TTAG reader Richard Cuellar writes:

If you’ve been following the news lately, you probably saw the body cam video of University of Cincinatti officer Ray Tensing shooting Sam Dubose during a traffic stop about a month ago. And you probably also saw the torrent of commentary about the video claiming it shows a cold blooded execution and attempted cover up. A grand jury returned an indictment for murder in the first degree, and the Hamilton county prosecutor declared quite publicly that his office would pursue the charges with extreme prejudice. The defense, meanwhile, claims officer Tensing’s account of the incident is accurate, and intends to prove it in court . . .

With all of the conspiracy theories and conflicting accounts that seem to surround this case, I gave the video a closer look to see if there might be some evidence that contradicts the prosecutor’s version of events. To be honest, I had a problem with the whole premise of the case; why would a man execute another man on camera and try to lie about it? And why would the responding officers immediately support the officer’s claim? I had been told these things were facts by liberal and conservative pundits alike for days, and the prosecutor practically sentenced him at the press conference, so I expected to see some blatant and obvious lying and malfeasance. Instead, I saw a lot of things that didn’t really jive with the prevailing narrative, and committed myself to sharing those things with you.

I must say, after reviewing all of the publicly available evidence, I am quite appalled at the shoddy way some supposedly professional news organizations have “analyzed” this footage. In fact, as I dug deeper and deeper into the entire case, it became apparent that the prosecutors were working with an incomplete set of facts. Ultimately, I became convinced that officer Tensing was justified in shooting Sam Dubose.

Attached is a video I made, detailing all of the things I found in my frame by frame breakdown. I think you will find it quite a bit more detailed than most commentary you will find on the incident. It is presented as a case for ex-officer Tensing’s acquittal. I’m sure it could be quite controversial if it gets around, but I want people to know that there is a real case to be made for a not guilty verdict, and not to be surprised if or when that happens.

So, I submit it to the AI for scrutiny. Give it a look, and tell me what you think. Did I get something or other terribly wrong? Or am I right to feel like there is trouble ahead in Ohio?’

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

84 COMMENTS

  1. I have avoided all the mainstream media on this case (actually I just don’t consume mainstream media) So I have no idea what the “narrative” is. But, I have watched this video multiple times, also frame by frame, and what I have observed is a cop who carelessly discharged his weapon while trying to force compliance at gunpoint. I do not believe the officer intended to “execute” this man, or kill him deliberately. I do believe that the officer is responsible for a negligent homicide.

    What makes it even more senseless to me is that there was no need to try an make a grab for the keys, no need to risk injury to gain compliance. The car would have been easy to track down later, and a little footwork would have turned up the name of location of the driver. And…the driver would still be alive, and the cop would probably still be a cop, but now neither is true.

    • I agree. Overly aggressive policing, and that needs to change. Confront and take control. In the cops defense, though, he was doing what he was trained to do. I don’t think that evidence will go beyond a reasonable doubt though.

      • It’s obvious from the body cam, and the string of videos at the end of the film that it is plausible that not only did the officer act as he was trained, but that he had a reason to believe he was about to be run over. Just like in Baltimore, the prosecutor is the over zealous idiot who will cost them a conviction. 1st degree murder is the highest burden of proof, And I’m sorry but it’s just not there. Plus given Cincinnati’s looooong history of racial divisions this one could get ugly fast. It’s possible that the officer is went over board by reaching inside the vehicle, but depending upon the jurisdiction and the similarities to other videos, that may be EXACTLY what Cinci cops do.

      • Isn’t it possible that the murder 1 charge was given just for that reason? That Tensing is obviouslt not guilty of prededitated murder, or he would have shot the man instantly, instead of having any interaction with him in the first place? So, avoid the charge of 2nd or 3rd degree murder, which WOULD be provable in court, in favor of a charge that you KNOW the prosecutor will not be able to prove?
        That way, the county will look good for the media and the protesters, the police will get off the hook, and the officer will get a large settlement for a wrongful discharge. Everybody will be happy, except for the citizens who have to pay the burrocrats bills, and I don’t think any public official has cared about the citizens for many, many years.

        • You’re on to something, I think. During the press conference Deters also railed against the UC force in general, and made it known he doesn’t like their being another force in town. Then he brags about how they already crushed the hospital police the previous year. Union wars?

