“On Monday, Ames [Iowa] Police Officer Adam McPherson fired six shots into a truck driven by Tyler Comstock, 19, of Boone,” desmoinesregister.com reports. “The chase began after Comstock’s father reported the truck stolen. Comstock at one point backed a trailer he was hauling onto the patrol car’s hood, police said.” What they didn’t say was why Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson continued the chase despite being told to back off twice by an unidentified officer, clearly heard on the official tape. When the truck crashed at Iowa State University, McPherson fired six shots into Comstock, who died from two gunshots wounds. “The officer fired his gun after Comstock did not follow commands to shut the engine off, police said.” That’ll learn ‘im. Yesterday, Officer McPherson got a pass . . .

The officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old driver this week after a chase onto Iowa State University’s campus was cleared Thursday of wrongdoing, completing the investigation, officials said.

Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson “acted reasonably under very difficult circumstances and McPherson’s use of deadly force was justified,” wrote Story County Attorney Stephen Holmes in a letter to Ames Police Chief Charles Cychosz.

Holmes’ findings mean the case will not go to a grand jury, which would have heard evidence in secret and then would have decided whether prosecutors had presented enough evidence to file a criminal charge.

What we’d like to know from desmoinesregister.com (or elsewhere): was Officer McPherson in imminent danger of death or grievous bodily harm and (here’s the crucial bit) was imminence imminent? If not, and if no one else was in jeopardy, and the truck was stuck, what up?

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115 COMMENTS

  1. It’s sad the father apparently wasn’t aware of the state of the police in our country.

    There seem to be many who step in front of fleeing vehicles or behind them (if the suspect is trying to reverse) just so they can justify shooting.

    This all started when the entitled little jackass stole his dad’s truck in retaliation for him not buying the jackass cigarettes.

    The lesson here is to never call the cops on a family member to try to teach them a lesson.

    He should’ve waited until he got home and dealt with it the old fashioned way.

  2. Months??? Long enough for public outrage to die down and attention to shift elsewhere mayhaps?

    I suppose the officer will be on PAID leave as well not thrown in jail like anyone else would?

  3. The Ames officer who shot and killed a man after a police chase on the Iowa State University campus was cleared of any wrongdoing Thursday by the county prosecutor.

    Officer Adam McPherson was justified in using deadly force in shooting Tyler Comstock, 19, said Story County Attorney Stephen Holmes.

    “I’m very saddened by this, but I’m also relieved that no one else was injured or killed, especially the officers,” he said.

    Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent Michael Motsinger said in a Thursday news conference that Holmes met with officers from DCI, Ames police, and Iowa State University on Wednesday night to review the investigation.

    After seeing the videos and reading the interviews, the conclusion was that McPherson “acted reasonably under very difficult circumstances and officer McPherson’s use of deadly force was justified,” Motsinger said.

    Really? An unarmed man who didn’t listen is now dead. And we will never hear his side of it.

  4. So, Zim shoots a thug sitting on top of him, slamming his head into the ground, and it takes ~1 year to establish that the force was justified.

    A cop perforates a driver, driving AWAY from him, being told NOT to follow, etc… and in 5 days he’s back on the job with a few fresh mags of JHP’s.

  5. There are three people to blame for this tragedy of errors. The kid, who was a petulant little puke but didn’t deserve to die. The father, who reported the vehicle stolen when it wasn’t and who’s now shocked — shocked! — that something bad happened because of it. And the cop, who killed a teenager. And for what?

  6. Dollars to doughnuts it will be ruled suicide. The driver threw himself in front of those bullets on purpose!

    Worst case of suicide I ever saw was a guy who stabbed himself in the back. 4 times. Then hit himself over the head with a tire iron, then he threw himself into traffic. Terrible. Just terrible.

    • So the cop didn’t even step in the path of the vehicle and still shot him dead.

      It’s worse than I thought.

    • I may have been a bit hasty and may have even jumped to a few conclusions but those are reversible(ish), death is not. The only thing the video changes with me is that I now have NO sympathy for the driver whatsoever.

      IMHO…. When he actively rammed the police car near the end he bought and paid for his own death. When you go on the offensive against an armed officer that’s the likely consequence of your action. He was an idiot.

