I am writing in support of the editorial on Oct. 6 regarding the police shooting of Easter Leafa. I watched the video and could not believe my eyes. The officer who is responsible for her death was cowardly, incompetent and unworthy of being a police officer. His job is to serve and protect, not escalate and kill. In every profession, be it teachers, doctors, or police officers, you have different levels of competency. Excellent, good, average, below average, and poor. The officer who fired falls into the “poor” category. The police officers were called in to de-escalate a situation and instead, they made it infinitely worse. I ask myself, “What would I do if you were in that situation?” I came up with about 50 answers, none of which involved the girl dying. The Office of Special Prosecutions justified the officer’s action because, obviously the law is poorly written and/or they have low expectations for how a police officer should act. That girl is not dead because of her actions; she is dead because of the cops’ actions. There is no justification for that kind of performance. If what they did is the status quo among police officers, we are all in trouble.
A firearm is a tool, nothing more. You don’t have to kill just because you have a gun out. And speaking of that, if all she had was a knife, why did the officers not have a Taser out? Such an obvious solution. The officer told the Office of Special Prosecutions that he thought Leafa was going to attack. I am not buying that. She would have to raise the knife to do that, but she didn’t. I frankly could not live with myself for killing someone needlessly, but then, I am not afraid of a 16-year-old girl holding a knife at her side.
Did the two officers ask if Easter had the knife with her before she came in? No. Did they tell her to leave it outside if she did?
No. She probably thought she was supposed to be bringing it in. Her body language was of a disgruntled teenager who knows she is in trouble. Nothing was threatening about her actions in my eyes and yet, the reaction of the cops was to kill her because she did not drop the knife on command. It’s not a matter of courage, though they showed a lack of courage, it’s a matter of competency. I can’t imagine this officer’s actions in a real emergency because that was not one.
So fire these two incompetent people, and while you are at it, take a good look both at the people who hired them and especially those who trained them. To the Office of Special Prosecutions, why don’t you push to make some new laws so that behavior like this can’t be justified? Lastly, what is the lesson the public learned from this incident?
Don’t call the cops or they might become scared and kill a loved one. Sure.
Almost all cops are better than those two, but can you take a chance?
— Dan Reed
Sterling
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