BREAKING: Video Finally Released of Cops Shooting Man with a Toy Gun in Wal-Mart

You would think that when the cops showed up to what they believed to be an active shooter situation, that had been going on for several minutes before they arrived, that upon entering the store and seeing other customers going about their shopping, and not fleeing from random gunfire, that it should have been their FIRST clue, that something might not be as reported...

Does adrenaline affect logic that bad?

a reply to: feldercarb

To me, it doesn't look like he was going back for the gun at all. If you watch it frame by frame, at no point does it look like he leans over or make any move to reach down for the gun. It looks to me as if he's trying to run away because he's just been shot while minding his own business.

a reply to: Answer

1) Man was not inside a store.

No, he was out in public with cars driving past. But people never randomly shoot strangers driving in cars (*cough* DC/Virginia sniper)

2) He was holding the rifle parade style over his shoulder. That's an extra few seconds required to ready the rifle to fire... this is a much more substantial difference than you'll be willing to accept.

I know the difference. I actually belonged to a women's gun club and spent many weekends at the shooting range target practicing with cops and shooting every type/brand gun in the place. But I digress. Crawford was shot IN THE BACK OF THE ARM that was HOLDING THE GUN. A person with a rifle held parade style with the other had free is going to be a bit faster and more accurate than someone facing away from the target with a cellphone in the other hand.

3) The dispatcher in your case didn't say "he's pointing the rifle at people" and "he was seen loading it."

No, but within the first 10 seconds of the cop cam video, the white guy reaches into one pocket, switches the gun to the opposite shoulder, then reaches into his other pocket. If he had been a young black man he would have been shot before his hand ever left the first pocket. The dispatcher in the Crawford case may have relayed those phrases to the cops, but the cops should have assessed the scene better before shooting.

originally posted by: lovebeck

originally posted by: Answer

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: seeker1963

Homesteaders where I grew up would always make sure to have at least a pellet gun with them. And those were the hippieish city people who hated guns. They saw the value in them. Me, I have no idea what they look like, I've never handled a gun before lol.

Here's a link to the rifle held by the man who was shot in this case:

www.crosman.com...

A link to where you got that information would be most helpful. To me, it looks like a toy. But I know what a gun is supposed to look like, including assault rifles. If in fact this is the toy he had in the store, the "track" on the top gives it away.

Actually, the rifle that was posted earlier, made by Crossman Air Rifles, strongly resembles an actual rifle,
The SCAR MK 17... And the full picatinny rail is common on these style weapons...

a reply to: halfpint0701
I agree he did not try to pick up the gun again. But, once you have been hit, it is not a good idea to try to run away. That will be viewed as fleeing and likely to get you a bullet in the back. I would also like a better camera view. We do not get to see how the policeman who appeared to fire is located. We only see the back ups who were coming up the aisle that John was trying to use to flee.

Also, to GoOfYFoOt: yeah adrenaline can affect logic that badly. I doubt that the police were interested in the other customers at all. The police were probably had their thoughts locked in on dealing with the potentially lethal situation.

As far the guy that overstated the situation to 911; I bet he exaggerated because he probably felt that the police would not take the situation as seriously as he wanted them to. If you call in and say someone is walking around with a gun the response will be different than when you say that the gun is being pointed at other people. Also, the caller may have been drawing conclusions because he could not see where John was pointing the gun.

a reply to: feldercarb

The 911 caller and his wife straight up lied. Thanks to the video, we know that now.

Their original statements claim they saw him in the pet section and that he pointed a gun at 2 children.

Ritchie, an ex-Marine, said the man was pointing a black rifle at people near the pet section and that “he’s loading it right now.” Later, he said, “He looked like he was trying to load it, I don’t know.” He then added, “He just pointed it at two children.”

However, the video shows a lady and her two kids getting something from the aisle he's in and he ignores them and they ignore him.

The video also clearly disputes this statement from the caller's wife:

Ritchie’s wife, April, told this newspaper on Wednesday that Crawford was on his cell phone and that people looked at him with disbelief as he held the rifle. The Ritchies said that some scurried in different directions and that three people went into a stock room.

All I saw in the video were other shoppers going about their business. Did 1 single shopper he walked past even look at him?