      That aside…. Would we, any of us be considered justified under the same circumstances when the ability to GTFO was still available?

      Disable the vehicle, Fine by me.
      Stall for more backup, Fine by me.
      Hunt him down later, Fine by me.

      Take it upon yourself to execute him while other options are still present… NOT OK.

      Officer. Not judge, not jury, not vigilante and definitely not executioner.

      Just my two cents. Thanks for posting the vid.

    • Completely Good Shoot. There are students on that campus and he was driving waaaaaaay out of control and obviously did not care about ramming the officers. A vehicle can be used as a weapon just like a fist can. Tough shit kid, better luck next time.

      • But, would he have been driving that fast and/or dangerously had the officer backed off as he was told to do? That’s the part I have issue with. The pursuit exacerbated the situation, potentially put MORE people in danger and narrowed the possible outcomes.

        “we know the suspect you can back off now”…. That leaves options.

        • Yes. The young man created the initial situation but the officer(s) kept it going. The officer was clearly told that he could disengage. He chose to continue escalating the situation. The officer(s) became the aggressor(s). The suspect was known and they could have picked him up later. Instead, they contributed to a public hazard and then killed their suspect. This sort of thing must stop.

    • The cop was wrong. I didn’t even watch all the way through. What I observed so far:
      1. High-speed pursuit in heavy traffic.
      2. Ramming the perp’s trailer, dropping debris all over the street.
      3. Target fixation.

      McPherson is a time bomb waiting to go off, IMO. He quite easily could have broken off the chase and let another unit collar the kid. But he WANTED that bust, no matter what. Maybe next time when a soccer mom with headphones and a stroller steps in front of his unit while he’s pursuiing a litterbug that blew him off…

      • Dude, first off, it wasn’t that high speed of a pursuit, he did a good job of going through the lights.

        SECOND, THE TRUCK WITH THE TRAILER REVERSED INTO HIM!

        Maybe you should calm down and watch it all the way through.

        • I like how when the little jackass reversed into him the first time he didn’t feel it was necessary to shoot the kid right then and there.

        • [Deep breath; rewatch] Yeah, got it at 0:23. I stand behind my other two points. That’s why grownup police don’t do pursuits in a metro area. “You can’t outrun a radio.”

    • thanks for posting dash cam. on the one hand, dude backed his car into cop. other hand, cop was out of his car, not in danger. tough call on this one. the “back off, we know the suspect” 2x call would steer me towards un-justified manslaughter. was his life in danger, or was he pissed about getting rammed and all fired up on adrenalin? he obviously ignored the back off recommendations. if they knew the suspect, they could have just waited until he returned home. maybe not such a tough call.

  8. Law Enforcement has a serious perception problem ,one which I cant see a solution for.

    Like it or not, every time a LEO pulls the trigger when he shouldn’t have, the entire profession sinks that much closer to the lows of the Nazi SS.It doesn’t help that our corrupt national government isnt fit for investigating our LEO establishment.The FBI is just as bad if not worse then the local agencies for internal bias.

    • Were any shots fired prior to this footage. If so, were those bullets justified…

      If cops are already shooting at ME, you can bet your ass I’m getting the hell outta there as fast as possible because the death sentence has already been handed down by the officers.

  10. That happened about twenty miles north of the town I live in. There does seem to be a disturbing trend of late to shoot first and question the corpse.

    I think that this is plenty of wrong doing in this case. For what it is worth, the county this town is in would like to have every one of the public disarmed. All the SD run with patrol rifles in the squad.

  11. Another case of thugs with badges getting away with murder. They were told to stop the chace and to back off, put they kept going. Sounds like murder to me.

    • A car or truck is a 4000lb weapon if the driver so chooses. The cop was obviously in danger when the guy started ramming cars. The cops were outside the car when he was ramming. Looks legit to me.

  12. So intentionally ramming someone with your truck is somehow different that taking shot at them? From what I saw the police didn’t force him to do anything. He backed into the squad car hard enough to spin it around and push it down the road. Then the case was on again. At the end he backed into that cruiser or tree next to it hard enough to send the taillight sailing past the camera. Imagine the truck as a you would a club, knife, or firearm in this scenario, because that’s how he was using it. As a weapon. From the video it looks like a justifiable shoot by the cops.

