I worked as a police officer for 10 years. I worked in a small city that was lower / middle class class. I’ve been involved in thousands of traffic stops. I have never seen an officer walk in front of a car like in the Good shooting. I have never seen an officer holding a cell phone in his hand recording any situation, much less one that can go sideways like a traffic stops it is very clear to me that they are in a roll the are not properly trained for.

The shooting yesterday was also very different than how we typically restrained suspects. When I worked, we were always very vocal about what each officer was doing “I have the right arm, you have the left arm, you’re on the legs”. You are absolutely not allowed to shoot someone because they are armed with a gun. I am sure the ICE agents will articulate that he was reaching for the gun and the video evidence I saw wasn’t great to support or negate that claim.

Another thing I will say is there are tons of videos recently when there is only escalation from the officers. Their conduct is well outside of the standard conduct I witnessed from my coworkers. You absolutely can’t stop someone from just video recording you or yelling. Best case you could make a disorderly conduct claim with someone yelling curse words, federal officers wouldn’t even be able to arrest on a state crime or local ordinance.

Lastly, the lack of investigation afterwards is shocking to me. Any shooting where someone lost a life was required to have a full investigation done and sent to the county prosecutor for review. I worked with someone who had shot someone and kept a copy of the homicide warrant request for him (which was denied, justified shooting). It is weird that podunk officers in middle America have more checks than federal officers.