The Ritchie's need charges brought against them for this unfortunate loss of 2 lives. I'd also like to find out more about the circumstances involving Officer Williams 4 years ago. Is this incident why he was so quick to shoot in the Crawford case?

Williams shot and killed a suspect in 2010 in what was found to be a legitimate use of force when a man charged Williams with a knife.

Link

a reply to: Elton
Somebody should do one of those witty pictures with big bold quotes on the bottom which are so hilarious and everybody on the internet. It could be scene of pictures, maybe in the first one they should show a guy thinking to buy a toy gun from a store, then in the next on him walking around browsing on the his cellphone for other things in said store, then in the next one him in a pool of blood.

The caption in big bold letters on the bottom should read... # happens...


Misinformation, it can get you killed. What we have here is a general breakdown in communication in every and all parts involved in this incident.

a reply to: lovebeck

Again, it WAS A PELLET GUN. Not a BB gun!

Sorry to get so "all caps" about it, it's just important to note that it was a toy pellet gun, not even a BB gun...

You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Pellets are far more painful/deadly/dangerous than BBs.

I want you to tell me what you think a pellet is.

It really doesn't matter if it was a real gun, a pellet gun, a BB gun or a Nerf gun. It looked very real. That's not the freaking point.

I can't believe I'm going to take the time to do this.

BB



Pellet



et me shoot your bottom with both. Tell me which hurts more.

a reply to: Domo1

Truthfully, they are very relative, ballistically, but pellets are far more accurate than bb's...

still want to know why did he pick up the gun so fast dont overlook this its just a odd fact no cart no box grabed the pelet gun in under 4 seconds somethig is wrong

If I were in this guys position and someone yelled hey at me from down the aisle I would turn my entire body to look... apparently that gets you shot. If they said "police, drop the weapon" I would probably turn or move and start looking around because it wouldn't even register to me that my BB gun is a weapon.

Guess it's a good thing this wasn't me, I would be dead twice over.

www.walmart.com...

that pellet i think would be fatal esaly

scarry looking ammo

Reading what the caller told the 911 dispatchers, this is not the fault of the police, it’s the callers fault. He needs to be arrested and charged with making false statements to the police, making a false 911 call, and some level of manslaughter or endangerment.

a reply to: defcon5

While I respect your POV, the 911 dispatchers have a responsibility here that may be easily overlooked. I'd fully agree with you if the tactical response showed up within seconds of the call. Even 'a few minutes' would be enough to convey a 'low stress' environment in the store. They can hear panic and screams and chaos.

At this point I'm not willing to let anyone off the hook. Two people died. Is that acceptable?

originally posted by: GoOfYFoOt

originally posted by: lovebeck

originally posted by: Answer

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: seeker1963

Homesteaders where I grew up would always make sure to have at least a pellet gun with them. And those were the hippieish city people who hated guns. They saw the value in them. Me, I have no idea what they look like, I've never handled a gun before lol.

Here's a link to the rifle held by the man who was shot in this case:

www.crosman.com...

A link to where you got that information would be most helpful. To me, it looks like a toy. But I know what a gun is supposed to look like, including assault rifles. If in fact this is the toy he had in the store, the "track" on the top gives it away.

Actually, the rifle that was posted earlier, made by Crossman Air Rifles, strongly resembles an actual rifle,
The SCAR MK 17... And the full picatinny rail is common on these style weapons...

if this resembles the weapon...who's bright idea was it to sell these kinds of things of a shelf in a frigging walmart store...the outright stupidity and lack of common sense just boggles the mind

originally posted by: DodgyDawg
a reply to: FirePiston

A rifle slung on your shoulder or a pistol on your hip in a holster is open carrying. This guy was a total idiot just walking around waving it. Who just grabs a rifle off a shelf then proceeds to act like he did? I agree the cops messed up, but this guy was stupid and that ultimately is what got him killed in the first place.

It was a TOY.

So what if he was waving it around - does it make him anymore likely to shoot somebody? He was also on the phone!

I'm sorry but what kind of armed robber or mass shooter casually waves their weapon around whilst having a normal conversation on the phone!

And how could he possibly have holstered the gun or slung it over his back when it wasn't his property - he may as well have just taken it off of the rail in front of him when he was shot.

