Phoenix Police Shoots Man In His Own Apartment

[Leonhard]

And that's the problem, isn't it? Nobody mentioned race because the poor man who was shot was white.
If he had been some other ethnicity, it would habpve been all over the place, adding fuel to the fire the media and BLM has made.

I never mentioned race in any of the posts I did about police shootings.

[Cow Poke]

I wasn't aware of it until then, I didn't know it was an old story. I thought it was recent. I do see that he stepped out of his apartment, gun at his back, and fell back into it. The exchange was over in around 5 seconds.

Apparently, it had been an ongoing "domestic dispute", which is often deadly to police, as both parties sometimes end up turning on police.
The guy answered the door with a gun in his hand, which is his right, but also comes with deadly consequences.

From what I can tell, one of the officers was a little too 'trigger happy', and did not wait for the man to comply with orders to drop the gun.
At no point do I believe that the man raised the gun into an aggressive posture. Still looking.

[mossrose]

I never mentioned race in any of the posts I did about police shootings.

And I love ya for it.

[Mountain Man]

With all due respect, nobody mentioned race until you brought it up...

I noticed right away that the race of the man shot was conspicuously absent from the story. If he was black, it would have been in the headline. It turns out Whitaker is white.

Video of the incident:

You can skip the commentary and jump to 4:27 if you want to see the encounter itself. My impression is that the one officer did shoot without cause (and into the suspect's back!), but to be fair, you can't see what Whitaker is doing with his right hand, so I don't know exactly what the officer who fired was responding to, if he was just jumpy, or if there was some action from Whitaker that compelled his action.

This is yet another case where it's hard to reach a conclusion without all the facts.

[Cow Poke]

I noticed right away that the race of the man shot was conspicuously absent from the story. If he was black, it would have been in the headline. It turns out Whitaker is white.

Video of the incident:

You can skip the commentary and jump to 4:27 if you want to see the encounter itself. My impression is that the one officer did shoot without cause (and into the suspect's back!), but to be fair, you can't see what Whitaker is doing with his right hand, so I don't know exactly what the officer who fired was responding to, if he was just jumpy, or if there was some action from Whitaker that compelled his action.

This is yet another case where it's hard to reach a conclusion without all the facts.

So, the officer who did the shooting is the subject of both internal and criminal investigations. As he should be.

[Sparko]

This is beyond horrific.

Source: Pinac News

Ryan Whitaker was sitting at home with his girlfriend playing video games when he was killed by police.

A noise complaint from an annoyed neighbor resulted in cops shooting and killing a man within five seconds of him opening his front door.

Ryan Whitaker opened the door holding a gun in his right hand which is legal in Arizona but it made the cops fear for their lives.

However, the cops never gave him a chance to put the gun down which he appeared to be trying to do when one cop shot him in the back three times.

"Why did you guys shoot him?" Whitaker's girlfriend, Brandee Nees, yelled as she stepped into the doorway.

"He just pulled a gun on us, ma'am," Phoenix police officer Jeff Cooke said.

"Because it's dark and someone just knocked on the door," Nees responded.

When Phoenix police officer John Ferragamo asked Nees if she and Whitaker had been fighting, she told him they were only playing video games.

"Literally we were making salsa and playing Crash Bandicoot so there may have been some screaming from PlayStation but it wasn’t domestic violence or anything," she said.

...

The cops arrived eight minutes later and knocked on the door with one of them yelling "Phoenix police" before both of them stepped off to the side, making it impossible for anybody to see them through the peephole. When Whitaker opened the door with the gun to his side, the cops shined their flashlights in his face, blinding him before noticing the gun.

"Whoa! Hands! Hands! Hands!" Ferragamo yelled as Whitaker lowered his body with his left hand in the air and his right hand appearing to be putting the gun down.

Cooke then fired three times, shooting him in the back.

Earlier that day, Whitaker had attended his daughter's high school graduation.

© Copyright Original Source

Video here (graphic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIH_s2y0KVg

The cop shot him when he was kneeling and trying to comply. The officer obviously shot when he should not have.

If he was black there would be riots. But he wasn't so nobody has heard of this before even though it happened in May.

[seer]

Video here (graphic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIH_s2y0KVg

The cop shot him when he was kneeling and trying to comply. The officer obviously shot when he should not have.

If he was black there would be riots. But he wasn't so nobody has heard of this before even though it happened in May.

Just awful...

[Mountain Man]

Video here (graphic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIH_s2y0KVg

The cop shot him when he was kneeling and trying to comply. The officer obviously shot when he should not have.

I agree that the officer shouldn't have shot, but I understand why he did. When Whitaker exited the apartment, he had the hand holding the gun at his side and slightly behind him. When he was ordered to show his hands and kneel on the ground, he quickly pulled his gun hand from behind and away from his body, looking very much like he was drawing his weapon, and then his hand is obscured by his body, so for all the officer knew, Whitaker was now aiming at his partner.

This is one of those classic "shoot/don't shoot" scenarios where I agree that the officer made the wrong decision, but only because I have the luxury of watching and rewatching the video from the comfort and safety of my computer chair. If I was there in the heat of the moment, I might very well have made the same decision as the officer.

[Leonhard]

There is no justification for this. At least fire them and settle with his wife for a million or so.

[Leonhard]

I mean do people have the right to walk out of their front door when police come knocking or should we also suspect that US Police are so trigger happy that even doing that is reasonable grounds for being shot?

[Cow Poke]

I mean do people have the right to walk out of their front door when police come knocking or should we also suspect that US Police are so trigger happy that even doing that is reasonable grounds for being shot?

They have the right to, yes. But having the right to do something doesn't always mean it's the smartest thing to do.
One of the problems is that people have pranked "police response" -- ANYBODY can stand outside your door and knock and yell "police".

The article suggests that the officers knocked on the door, then stepped aside so that the occupant couldn't see who was there.
It's a fact that the officers stepped aside, but the rationale is incorrect. The reason that they do that is because officers have been shot through the door from the inside.
It's just good practice to step aside while waiting for the door to open.

Still, I see no justification for this shooting.

[Mountain Man]

I mean do people have the right to walk out of their front door when police come knocking or should we also suspect that US Police are so trigger happy that even doing that is reasonable grounds for being shot?

If you watch the video, it's not simply walking out of the apartment that was the problem but that he had a gun in his hand. That's what put the police on high alert. Then when he was asked to show his hands and get on the ground, he moved his gun hand in a way that could have been mistaken for drawing his weapon, which is why the cop behind him fired.

Bad judgment call? Probably, but understandable given the circumstances.

[KingsGambit]

I mean do people have the right to walk out of their front door when police come knocking or should we also suspect that US Police are so trigger happy that even doing that is reasonable grounds for being shot?

The man who was shot in the 2017 swatting hoax incident in Wichita walked out of the door unarmed and was too confused to comply with the instructions to put his hands up. He stopped mid-movement and got shot dead. The Wichita police force continues to argue that they were justified in doing so.