[Ghakimx]

Just wanna give my 2¢ on this.

I heard about this news somewhere and think it's tragic that a kid died at the hands of an officer. If I was the officer, if I saw the guy, I would try to assess the situation properly. What is the race of the guy? Does he look like he's old enough to wield a gun? Does the gun look legitimately dangerous?

However, the officer may not have had enough time to assess these factors and acted straight off of training. Like, "Suspect looks like a black teen, is wielding a pistol and pointing at me, highly lethal, lethal force authorized". He would risk putting the suspect down to decrease the risk innocent civilians getting hurt as well as himself and his colleagues. What I'm wondering is why he chose to shoot him with a gun rather than use other armaments like a taser gun, which would have easily incapacitated him. Did the police force not equip him with it? I don't know.

I always say, there is no one true person to blame for the entire incident, and that everyone is at fault. According to the officer's testimony, the kid WHIPPED out his fake gun and POINTED it at him. If this is true, then that would easily aggravate any police officer as it poses a visual threat. In the reverse, how couldn't the officer tell that he was just a kid? Why didn't he negotiate or talk with the kid before hitting his last resort?

If this wasn't a case of blatant racism on part of the officer, then I don't blame him. His actions were based purely on instinct and training. Otherwise, I'll be damned.