A pellet gun is NOT a toy and can kill. Also, in response to another poster, only airsoft guns have an orange tip. This was not an airsoft gun but around a 700+- fps pellet/bb gun. People hunt with these. Also in response to you.. I have seen quite a few standoff situations where the nut is on the phone, with a gun in his hand, talking to the police or telling his ex-wife or whoever that he is about to kill himself or someone else.
Firepiston

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

And apparently not even boxed or packaged in any way. It's irresponsible.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

And apparently not even boxed or packaged in any way. It's irresponsible.

The gun is normally in a box. Someone removed it from the box before Mr. Crawford picked it up... possibly Mr. Crawford himself removed it before the footage on the video as he apparently planned to shoplift the air rifle. It would explain why he nonchalantly picked it up off the shelf and walked around the perimeter of the store with it. I've worked in loss prevention and his behavior is very indicative of a shoplifting in progress. He was probably waiting in the pet section to make sure he wasn't being observed by loss prevention before making his way to the door and out of the store. If you think he's being too obvious... well that's not unusual in a shoplifting scenario. If he was approached by loss prevention, he could use the excuse "oh I was just playing with it..."

originally posted by: lovebeck

A link to where you got that information would be most helpful. To me, it looks like a toy. But I know what a gun is supposed to look like, including assault rifles. If in fact this is the toy he had in the store, the "track" on the top gives it away.

Sorry but if you think that "the track" on top gives away that it's a toy gun, you don't know much about guns. Most military-style rifles have a picatinny rail (that's what the track is called) running along the top of the rifle. That doesn't look like a toy, it looks like a Bushmaster ACR which is a very real firearm. It was designed to duplicate the real thing.
Bushmaster ACR

These are the facts of the case which should be the main focus... not the emotional knee-jerk to the premise of the video. Dig a little deeper than the surface before coming to a conclusion.

All I know is there's a whole 90 seconds where he was off camera. In that time there's no telling exactly what happened.

The police seemed pretty hasty to run in and gun him down though...

Clearly it was a Grand Jury made up of relatives of police and lawmakers. Now as far as a comment earlier on whether he shouldn't have been shot even if he was carrying open a real gun legally. If any other citizen was waving a real firearm in the manner he was handling the toy, then that would be an extremely irresponsible and dangerous act in itself and in my book would justify deadly force.

However it was a toy and there are other factors to consider.

*If it were a real rifle and the claims made in the only apparent 9-1-1 call were in fact true, then I would honestly assess the situation as partially acceptable as handling a live firearm in that manner in such a crowded public setting is creating an imminent lethal threat to the general public. Any responsible open carry citizen would never even think to handle such a weapon in public with such gross negligence.

*With that in mind, the responding officers would still have failed to follow correct procedure in an active shooter situation. There was not one corroborating emergency call from the very public Wal-Mart to confirm such a scenario was even unfolding in real time. This was an absolute intelligence failure on the part of the department, and especially a clear violation of policy by the responding officers.

*The responding officers appear to be one uniformed and one non-uniformed officer with a body vest. I would surmise it was merely the nearest units responding, which means they would typically patrol that area. Me having worked at Wal-Mart for ten years and to this day, the asset protection associates have a regular and friendly rapport with the local patrolmen due to such high frequency of theft. Why then did these men not even bother to consult the very people in the store who had access to all of the eye into nearly every corner of the building to correctly assess the situation, especially considering not a single shot had been reported fired at the time. That alone would lead most reasonably trained thinking law enforcement to infer who has even been shot and buys time to properly assess.

And this all applies too even if he were legally openly carrying a firearm in the reckless and dangerous manner this man was handling the toy.

The only conclusion that could ever be drawn from the available evidence and witness testimony is a failure to follow proacedures, and that the only caller should be charged with false report of a crime and any subsequent manslaughter/ murder charges as a result of a death during the commission of a crime. All this of course is very dependent on Michigan state law and how it is to be interpreted.

If it were my judgment to make, it was definitely an execution that is a result of a prior years NDAA declaring all the world a battlefield, and essentially putting all law enforcement in de-facto mobilization @ war. Most killings are therefore justified within the system as casualties of war by "armed combatants" even when unarmed.