The writer was afraid of the policeman because the police man looked doubtfull. The writer thought that the police man would suspect him for having swag in the sack and he could not face the investigation.
So many police shootings contain this narrative. Scared police officers in a stressful situation. They were afraid. They thought he had a gun. He ran. He was coming at them. Again and again, the narrative fed to us is that these trained professionals were unable to handle the stress of a tense moment and made a “split-second decision” that ended with someone losing his (or her) life.
I have a question.
Why are ordinary citizens, who do not have the training that police officers go through, expected to handle these high-stress situations and act calmly and rationally when the police aren’t? How does that make any sense?
When you sign up to be a police officer, you know what you are getting into. It’s not a surprise.
You are there to protect and serve. It is expected that you could be in a tense situation with a suspect. You signed a contract to put your life on the line to serve the people in your community. You willingly went into that agreement.
More importantly, you went through weeks of training—training that ordinary citizens do not go through.
You presumably were given information on how to de-escalate situations, how to approach suspects and when to use force