Video of Austin police shooting suspect 15 times

Published on Nov 19, 2014 A man is on trial for ramming an Austin patrol car. The Austin Police Department officer behind the wheel of that car unleashed gun fire on the man. The Travis County District Attorney's Office has released the video.

What is your opinion on this ? Justified or not.

I'm on the fence on this one. Even though I didn't see anyone in immedeate danger of being run over, one can not rule out that innocents might have gotten hurt during a wild chase through the city limits. But then again, they might have just shot the tires .. tricky ..

Looked a little excessive to me. The driver seemed like he was ready to give up when the cop started shooting. And boy did he do some shooting! Cant believe the driver was still alive after that. IMHO the cops hould have used his patrol car to immobilize the perps car, not every bullet in his clip.

a reply to: H1ght3chHippie

a reply to: H1ght3chHippie

damn...
that was nuts.

i wonder what was behind the cop car...
was the cop car in danger of getting pushed off of something?


it dont look like it from the video. seem to be in some side street or something.

they were not going very fast either...looks the the driver was just trying to get the hell out of there...
seem like young kids too.

as fast as they were going the cop could have probably just hopped out of the car.

why didnt the cop just ram back?

im gonna say he didnt need to unload on him.
i could hear sirens so his buds were on the way....
he seemed pretty safe in his car....not like he was getting rammed at 75mph

he should have floored his car and rammed back. his buds were coming

a reply to: H1ght3chHippie

The fact that he could have probably just drawn down and scared them into stopping without a shot and the fact he was also shooting at a passenger who wasnt not a threat nor in control of the car makes me say this was near criminal on the officers part. The fact no one was hit says to me this cop needs a whole lot more training or maybe he gets too jumppy under pressure to be in the field to begin with. Sad display indeed!

originally posted by: Bovah
snip

let me know how that works out for you when you are spending the rest of your life in sing sing

a reply to: RickyD

Actually the driver was hit multiple times, even got one bullet into the head.

The shotgun at the end was definitely too much in my opinion.

a reply to: H1ght3chHippie

Had to watch without sound. I just saw him get out under his own power at the end which made it seem like he was missed...i didnt see the shotty hit the windshield when did that go off?

originally posted by: Bovah
a reply to: H1ght3chHippie

snip.

Hmmm... I think thats spells "Murder" However I'm sure you will have a great future in Politics.

Looks like the officer got his rocks off on this one.

It must be the joke of the precincts by now...shoot whatever, whenever, whomever...get paid to sit in your backyard and BBQ with your Friends!

Peace

You can hear after the car rammed the out of scene(I assume patrol vehicle) car the driver gunned the engine and was
pushing that car to some extent. at that point the officer was probably out of his vehicle and standing in harms way.

I say it was a justified shooting in my opinion.

This is of course my assumption based on availible video at this time, if I was that cop in that situation I would have
been similarly inclined to stop this guy from fleeing any further after he showed he would, even after being boxed in, continue to try to flee by ramming a police car hard enough to gain some room to escape.

I cant stand all the cop violence nowadays and I would sign and push for all kinds of video cameras on officers
but this seems within the bounds of reality given the circumstances I see. I also agree with another poster about being sick and tired of seeing people with their hands up and obviously surrendering being slammed to the ground.

Lets face it with what we see in todays world of police brutality I was surprised they didnt empty the whole departments monthly allotment of ammo into the vehicle killing both of them.

a reply to: TAWonATS

Totally agree seems we watched the same video (And payed attention) where the car was still trying to push the cop car even after the shots started.

Watch any episode of cops high speed chases and deliberately hitting a police car is considered an attack with a deadly weapon.