    What should the cop have done differently?

    • “They should of just let my precious baby go. He ain’t done nothing wrong. He was smart he knew about computers.”

    • If you listen to the audio, McPherson stated that he rammed the truck and was continuing the chase.

    • I had an Iowa State Trooper tell me once that every cop wants at least one chance to shoot at someone without consequences.
      This is the same Trooper who was posted on an Interstate overpass to shoot an oncoming car that was being pursued. He missed.

      • So one trooper is now the spokesman for all cops? That’s the same thinking that the antigunners use on us. We carry guns because we want to shoot a Trayvonnn.

        • Not what I was implying. But the Officer ignored orders to back off and instead of disabling the truck, he pops the driver. What do you think was going through his head when he pulled the trigger? Several times.

  13. Ok guys watch the video. The kid had plenty of time to give up. Instead he starts using the truck as a deadly weapon. A grand jury looked at it folks. It’s not a coverup. Remember the white house thing. Cops were justified using deadly force when she started bashing cop cars i.e. using her car as a deadly weapon.

    • Dont try to argue with anybody on here. According to most on this site, the cops shouldnt even carry a firearm, let alone use it. He shouldve tried to throw himself infront of the vehicle to stop it I guess.

      • There are plenty of respectable cops who post on this site.

        They are real cops, police officers, and peace officers.

        They are not brutes with badges who shoot people when they’re not in imminent danger.

      • @ Quinn and Michael,

        Not all on this site are anti leo. I think the distinction needs to be made that “not your friend” does not mean enemy or bad person in any way.

        I personally respect the police and the job they do but know that they are doing a job. Being your friend, taking your side or helping you clear yourself of wrongdoing in a situation are NOT part of doing that job. My reactions in this thread are about THIS cop in THIS specific incident not all cops every time. Cops are people, they make mistakes….I get that but the bureaucracy always seems to take “their” side over “ours”. I think that’s what pisses most of us off. It gives them an unfair advantage against the lowly non-leo without holding them to a higher standard of conduct than we would be held to.

        I’m not trying to be snarky in any way, just trying to clear the air a bit.

        • BACK OFF BLUE.

          There. Now if you disobey that order, everything you do here is illegal, just because you’re disobeying.

          Wait, that’s not how laws work? Well shucks.

          • So those sgt stripes and Lt bars are just there for mere suggestion. All this time, I thought LEO pretended to be like the military since they like to refer to us a “civilians.” That said, then why did the kid have to stop?

        • Hannibal – that IS how a chain of command works. That chain of command is in place specifically to remove some decision making from those that are too close to the situation, too adrenalin fueled, to make cleanly rational decisions. The officer chose to ignore those instructions. His choices, right or wrong, had a part in the outcome – a 19 year old is dead.

          I believe he was justified in shooting, but I believe all of it could have been avoided at more than one point in the entire event. It was not necessary. But I repeat myself.

  14. Justified does not mean necessary.

    After seeing the footage, in my mind the police officer was probably justified, both for his safety and the public safety in shooting. But, I do not think it was necessary. I think more discretion could have been used.

    Most of my resentment of LEOs in these scenarios stems from how quickly and narrowly the use of deadly force is brought to bare as the solution to events. That the known protectionism in the system for such officers frees them from the necessity to be more discerning and judicious in the use of force.

    Then there is the matter of cruelty and abusiveness towards the non-LEOs – but that is another topic.

    • The only way someone can know if a shooting was ‘necessary’ is in hindsight, after the officer is killed because he didn’t shoot. That’s why the courts have made it crystal clear that force only needs to be objectively reasonable.

      • Bullshit! You can know, and it is your job to try to know. That is the heart of my complaint. The institution of law enforcement has removed the necessity of even needing to make that judgment – that IS the problem.

        Lets take an admittedly over-simplified scenario:

        You are confronted by a man with a knife. He is threatening you with a gutting if you do not hand over your wallet. You try to calm him down by holding out your open palms, then slowly reach back to get your wallet with your right hand. Instead you manage to draw your carry gun and surprise the thug.

        At this point you are JUSTIFIED in shooting him. BUT IS IT NECESSARY?

