not that anyone asked but here's my informed opinion on the

Posted on: September 15, 2017 at 16:50:09 CT

Stockley case.

the state did not sufficiently, beyond a reasonable doubt, prove that the defendant did not act in self defense. in short they were unable to prove that he planted the revolver.

nobody testified that he planted the gun. nobody testified they had seen him with the gun prior to this incident. nobody testified that he was known to carry a backup handgun of any kind. no evidence was introduced to show he ever owned such a gun.

all that being said, the whole incident was a giant clusterf&ck from a procedural standpoint; which although it doesn't really have bearing whether or not the shooting was justified does make the situation look far worse.

he could have saved himself a sh*t ton of trouble had he, or any of the cops, followed basic patrol and investigative protocols.

1. bringing an unauthorized long gun with you when prohibited by policy makes it seem plausible that you might have also brought a "throw down" revolver.

2. firing shots at a fleeing motor vehicle. stupid, probably against policy and probably not supported by law in that instance.

3. rushing up to the driver's side door is instinctual and you have seen it on COPS 1000x but it's really awful tactically. tough to train that out of officers however. sometimes it's necessary. in any event the positioning of Stockley especially was tactically terrible. put himself in the line of fire.

4. if Smith was dead right there why is the clotting bandage needed and why is it necessary to pull a dead man out of the car? conversely if he was not dead they should have either provided care; which they didn't or if it was beyond their means just leave him in the car and wait for emergency medical services to arrive.

5. an officer involved shooting is also a traumatic event for the officer involved. for the life of me i can't understand why, with all those other officers milling around, none thought to say hey Stockley just killed this guy and whether justified or not, maybe we should take him aside. that's SOP. take the officer aside. sit him down. sit him in a car with another officer. watch him for signs of stress, shock etc.

6. not doing #5 led to Stockley going back in the car. Again i can't figure out a good reason to actually get inside and sit in the driver's seat where you just shot and killed a guy. there is absolutely ZERO reason to go in the car at that point. the fact that no officers thought to stop this is just mind boggling to me.

you wait for detectives. wait for CSI. possibly wait for a warrant even. again, time is on your side. but if you're going to do this you definitely don't want it to be the officer involved in the shooting.

7. doing #6 led to "allegedly" finding the revolver in the car. once found it should have been left right where it was. there is no need to render it safe. none at all. loaded guns don't magically fire themselves.

8. #7 leads to mishandling evidence by not wearing gloves, preferably latex type. again it's just makes no sense to me why an experienced officer is handling the gun at all but to top it off does it w/o gloves on. it's just dumb.

so long story short i get the verdict. 1st degree murder is an awfully high hurdle to get over when your case rests on planting a gun which was never proven.

but there was so much they did wrong in totality it made him APPEAR guilty.

i think all of those officers at that scene need massive amounts of training. i don't know anyone from that department but if that's indicative of they way they operate i can see why the community has issues with them.

Edited by blake1771 at 16:52:00 on 09/15/17