General Two cops shot
- Thread starter mysticmac
- Start date
Tulsa, Oklahoma — The body camera footage from the murder of Sergeant Craig Johnson and the attempted murder of Officer Aurash Zarkeshan has been released by Tulsa Police Department. On June 29th, 2020 at 3:06 am Officer Zarkeshan stopped David Ware after he failed to yield when pulling onto the roadway, made an illegal left turn, and operated a vehicle with expired tags. At 3:23 am, 11 minutes later, suspect Ware fired multiple rounds at the Officers. Sergeant Craig Johnson died as result of injuries from the shooting. Officer Zarkeshan was critically wounded and continues to recover. The gunman, Ware, is charged with murder in the shooting death of Sgt. Craig Johnson and shooting with intent to kill Officer Aurash Zarkeshan with the Tulsa Police Department. The accused getaway driver, Matthew Hall, waived his preliminary hearing and is going to trial. Hall is charged with accessory to murder and accessory to a felony. The district court arraignments for Ware and Hall are scheduled for Oct. 5.
I'm somewhat doubtful we just witnessed a murder, so I'll be curious to see how this plays out.
I dunno. The biggest question is whether or not their use of force was justified. The reason they gave was because they had to get of out of the car because it didn't have tags, and they wouldn't be able to verify he had valid insurance which meant they were going to tow it.
I do think they were kind of f'n with him near the beginning, but that's because he had a history of possession. That could be considered lack of probable cause, but past behavior is typically a great predictor of future behavior, and they already had a reason to pull him out of the car, so I can see how they could justify that.
They asked him to get out repeatedly, then gave him a bunch of warnings regarding the taser, then he began fighting off the taser prongs, and resisting the other officer that was trying to pull him out. They then hit him with pepper spray multiple times, and continued to struggle with him to get him out of the car and onto the ground. I think they can justify their level of force up to this point, but man they need better grappling training.
Meanwhile, the guy gave his reason for struggling with them as he didn't want to get arrested. When you are under arrest, you don't have that option. Onto top of that, he called for backup. That esculated the situation. When backup showed up, the fight became two on two, but the last guy hung back, so beyond verbal commands to stay back, beyond him, nobody knew that as this point, so everyone is still thinking it is a 2-1 fight. Now, multiple attackers can be considered a serious threat of bodily harm, but I think you'd have a tough time getting a judge or jury to agree when the two guys are cops with a suspect they are trying to arrest, and they've have kept their level of force to less than lethal options. The last guy decided to enter the fight with lethal force, and he did that by blindsiding them.
He'd have to justify that by convincing a jury that he was in fear for his friend's life or serious bodily harm. Tulsa isn't Portland. I think that's going to be a tall task.
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That’s someone who was given more than ample time to leave the car with more than ample time with many warnings to get out and “talk about it”...on top of the fact that he did have a gun....driver = death penalty
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I don't care what race or sex a person is, weather your a citizen or civil service worker but damn it's hard to watch someone die.