Thanks to the work of the Washington Post, we know that American police fatally shoot roughly 1,000 people every year. Many of these people are armed, some are certainly dangerous, and most of the shootings will be found to be “justified.” Justified can mean many things, particularly because most state laws and federal judicial precedent give police officers extraordinary discretion to use lethal force.
Indeed, the legal standard for an officer to use lethal force—nicknamed the “reasonably scared cop rule” by defense attorney Scott Greenfield—is so broad that almost every unjustified shooting must be plainly egregious. Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was killed in one such unjustified shooting this past weekend in Fort Worth, Texas.
Fort Worth police officers responded to a call for service at Jefferson’s home because a neighbor reported that the door to the house was open, and that was unusual for late night/early morning hours. One of the officers, Aaron Dean, walked around the house to investigate the area and do a “welfare check,” a police term for making sure everything is OK.
The body camera footage released by Fort Worth Police Department shows the moment when Dean suddenly turns toward the window, shouted “Put your hands up, show me your hands!,” and then shoots through the window of the home. Jefferson was killed in front of her eight-year-old nephew, with whom she had just been playing video games.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/another-unnecessary-police-killing
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