Re: The Police State mentality continues virtually unchecked.
Reply #15 –
The the Daily Beast also has video of the shooting.
“I swear to God if you fucking move!” one of the officers yelled, pointing his gun at Sterling’s chest. “He’s got a gun! Gun!”
Muflahi’s video does not appear to support the officer’s claim that Sterling’s gun represented an active threat: It appears to have been in a pocket and never reached his hand. Instead, the video shows Sterling pinned down, shot twice in the chest, and then shot four more times.
After mortally wounding him, one of the officers removes an object from Sterling’s right pants pocket. (Police during a Wednesday press conference refused to comment on whether Sterling had a gun.)
“Fuck!” one cop yells into his radio. “10-4, 10-4… shots fired! Shots fired!”
Sterling was still alive, the video capturing his left hand moving over a dark pool of blood filling the center of his red T-shirt. When paramedics arrived minutes later, Sterling was dead.
Sterling did have a gun, but was not attempting to pull it on the cops. As I said in the previous post, it doesn't appear that he could have even if he wanted to. Sterling was selling bootleg CDs and DVDs in front of the store. That was misdemeanor, not a death penalty offense.