People are starting to lose their trust in the officers because of their excessive use of force.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Police officers have had a rough time lately. Countless people believe that the men and women of the law do not operate only in the name of the law and that they do what they please with the power they are entrusted with. So little was the joy of these groups when they found out that the jury exonerated the officers who shot the college student.
This Thursday a jury decided that the four officers from the San Francisco Police were not using excessive force when they shot Alexandro Nieto, the 28 years old college student.
According to the officers and the witnesses present at the time of the incident, the four policemen felt necessary to shoot the young man because he pointed a gun at them, first.
Unfortunately, the gun he was pointing at the police officers was not a handgun, as they initially thought, but a stun gun that was given to Nieto at his job. The young man was working as a security guard in order to be able to pay his school.
The incident took place on the 21st of March, 2014 in the Bernal Heights San Francisco Park. Ever since then, people are getting more and more skeptic when it comes to the real reasons behind all the deadly shootings in which officers of the law are involved.
Alexandro Nieto, the man who allegedly pointed a stun gun at four policemen from 25 yards away, was shot 59 times in 30 seconds. So much for a warning shot.
During the trial, Adante Pointer, the family’s lawyer, told the jury members that the man’s parents feel like they have been robbed of their son and the time that they could have spent with him. Also, Pointer brought evidence to the court that Nieto was actually holding his hands in his pocket at the date of the shooting.
Furthermore, the Nieto family’s attorney pointed out the fact that the officers tend to engage in violent, deadly behavior without properly assessing the dangers that a situation actually poses. The men and women of the San Francisco police do not have a proper protocol for all kinds of situations, so when they feel unprepared, they whip out their guns.
Margaret Baumgartner, the Deputy City Lawyer who represented the four policemen argued that they felt that force was necessary in this particular case. All 59 bullets against an allegedly armed man. And with this arguments the jury exonerated the officers who shot the college student.
Image source: thelondoneveningpost.com
