A Montana cop who shot and killed an unarmed passenger in a traffic stop broke down crying immediately after the killing, according to dashcam video that became public this week.
“I thought he was gonna pull a gun on me,” Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison could be heard saying, before sobbing with his head against the hood of a patrol car, NBC News reported on Tuesday.
The officer reportedly shot Richard Ramirez three times, puncturing his lung, after the victim refused to put his hands up.
It was the second time Morrison has shot and killed a civilian in a traffic stop, according to the Billings Gazette newspaper. In February 2013 he killed James Shaw after shocking him with a stun gun, an incident which was also caught on video by a dashcam, the Gazette reported. An advisory panel decided that the cop was justified in shooting Shaw.
Last week, a panel found Morrison was also justified in killing Ramirez, who was reportedly high on methamphetamine during the incident. Morrison told the panel that he thought Ramirez had a gun after he saw him reach for his belt.
“I knew in that moment, which later was determined to be untrue, but I knew in that moment that he was reaching for a gun,” Morrison told the panel, according to NBC. “I couldn’t take that risk. … I wanted to see my son grow up.”
Watch the video below, which was originally published by the Gazette. WARNING: It is graphic and disturbing.
h/t The Root
How many times is it necessary for a police to discharge their weapon in their entire career let alone kill two people?
Bingo. How the hell is he still on the job? Oh, wait, he’s a cop.
I really would like to go through “use of force” training myself just to be sure, but my feeling is that if I already have my gun trained on someone, I’d have the upper hand even after actually VERIFYING they have a gun.
OK after watching the video I have to say the officer (and/or colleagues) really put him in a tough position by his going up to a car with four people all alone. His decision in the moment he shot was questionable, but everything leading up to that was downright ludicrous. Training and tactics must change.
Do you think it’s possible for anyone on the right to even conceptualize the idea that if the nation wasn’t soaked in guns, if we’d made it just the teensiest bit harder to get one in, say, the 1960s, cops wouldn’t constantly be assuming that anyone who moves in a way they don’t like is going for a gun?
Yeah. I get that you can’t expect perfection of response in situations where every sensory perception is being filtered through a haze of fight or flight hormones. I really do get that. It’s the exact reason I think concealed carry laws are idiotic.
But I also can’t believe that training cops to wait just a fraction of a second longer to see whether a suspect they’re already pointing their gun at who moves in a way they don’t like is actually coming up with a gun before emptying a clip into them will materially affect their chances of coming home alive. And it might well reduce the number of them who have to deal with a lifetime of guilt and PTSD.