What three police shootings in LA tell us

It's not what the Washington Post claims

I agree with Bill that primary responsibility for a crime rests with the criminal who commits it. I also agree that primary responsibility for the sharp rise in crime much of America is experiencing rests with those who have reversed the policies that sharply reduced crime and kept it reduced for at least two decades — proactive policing and strong criminal sentencing.

The media, and certainly the Washington Post, should be held “accountable” for their role in the reversal of these policies — especially their constant efforts to demonize the police. Given growing public concern over violent crime, savvy liberal politicians have started to distance themselves a bit from the hard line BLM takes on the police. But the Washington Post, which doesn’t have to win elections, persists with its attacks on effective policing.

Here, in its search for police officers behaving badly, the Post goes all the way across the country, to Los Angeles, where it contends that three deaths raise “new questions about excessive use of force” by the police. Readers won’t be surprised by my conclusion that the three cases raise different questions than the one the Post poses.

Let’s start with the easiest case and work our way towards the most complicated one.

The first case is that of Oscar Sanchez. Police officers encountered him in responding to reports that he was threatening people with a knife. When Sanchez approached the officers with a spike pole, one of them shot and killed him.

The Post does not present any evidence disputing that Sanchez did, in fact, move towards the officers with a spiked pole. Instead, it cites an attorney for the Sanchez family who says Sanchez had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

But there is no indication that the police officers knew about the diagnosis. In any event, when a man attacks an officer with a deadly weapon, he needs to be taken down regardless of his mental diagnosis.

Thus, as things stand now, there is no reason to believe the police did anything wrong in the case of Sanchez. His case raises no legitimate “questions about excessive force.”

In the second case, according to the Post, the police officers who killed the suspect had been told he had a history of severe mental illness. The officers were responding to a report by the wife of Takar Smth’s wife that he was violating a retraining order she obtained.

According to the Post, a program called SMART (note: beware of any program that calls itself that) contemplates that trained social workers will be deployed along with police officers on calls where mental illness may be involved. However, according to the Post the officers who responded to this call did not deploy social workers. After a 15-minute confrontation, Smith reached for a knife and an officer shot him dead.

Again, absent evidence that Smith didn’t reach for a knife, this shooting seems clearly justified. As for rushing to the scene of Smith’s violation without waiting for social workers, that seems like “smart” policing to me. If I ever call the police in distress, I hope the officers will arrive as soon as possible, with or without social workers.

To be sure, police officers should follow proscribed procedures. If the officers in this case violated clear rules, they should receive the discipline that ordinarily follows a violation.

But I don’t see how the Smith case raises new questions about excessive use of force by the police. It’s not excessive to shoot a man who, during a confrontation with the police, goes for a knife.

The third case involves Keenan Anderson, cousin of BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors. According to this report from NPR, witnesses say that Anderson caused an auto accident and tried to steal a vehicle. When the police arrived, Anderson was running in the street and behaving erratically.

Video, which is posted by NPR with its report) confirms Anderson’s erratic conduct. It also shows that officers ordered him to get out of the street and stand against a wall and that Anderson complied initially. But later, although the video shows no hostility by the police officers, he ran away, crossing a busy intersection.

Three police officers caught up with him and ordered him to lie on his stomach. When Anderson did not comply the officers forced him to the ground. The video seems to show one officer putting his elbow across Anderson’s neck.

Officers repeatedly threatened to tase Anderson unless he calmed down and stopped resisting. Eventually, an officer did fire his taser gun.

Apparently, the officer fired it multiple times. However, according to LA’s police chief there was only one taser activation. He says several attempts were ineffective and the officer used "a series of dry stuns" following the first full activation.

Paramedics arrived promptly and transported Anderson to a local hospital. He died four hours later after appearing to suffer cardiac arrest. A formal cause of death has not been determined.

It’s premature to form definitive conclusions about this unfortunate case. However, I think the following points can be made regardless of what further investigation reveals.

First, the Washington Post casts Anderson in a more favorable light, and the police in a less favorable one, than NPR’s report does. For example, the Post doesn’t say the police repeatedly warned Anderson he would be tased if he didn’t comply, although this is obvious from the video.

It’s telling that the Post’s report is more slanted against the cops than NPR’s.

Second, while investigation might reveal police misconduct, NPR’s report, on its face, doesn’t describe any, in my view (and neither does the Post’s). When a suspect resists arrest and flees, officers have little choice but to subdue him forcefully. Although Anderson complained that the officers were trying to “George Floyd him,” the reports don’t indicate a sustained period in which officers bore down on his neck, and neither does the video.

The taser, I take it, is a standard device used to subdue resistant suspects. It’s preferable to using choke holds, for example. That’s why police departments issue these devices to officers.

To be sure, tasers can cause serious harm. Yet, when a suspect stole an Atlanta police officer’s taser and pointed it at the officer, causing the officer to shoot the suspect, the BLM left argued that the taser was not a deadly weapon. Now, I assume, this view will become “inoperative,” at least for the time being.

Third, the real lesson from Anderson’s case, and from others like it, is this: Don’t resist arrest. There’s no indication that the police mistreated Anderson during the time in which he complied with their order to stand by and wait for a blood-alcohol test. Indeed, I say the officers treated him respectfully, notwithstanding his erratic behavior and weird remarks.

It was only after Anderson ran that his troubles began.

Why did Anderson run? Probably because he knew he was guilty of a fairly serious offense. But, as noted, during his altercation with the police he also referred to George Floyd.

It’s possible, therefore, that BLM’s false claim that police officers often kill compliant suspects caused him to be non-compliant. If black lives really mattered to BLM and its media allies, they would stop contributing to paranoia about the police and would encourage compliance with officers.

But where’s the glory in that?

Or the money? Anderson’s cousin, Patrisse Cullors, has profited nicely from spouting the BLM line. It’s fair wonder whether her cousin paid the ultimate price for subscribing to it.