You shoot to stop the threat. He stopped shooting when the driver stopped flooring it and pushing his car backwards. He started shooting when the driver revved his engine and began pushing his vehicle, after he gave verbal commands to the occupants of the vehicle. Justified response. Shoot the tires? Yea it's not hollywood. Tires don't explosively decompress after being shot, and that's assuming the rounds penetrate the tire to begin with. Sit in the car and ram back? How much speed and power do you expect to get when your car is already being pushed backward? Sit in the car till backup arrives? Yea okay. Sit there and stare at somebody who is actively trying to push you out of his way so he can run from you, and has demonstrated he has no regard for his own safety, let alone anybody else's. Some of y'all have seen too many action movies.

originally posted by: Connman
a reply to: TAWonATS

Totally agree seems we watched the same video (And payed attention) where the car was still trying to push the cop car even after the shots started.

I feel like I missed a memo as to why the car bumped into the cop car in the first place- but right before the cop starts screaming you can hear an engine revving like he's decided he's going to push the cruiser out of the way. (not smart...)

How he was still able to put his hands up after all those bullets is beyond me-- but I'll tell you this, if I was in his seat and bullets started flying at my face, I'd be trying to get down towards the floor- and if the gas pedal happened to get pushed on in that panic I doubt I'd even notice. Automatic transmissions are strange like that.

A reasonable human would have fired one shot- probably not AT the drive so much as into the car- and then waited to see the reaction of the driver before firing a second. Unloading an entire clip directly into that dude was not reasonable, IMO.

From the video it's hard to see- but for all that cop knows the first bullet spattered that kids brains all over the back seat. Perhaps shooting out a tire would have been a more reasonable first shot. I can understand someone in that line of work making a bad call and killing someone over something like this- but unloading an *entire* clip before stopping to re-evaluate? If that officer were carrying an automatic assault rifle, I bet he'd have held down the trigger until it stopped firing. This is the sort of thing you'd expect from a citizen handed a gun and told to make sure that guy doesn't get away- not a trained professional.


Excessive use of force- but not nearly the worst case I've heard of lately...


edit:
anyone know the distance of the officer? For someone trained to shoot the hell out of anything that moves, those shots don't seem terribly well placed.

Yes, I'm assuming the cop had already exited his vehicle once they were pinned down (as they usually do with gun drawn). Then, the driver figured he could push the cop car out of the way and start fleeing...dumb move! Just purposely hitting a cop car with a vehicle is considered assault with a deadly weapon.The police officer had every right to unload until there was no further a threat, which he/she did. As soon as the kid stopped the car, the shooting ceased. I hate police brutality and it really revs me up when I see it. But, this time I'm gonna have to side with the cop. These kids had no regard for the safety of anyone including themselves!

Yeah.
A cop blocks your egress with his cruiser and has the multicolored lights twinkling.... he is not there to help you celebrate Christmas early.
Doing anything other than showing your hands and following the cop's instructions is STUPID. Especially when you add the fact that these dimwits just finished doing a burglary.

a reply to: lordcomac

By "reasonable human" I assume you mean somebody with no firearm training at all? Because at no point in the years and years of handling firearms have I ever been taught/told/heard/overheard "shoot once and see what happens." You shoot to stop the threat, whether it's one round, two, or ten. Or maybe you mean "fired a warning shot?" Yea, no police force fires warning shots. Doesn't happen.

Shooting out a tire doesn't stop the threat. A) tires don't magically deflate as soon as they're shot (thanks hollywood!) and b) how does a flat tire stop the threat? Vehicles are quite capable of continuing to move with flat tires.

Distance to target doesn't particularly matter. Chances are this officer shoots the bare minimum number of times on the range. Range shooting isn't combat. Putting holes in paper targets isn't combat. Putting every round in a "real life" situation through the same hole isn't likely for an average shooter.

Honestly, if you fight the law, that's what you get. Anyone who is not cooperating and is violent or not obeying the law is a risk to that officers life.

a reply to: Connman

Ummmmm...the guy tried to push the car or mayyyyybe he was shot in the head and had a paniced reaction like im sure any of us would if shot in the friggin head...i mean you can down play it but come on if you take a round to the head once you realize thats what happened your gonna panic and spaz.