        Only the person who is in that situation can answer that. But a moral person, a responsible person, a humanist, or even just a person scarred of the legal repercussions of killing someone, might opt out of doing so. A cop apparently has no such compunctions or limitations on their actions – they choose to kill in seemingly every possible case. That is my issue with LEOs

      • Hannibal, you just assumed your own consequent: You assume that restraint of force, cutting off a chase, not firing when someone’s hands move a bit….would have led to a dead LEO and hurt citizens. It happens every day that an LEO decides to de-escalate, buy some time, and yet the situation turns out satisfactorily. It certainly is not the case that restraint by LEOs usually leads to the death (or even injury) of a policeman.

  15. Thanks for posting the video. My $0.02 is the shooting was justified. This was more than just a case of him not wanting to turn off the ignition.

      • Dude, what’s wrong with you? What fairytale land do you live in that a couple of hollow point 9mm will stop a truck?

      • I have personally put munitions into the front end of a vehicle. Unless that cop had an M2, you arent going to immediatley effect that vehicles ability

        • Right Larry Vickers said the same thing on Tac TV. A 9,mm isn’t going to stop a cast iron V8. Glocks only stop trucks on TV e.g. NCIS-LA, 24, everywhere else the truck keeps going and runs over the cop.

      • Totaly myth about two rounds stopping a truck. Takes a long time to kill a truck. All you do is sabatoge the cooling system.

      • Valid point Sir.!

        In time the coolant would have poured out and then engine overheats and locks-up in due time, after the eng. oil becomes compromised too. Bang seized up..

        Then the kid’s on foot, or his knees pleading with cops..

      • LOL this reminds me of some incredibly stupid movie with Steven Segal (Exit Wounds) where someone starts shooting cars’ hoods and they just explode into fireballs.

        Apparently our poster up here gets his education from those flicks…

      • lol,I see others have already taken you to task for it but that’s just plain silly. Videos will follow but I’ve done a little experimentation with firearms and engines. First I can say that a 92 Cadillac Seville can run about 3800 RPM with no coolant and no oil for more than 20 minutes before it seizes. This was an intentionally drained engine. A complete dump of both coolant and oil from shooting is just unheard of. It would be the luckiest shots in history to pull off from a handgun.

        Smaller engines tend to seize faster without coolant and oil (perhaps because of their higher RPM, tighter tolerances and higher running temps, also, less metal in the block means less heat sinking).

        A t1600 4cyl made it almost 8 minutes at 4200 rpm with no oil and no coolant (it literally didn’t have a radiator, oil plug or oil filter on it). 8 minutes at 4200 RPM in the right gear would put you 10 miles away before it stopped and that is fully drained. A damaged coolant system isn’t likely to drain like that and it would be sheer dumb luck to cause an oil leak with a few rounds from a handgun through the body.

        Over many years we’ve tried others, all worn out engines at the ends of their lives. It’s suspected that the loose tolerances of the worn engines and the gunk in them liquefying in the heat ,forming a lubricant, might account for our numbers. However, anything that doesn’t take out multiple pistons or break the crank/damage the lifters is highly unlikely to stop a car in pistol range before it can run you down.

        Experience also yields that since stalling due to electrical failure allows coasting the car is still dangerous.

        On at least some engines a near complete failure of the valve train allows hundreds of yards of powered motion.

        A complex high velocity failure of an automatic transmission usually leaves one or more (often reverse) gears intact and working for a short time at reduced speed-for-RMP.

        Basically nothing short of anti tank rounds stops a car from running you over at pistol distances if the driver so chooses except incapacitating the driver and even that is chancy.

        Shooting to disable a car is fine, so long as you have a safe place to stand and plenty of time to wait. In split second life and death scenarios, shoot for the driver as he is the least robust and most vulnerable system involved.

  16. If you think this was justified you are more than likely LEO.

    There are about bilion videos of chases far more intense than this that did not end up with shots fired or a body count. That cop is a cold blooded killer…of course he was cleared.

    Police protecting nobody and serving their own intrests in town near you.

  17. I repeat: if he was such an imminent threat to public safety it would’ve made sense to shoot him down when he rammed the cop car in the middle of a public street.

