross points out.
“It’s not clear if [Alton Sterling] mentioned that [he had a gun] to police officers who were confronting him,” CBS News Correspondent Steve Dorsey said. “At the end of the video, it appears that they remove an object from Sterling’s front-right pocket and that could be a gun.
“So they must have known it was there.”
It’s still unclear what Sterling could have done better to avoid being shot. Dorsey said he isn’t sure how Louisiana’s gun laws impacted the decision for police to shoot him.
Police have dashcam video, body-cam video and surveillance footage of the shooting that will be turned over to the Justice Department. The department will look into whether officers willfully violated Sterling’s civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says he has “very serious concerns” over the video footage that’s been published.
Though there have been huge demonstrations following both the shootings of Sterling and Castile in Minnesota, Dave points out that things have been fairly peaceful.
Sterling’s family has said it would not condone violent protests.
“The family just wants it to be peaceful,” Sterling’s nephew said. “I understand right now it’s bigger than us, but at the same time we’re just trying to work through this and be smooth with it.”
Similar investigations into shootings, which often take many months, were opened after Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo., and following Eric Garner’s chokehold death in New York City.
In Seattle, a federal investigation looked into the death of Che Taylor after he was shot by police. A review board found the shooting to be within department policy.
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Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