        • Lets hope the jury realizes (or God forbid, is instructed) that it can find him guilty of a lesser charge, and don’t just have to convict or acquit on the murder 1 charge.

          • That’s what I think they might be relying on. That the Jury probably won’t know that they can convict of a lesser charge, unless the Judge so instructs. He SHOULD do that, but there is no way to force him. The Judge can even instruct them that they cannot convict of a lesser charge, if he chooses to. The only thing that would do is create a judicial error that could be appealed.

    • I have not seen any of the videos or watched this one yet. have heard some bits and pieces.
      But a thought comes to mind about pushing or forcing a bad position.
      I have seen traffic construction flaggers think or feel arbitrarily, someone is traveling TOO fast, and step into the path of the car. I have seen it done when vehicles were crawling through the zone, at an idle, with drivers foot on the brakes thus maintaining the vehicle was well under control; and safety. My point being of the accidents of flaggers and road workers hit by cars, how many workers actually caused the incident verses were run down by drivers?

      If the officer had not tried to climb into or accost the driver and later tracked him down as was stated by previous comment, both would be alive.

    • The analyst correctly notes, but loses the debate, at index 3:10 when he admits: “the altercation begins when the officer attempts to open the door”.

      Yep. That about sums it up.

      Opening any door of an occupied vehicle is a de facto search, one which the occupants have a right to refuse, whereupon the cop’s leeway for ‘probable cause’ becomes extremely narrow for continuing. They can often order occupants out, but going inside is an escalation. Traffic offenses are not of themselves grounds for a search, and whether or not there might have been sufficient further cause, the process of submission or refusal of an escalated search was not been adequately followed in this incident.

      The officer went off-menu, rather idiotically tried to prevent flight with his further intrusion and with his body, and then went-guns when it all blew up in his face. There’s no real case ‘for’ that.

      • Ditto! that is exactly it, and there just isnt much more to say, no matter what excuses the statists wish to dredge up. This is clearly shown by the fact that no statist will ever address this issue you brought up, that the opening of the door was an illegal act, a felony, and all that follows is the fault of the one who committed said felony, in this case the officer. This is the both the law and the statute, and has been for a very long time.
        That still doesnt make it murder one, though. That would require proving that he had this all planned BEFORE he opened the door. The video makes it obvious that that is not the case here. One might get a convection on murder two, which only requires either hot blood, like a crime of passion, or some type of criminal intent. The fact that he opened the door illegally would be that criminal intent, but since they almost all do it and never get punished for it, an attorney could paint that as no intent, because the officer ‘felt’ like it was legal, even though it is not, and just turn it into a ‘mistake’, or poor training, or some other such flimsy excuse that would be laughed at as retarded if a non LEO were to try it, Which is not correct, but a jury might buy it anyway. But I see no defense at all against a case of Murder three, negligent homicide. There a list of things this officer did to escalate the situation, any ONE of which makes the case for negligence, and the body alone proves a death at his hands.

  2. George Zimmerman had his day in court as will Officer Tensing. In the case of Zimmerman(Whom I always thought was an idiot) the prosecutor should have been at least disbarred. If not jailed.

  4. I salute you for taking the time to do a thorough breakdown. I have a hard time believing though that the officers arm was “pinned” in the vehicle by the overwhelming strength of Mr. Dubose. That would have taken a lot of exertion on his part, and I just dont see that in the video, but your take on the situation revolves around that as fact. Its a long shot.

    • I don’t have the time to watch the whole breakdown right now. Is that the basic points being made, that the officer’s arm was “pinned”? If so, that is the biggest pile of BS outside of the stockyards.

    • The suspect has the weight of the car, and the advantage of being able to use the seat as a brace. The martial artist in the example would love to have a car to perform the move, that is the point.

      • I only watched the first 5 minutes. I don’t have time and don’t have enough of a concern to watch the whole video. But yes, in the first 5 minutes that seems to be the life/death scenario facing the cop, that’s he’s being held on to with a deathgrip by this lanky black guy that Hercules himself would have trouble overcoming.

        • he’s being held on to with a deathgrip by this lanky black guy that Hercules himself would have trouble overcoming.

