Would Duante Wright Be Alive if He Hadn't Resisted
"If he had not resisted arrest to begin with maybe none of this ever happens" - and today words as such get you in trouble. Labeled a racist.
Truth is, that may be correct. And in many instances.
Not resisting, giving in, not getting physical in the slightest. Listen to the officer & ask questions when necessary & politely explain yourself if you think it would help. If not, or not working, then politely shut the F up. It's true that anything you say can and will be used against you. So clam up and handle it where you are supposed to and where it matters - in court.
This is not to imply the police may be correct or you were clearly not in the wrong. It's just the wrong place to argue and can only lead to negatives.
* A video camera is a must these days. If you get into an accident and someone hits you - you are covered. If there is any type of road rage against you, it's now recorded. And should you get pulled over by the police, prior to the pull over and during is al on video. I recommend a dual camera, front facing and in the cab as well. Mine has like 2 little columns that come down, each with a camera. The internal points straight back to cover the most area. If ever pulled over you can quickly turn it a tad to record the window area. This is mine, the one on the left is the one I can move 180:
** Back to this case.
He STILL should not have been shot, IMO. Especially when it's more or less known the taser was meant and it was a mistake.
---
Would Duante Wright Be Alive if He Hadn't Resisted, if the Cop Had More Training, Both, or Neither?
No one will ever know because people are too politically tribal and reductive for productive conversation on policing
Apparently I missed a new rule that states you can forcefully resist arrest for felony warrants for illegal possession of a firearm. Expired tags and a felony warrant for a firearm was what brought Minneapolis cops into contact with Duante Wright, before video shows he resisted arrest and was inadvertently shot by an officer who thought she’d grabbed her taser instead of her pistol. This is body cam footage, content warning:
A few initial thoughts:
1) Don’t resist arrest. Don’t help to escalate a situation by not getting out of your vehicle or by jerking your arms out of cuffs when cops are serving a warrant for felony possession and fighting with them while trying to get into your car to flee. Contest the warrant in court. Contest the entire idea of detainment in court, if you want. Cops enforce the laws that politicians write. If you dislike the law and want to change it, fighting with a cop on the street won’t change anything except maybe for your existence on this earth. If you want to contest policy, do it with politicians or in a court of law. Police can’t do a damn thing about changing the law or policy right there with you on the street. Whether to not you oppose or support the issue you are contesting is irrelevant to the goal of getting all parties on their way as peacefully as possible.
2) Cops should know the difference between their tasers and their guns. Thankfully, most do. Thankfully, situations like what we saw on that video are rare. The state of duress counts, true, but this is why training exists. We have a lot of good cops out there, (ignoring those who arrest anyone over a lockdown order or seize firearms in a red flag situation that robs a respondent of due process in ex parte proceedings at the moment). My retired Navy SEAL friend always says that “people do not rise to the occasion but instead fall back on their highest level of training.” This is true. He’s traveled around the country training local police departments on best response tactics, discernment and deescalation training.
I’d like to know how often this department trains and how they carry tasers — whether or not tasers are placed on an officer’s non-dominate side so as to avoid weapon confusion. This portion of the video shows the yellow grip of the taser on his left side:
I’d also like to know department policy on taser use and whether any of the other officers grabbed their sidearms as well (it didn’t seem so in the video).
We don’t live in a police state, so we can both “back the blue” and criticize bad enforcement of laws or overreaching policies related to enforcement when situations arise. “Backing the blue” means backing good men and women who carry out good policing. It isn’t a carte blanche endorsement of every policing decision, including bad ones. Anyone who believes that we forfeit your support of police if we criticize rare incidents should check in with us all about such a position if they’re ever visited by the authorities out enforcing Joe Biden’s constitution-abridging gun control policies.
Does Wright’s resisting absolve the officer involved for grabbing her gun instead of her taser? No, nor does it mean that she shouldn’t face applicable penalty, including charges. Her lack of training doesn’t justify Wright’s resistance, either.
#1 and #2 above can simultaneously coexist. They are not mutually exclusive.
Rest - https://danaloesch.substack.com/p/wo...be-alive-if-he
Reply With Quote