    • You are right, Twenty Twenty hind sight … I would have shot him there. if he continued using his truck as a deadly weapon and refused to put his weapon down i.e. shut the truck off. I would shoot him The way he was driving we were lucky no one else was killed.

      • I don’t think he could have been out of his unit and gotten a clean shot in time. The kid was hauling by then.

    • Please tell me how he could have from the drivers seat?

      Exactly how did you want him to disable the truck?

      I think the back off over the radio was more of a “stay back this guy has already rammed cars becareful”. Than a “terminate the pursuit” order. Which would have been “Terminate the pursuit”

      Please enlighten me what you would do if you were inn the cops boots?

      • If I were a cop where I live currently, I’d be prohibited from chasing him in the first place thanks to sensible department policies.

        • Yeah, there is a dept like that by me. They tend to have more people run from them because the bad guys know the cops won’t chase them. Funny how that works.

  18. Man, I had sex in that courtyard one semester! Damn the man!

    I lived in Ames and went to school there. The kid had all the time in the world to resolve the situation peacefully, just like Trayvon Martin could have stopped bashing George Zimmerman’s head. He chose to push it, took his chances, and lost. Cops put up with a lot of crap, but once you use force against them, you can’t complain.

  19. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Multiple chances to give up. Rammed cops more than once. Revved engine while being ordered to stand down. The trailer he “lost” missed a pedestrian by a hair (newspaper sourced). He was driving on the Carver lawn in random patterns and as you can see the college kids are running to get out of the way. He was not the only cop in pursuit and he was suggested to stand down, not ordered as per the dashcam video. He is lucky he didn’t kill any students when he was blazing through campus. That lawn usually has more students occupying that space. All over cigarettes?! Cops were right on this one.

  20. I am the last in line to protect a cop but that kid was wrong. He wasnt just trying to evade the cops he started to attack them. At the same time he was driving that truck through a residential area onto a college campus. When he went through that red light, what if he would’ve T-boned a minivan with a family in it or anyone for that matter? We talk a lot of shit about the cops on here and most of the time there is good reason for it, this time i think the cop was being attacked and actually thinking about his and public safety.

  21. “The truck’s engine continued to rev even after it became stuck in a wooded area on the ISU campus. The officer fired his gun after Comstock did not follow commands to shut the engine off, police said.” This episode will result in Officer Stupid and the Department being sued by the family, and rightly so, resulting further in the taxpayers picking up the tab when their cop-liability insurance rates increase.

    Obviously, the cop was in fear for his life because the kid didn’t shut off his engine. Yeah…right! It is going to “take months” of investigation? Are they serious? This is just another murder-by-cop that should have never happened.

  22. Screw their IA investigation. Let it take a long time. This should go straight to the Grand Jury and if a true bill returned, arrest this officer and bond him out before trial.

  24. Maybe the kid was running because he thought he was going to get the new standard police interrogation technique of a 6 time repeated anal probing.

  25. The level of stupidity in this comment thread is astounding!

    I have no love for the police state we live in, but Jesus Christ! When this story first broke, I was a bit appalled at it. After seeing that video though, the kid earned what he got.

    Could the police have backed off? Sure.
    But if that kids had then proceeded to run over a pedestrian because they failed to stop him, you all would be screaming about the dereliction of duty of the police.

    Could they have tried to disable his vehicle? Sure.
    But that isn’t a guaranteed stop. (See above)

    I’m sure most of you have no understanding of how fluid a high adrenaline situation is but you tend to make quick decisions. In this instance I think the decisions the police made were fine. That had a suspect fleeing in a stolen vehicle, driving incredibly recklessly, endangering a crap load of people (including but not limited too the officers), and basically refusing to do what you are supposed to do when the lights flare behind you (STOP!).

    I’m not a cop. I don’t generally trust cops to have my best interests at heart either. But in this situation I think they did exactly what we pay taxes for them to do, ensure the safety of THE COMMUNITY!

    • Damed if you do, damned if you dont on this site. If a civilian who was legally carrying took this kid down, there would be mass praise on here. But a cop shot him, so he’s evil. Im not LEO, just former military, who has faced cars that refused to stop.

      • Perhaps there would be praise, though not from me. But one thing is certain; If that “civilian” had taken him down, short of having a tire track across their shirt, they would be in Jail right now.

