The body worn cameras show the cops were justified in this shooting. Not that the facts matter.
A few years back Atlanta police shot Rayshard Brooks during a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) investigation. Brooks was found passed out in his car in the drive-up of a Wendy’s. After failing field sobriety tests, he resisted arrest and took the TASER of one of the responding officers. Having an intermediate weapon that could disable the officers raised the incident to deadly force.
A Facebook friend was furious and asked, “Why didn’t they just let someone drive him home?” I had enough and “screamed,” “BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU! YOU DEMANDED EVERY COP HAVE A CAMERA ON THEM. WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IS TAKE AWAY ALL OF OUR DISCRETION!” Most major departments have a policy that anyone driving drunk will be booked as a DWI, not handed over to another person to drive him home.
I’ve pulled over drunk drivers before body worn cameras (BWCs). Occasionally, if I saw this was their first offense, no tickets, etc., (One case was a Marine just back from Iraq. I let his sober girlfriend take the wheel.), I would let them take a cab home, or pay for a wrecker to tow them home with a couple of tickets. Issue handled quickly and they learn to not do that again.
Unfortunately, we can’t do that anymore. I know of one officer who allowed a friend to drive a DWI suspect home. That officer’s sergeant saw the BWC video, dropped a complaint, and he was terminated for insubordination.
I must admit I hadn’t heard of the Dexter Reed shooting until I read about it in National Review on Friday April 12, 2024. The fact is in America, on average of three people are shot (not necessarily killed) by police every day. But it’s an interesting look at how any cop’s action will be examined by reporters who won’t give a full story.
Dexter Reed Is Another Bogus Martyr
Rich Lowry April 12, 2024
The Dexter Reed case shows how it’s possible to get an anti-police narrative going in almost any circumstance…
…At a traffic stop in Chicago, the 26-year-old Reed pulled a gun and fired on officers before getting killed in return fire.
The first rule during traffic stops — and other interactions with officers — is to do what the police ask, but really, the more fundamental rule is not to shoot at the police.
This hasn’t kept the media from getting a news cycle going about the cops firing 96 rounds after the shoot-out began, often with misleading headlines, and advocacy groups agitating about supposedly gratuitous traffic stops.
The 96 rounds fired is a serious red herring. Sorry Dirty Harry, but a cop in a shootout will fire until they feel (not think) the threat is over. An officer I know of was involved in a shooting. Man lunged at him with a knife, the officer fired, the suspect died on the spot. No question, justified, but when the officer was asked by an investigator how many times he shot, the cop answered, “Five, maybe six times.” The investigator handed over two empty fifteen round magazines. The cop fired thirty-six times.
Of less interest to these parties is why Reed would shoot at the cops in the first place, and his prior gun charges, which it is almost impossible to find reference to in news reports.
(An exception is this dispatch from NBC 5 News Chicago, which notes, “Cook County court records showed Reed was out on pretrial release after being charged in 2023 with three counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and one count of possession of a firearm with a revoked FOID [Firearms Owner Identification] card…”)
Translation, Reed could not legally possess a firearm in Illinois.
CBS in Chicago had a clueless headline, “Why did Dexter Reed traffic stop, shootout with Chicago Police escalate so rapidly?”
The answer is Mr. Reed escalated it rapidly. If he had simply put his hand out where the cop could see them and not reach for a gun, he would be alive today.
…Clearly, the police thought Reed was a potentially bad guy with contraband in his car — and they were right.
Reed didn’t follow the explicit directions of police to roll his windows down and unlock his doors…
…Once Reed fired at the police, he represented a mortal threat. He hit one officer, and reports suggest he fired every round he had. It was only a matter of luck that he didn’t kill one of them.
The author is slightly mistaken here. More accurately, Once Reed reached for the weapon, he represented a mortal threat. There is only one reason for the suspect to grab a firearm when confronted with police is to use deadly force against the cops. At that moment the officers have legitimate fear for suffering loss of life or serious bodily injury, the legal justification for use of deadly force (Tennessee v Garner 1985).
What everyone is right about is that Dexter Reed’s death was, indeed, preventable. All it took was his not trying to kill the officers who asked him to step out of his car.
That is correct. Not surprisingly, the family has hired an attorney and I have no doubt Chicago will write a quick check to get this off the headlines (the fact that of the five cops, two were black men, one is a “white Hispanic” male, and one was a white woman) as the usually race batting lawyers will be looking for a show trial.
Something to point out, in the post George Floyd era cops are not being aggressive in enforcing the law. This is an exception to that new rule. Depending on how this is handled, there will likely be fewer assertive enforcement actions in the future.
This group of officers, part of a tactical team, stopped the man for a minor traffic infraction. The fact Reed was not using a seat belt is reasonable suspicion to initiate an investigation. If Reed had not grabbed for the weapon, there’s a good chance he would have been arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. That is how assertive law enforcement works. You use the minor infraction to allow an initial investigation of the suspect, and you find other infractions.
I won’t quess how the Chicago Police Department will handle these officers. The fact they did the “right thing” is not relevant. Chicago PD is still moving to fire Officer Eric Stillman, who shot Adam Toledo, in spite of the fact Toledo was armed and the DA not charging him with a crime. I do believe that no matter how this works out, these officers (and others) will be more hesitant to be assertive in enforcing the law. It ain’t worth loosing your job, getting prosecuted or sued.
Cops don’t trust the brass or the politicians (or distrust them more than in the past), for good reasons. Everyone should know, trust, once broken, is almost impossible to rebuild.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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It is so sad that the narrative, especially with the mainstream/LameSreamMedia will always be “oh, the poor minority, the poor this or the poor that.” Comply and follow the rules. Be a good citizen, don’t get shot. It starts at home…It starts in Kindergarten 👺
A point I made previously on the Toledo. Tragic, but mom, if you had done your job, made sure his ass as in bed on a school night, he would not have been shot that morning. Parents, do your job. You’re not your kid’s friend, you are their parent. Don’t forget that.