  26. Where the kid stole the truck is a block from my house.

    The last time there was a shooting here was in 2008(?) and the perp ended up stealing a squad car in the middle of the shootout and got away (for a liitle while), so the Ames popo are probably a bit paranoid now.

    • After watching the dash cam video I don’t think the shooting was necessary, but then if I were a juror in the cop’s trial I wouldn’t convict him either. I don’t know how you can get to be 19 years old and think that you can ram a cop car without getting shot. Fleeing I can understand. A bit stupid but I can understand the impulse. My guess is that this kid would have either ended up in prison for most of his life or ended up on the wrong side of a gun sooner or later.

  27. My wife and I both graduated from ISU and our son is currently a senior there. One point I’ll make after discussing the chase with my son after we saw the dash cam video on local news. If this chase had occurred 10 minutes later in the day, those campus roads and sidewalks would have been crowded with students moving between classes when this happened. Not to mention the normal amount of foot traffic on campus even during class time. This kid made the choice to go charging off of Lincoln Way and onto campus roads, He knowingly put students at risk of serious injury or death without a moment’s hesitation. Only a stroke of luck in timing prevented a disaster. Watching the dash cam video, the cop didn’t fire until the kid rammed the squad car again. He didn’t shoot just because the kid didn’t turn his engine off. I’m concerned about police overreaction and militarization, as many TTAGers are. But I don’t think this was a bad shoot by the officer. I’m sorry the kid is dead, but he made his choices, too many of them the wrong choices. To be brutally frank about it (or even nasty about it), better him than somebody’s son or daughter who’s only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So enough “murder-by-cop” crap.

    • I think you belong on a more reasonable part of the internet…didn’t you notice, this is lets_blame_the_cops_and_not_bother_looking_into_it.com now.

    • This is a very reasoned response, and I agree with it. I do think the Officer was justified in shooting. But your point about the possibility of a crowded campus is the very reason to have backed off of the pursuit when (and probably why) he was instructed to do so. A heated chase is generally further inflamed by the chaser. Catching a kid in his Dad’s stolen truck is not worth the risk of chasing him for the very reasons you cite.

  28. I saw the video; if the cops had stopped chasing the man; would he have stopped driving wrecklessly and been picked up later? Quiensabe. But at the point he drives onto campus and driving the way he did using the truck as a weapon and not having traction to over turn a much bigger vehicle like a truck, I would have to say the cop did the right thing and stopped the threat. The man made his bed and he paid the price for being a danger to the public.

  29. sorry, but the dude had it coming to him. he was armed with a truck and was a danger to society with that driving.

  30. Let’s really look at this and put cop lover / cop hater aside for a moment. The suspect shows willful disregard for the safety of the public, assaults an officer with a deadly weapon and drives at excessive speeds in reverse across a grassy park area angling toward pedestrians.

    The last two rams the police delivered were justified at this point to prevent the suspect from continuing to reverse into an area with visible pedestrians. When that failed to stop him the officer exits his vehicle, which is then immediately rammed again, causing debris to fly toward/past him.

    Because the police car could have been pushed backward into the officer now afoot, given that it’s the second time the suspect has used the vehicle as a weapon and that prior to the police intervening with their own vehicles the suspect was headed into an area populated by pedestrians the only reasonable call was to use deadly force on the suspect before he employed it for a third time on the officers or directed it towards bystanders.

    It doesn’t take much to justify this shoot as the dash-cam speaks for it’s self.

    The call to back off was a suggestion not an order, and it came from someone who apparently didn’t know that backup had arrived (different department) or that the suspect was now off road in a pedestrian area an backing at high speed towards the pedestrians. The ‘back off’ was no longer valid the moment the suspect began backing in a circle towards bystanders because the situation had changed dramatically.

    When the police attempted to use their vehicles to prevent the suspect from continuing into the area where the pedestrians were located he still had the option to flee but chose to instead again assault the officer with deadly force (the ramming). Deadly force was justified from the first time the suspect rammed the officer unless he exited the vehicle (abandoning the weapon) or surrendered.

    Since the suspect did neither of these he was a valid target from the first hit.

    The moral of the story is: Don’t steal a car. If you do, don’t run when the police try to pull you over. If you run, don’t ram the police (or anyone else, thus committing aggravated assault or attempted murder).
    If you are running don’t drive on non road surfaces frequented by pedestrians. If you do drive in pedestrian areas, don’t drive towards pedestrians. If you simply must do all the above, don’t ram police cars that police are using for cover because they will finally, after much restraint, shoot you since you’re presenting a deadly threat to them and the public at large. Imminence was imminent as they say. You don’t have to wait until the BG is killing you, just long enough to see than he has the means and means to try. This was completely a good shoot in every way.

    Frankly, I’d like to hear one detailed and reasonable argument against shooting this suspect based on the dash-cam video. Note that I said detailed and reasonable and based on the only evidence we have, the video.

    Would a reasonable person fear that the driver of the truck meant to cause them grievous bodily harm or death (hint, he keeps ramming occupied vehicles and vehicles around which people are positioned). Does the driver have the ability to cause such harm (hint, he’s driving a truck), is the threat immanent? (Hint, he was shot after he rammed a car that he knew either contained a person or behind which there was a person and was again accelerating, so yes, the reasonable conclusion was that he was attempting to gain momentum for another ram, which means imminence.)

    Find the solution to that conundrum that doesn’t equal self defense (recalling that the police lack any duty to retreat) and we can discuss this. However I strongly doubt a rational argument against this being a good shoot is possible based on this evidence.

    As an aside, what should have the officer done?

    • “I’d like to hear one detailed and reasonable argument against shooting this suspect based on the dash-cam video.”

      I appreciate your viewpoint but the request seems unfair to me with all of the stipulations you put on any replies. Some of us aren’t arguing that the shoot was unjustified, only that there may have been a better outcome IF the officers had handled things differently. I don’t disagree that the shoot was justified at the end. What I do question is whether it was necessary to have gotten to the point where that was the only possible outcome. The only way to make an educated guess about that would require information you have dismissed(“based on the only evidence we have, the video.”). How was he driving BEFORE they began the chase? If he wasn’t driving recklessly before they began the chase he likely may have slowed down if they had de-escalated the situation by backing off….. Notice, I said “may have”. I have no way of knowing what COULD have happened but narrowing this down to “justified or not” isn’t what I’m interested in.

      To me this isn’t as simple as right or wrong. IMHO it’s about the judgement of an officer that disallowed any outcome other than what happened by his actions.

      To simplify this and my previous comments….
      Justified… Yes.
      Necessary… maybe, maybe not.
      Black and white, right or wrong…. Not that simple.

      Also, I am willing to admit my faults. I was quick to judgement but as more information became available my opinions changed accordingly in subsequent posts. I still think the system is flawed, I still think there is an unfair bias where LEOs are involved and I still think this situation endangered MORE lives because of the way it was handled.

      That being said… I can only offer my OPINIONS based on the evidence available to me and vent a bit about a system I feel is flawed and unfair. I honestly don’t know how I would have handled the situation nor do I wish to have been there but I FEEL like I would have handled it differently.

    • “Frankly, I’d like to hear one detailed and reasonable argument against shooting this suspect based on the dash-cam video.”

      The guy was boxed in. His car had been rendered useless. He was outnumbered, essentially surrounded by armed protectors. It doesn’t show whether or not he had posed any threat beyond that, like, did he pull a gun on them? Did they bark any orders at him, like “DROP IT!” or “Get out of the car!” or anything?

      No, in the video I saw, they cornered the guy, trapped him, and opened fire.

  31. I tend to be pretty critical of police, but in this case, Comstock was using his vehicle as a 5000 lb. deadly weapon, striking the point-of-view car once near the beginning, and apparently once again just before the shots were fired.

    Means, motive and demonstrated intent. This was a “good shoot”, insofar as such exists. The cop is not at fault here, unless some other evidence turns up.

    P.S. Did you see the kid blow the stop light at full speed? How many people did he nearly kill right there?

  33. Ive notice a disturbing trend lately of “let the bad guy go and get him later”. People even saying it with this case in spite of the suspect already committing one felony. Where should we draw the line on when or when not to pursue? And what do you say to a person who has been victimized while LEOs are working to “get them later”?

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