          Wow. Just wow. Never learned how to break a one-handed grip, I take it? I’m 90% sure most cops learn such a simple technique.

        • I actually tried to show the officer breaking the “one arm death” grip in that first “what if” scenario.

  5. @Richard Cuellar, you did an amazing job of breaking down the cop-cam vids. I’m not sure that I agree with all of your conclusions, but still . . . what a job!

    • Cuellar likely has a long, lucrative career ahead of himself considering the LE BodyCam industry is about to explode…

    • I agree. Reconstruction is one thing, legal conclusions another thing all together. Further,everything after the fatal shot is fired is irrelevant, as even the author acknowledges that these were involuntary actions by the driver, and had nothing to do with the risks faced by the officer in making the shoot/no shoot decision. The one helpful thing is that the video clearly establishes that the arriving officer could not have seen what happened, a)because he was too far away, and b)because he was in the process of exiting his vehicle.

      Finally, and by way of legal conclusion, I fail to see how a shooting of an unarmed man pulled over for an infraction or misdemeanor traffic offense (which was something other than not having a license, which too is an infraction), is justified use of deadly force. First degree murder? I don’t think so, but negligent homicide seems appropriate.

      • “Finally, and by way of legal conclusion, I fail to see how a shooting of an unarmed man pulled over for an infraction or misdemeanor traffic offense (which was something other than not having a license, which too is an infraction), is justified use of deadly force.”

        By putting the vehicle in motion with a part of the cop’s body inside the vehicle, sounds like felony battery.

        The video shows the vehicle in motion.

        The vehicle in motion qualifies as a lethal weapon.

        Assault / Battery on the officer with a lethal weapon justifies lethal response.

        Could that be his angle?

        • The crime itself actually isn’t the constitutional question. The question is: did the police officer (or citizen X) reasonably perceive a threat of great bodily harm? The answer may be ‘yes,’ justifying a shooting even if there was no crime.

          Example: A plainclothes police officer (or legally armed citizen) is walking down a dark alley. A uniformed police officer sees him, notices that he is armed, and has reasonable suspicion that he is involved in criminal activity (let’s say he was reported as a prowler or something). Uniformed officer would draw his firearm; the non-uniformed officer (or citizen) turns, see the officer but can’t make out anything but the gun at first. Plainclothes guy goes for his gun. In this case neither man would be guilty of a crime but there would be plenty of justification for a shooting.

        • (of course, note that even if no crime was committed there still must be suspicion of a perceived crime to even stop someone- but nobody thinking of deadly force is going to have time to figure out exactly what crime is going on)

      • …yeah, couldn’t put shadows in the animation because it would take too long for my 5 year old laptop to render. Damned government departments…

  6. The apparent difference in the placement of the SUV could be a result of the camera being in a different position. Not seeing the motion of the car, or the turning of the steering wheel to any effect. Not buyin’ it.

    • The wheel had to be turned in order for him to miss the car. If the angle of the camera is an issue for the defense, it is also an issue for the prosecution.

      • Obviously this isn’t first degree murder, but this is as bad a shoot as I’ve seen lately. I’m not sure how the cartoonist came to such an illogical conclusion.

  7. You were doing real good up until the 4:50 point where you switched from the video to your cartoon and lost track of the difference between your guesses and conclusions and objective facts. I made it to 10:02 before giving up. Everything from the 4:50 point on was rank speculation and conjecture. Some of it was outright ridiculous, like using a blurry frame to say the driver was steering around the car in front of him.

    Tensing shot a guy for getting ready to drive away from a traffic stop. That’s against the law.

    • Seems like the fact he missed the car at all is proof enough the wheel was being turned, but there is also the other bodycam video that shows the car doing just that.

      • Obviously, the car with the dead driver did not travel in a straight line. My beef is that Cuellar uses a single, blurry frame of video to conclude the driver was steering around the car in front of him. The cited evidence does not provide support for the conclusion. Beyond that, what does the path of the car have to do with Tensing’s use of deadly force?

        • I consider that little tidbit to be icing on the cake, there was really no need to prove that the car turned. What it does prove, potentially, is that the suspect was not surrendering with both hands up. And the path of the car actually adds distance to the travel of the vehicle before the shot, if it’s turning. As I said, this is presented as a case for accquital. I wasn’t trying to be terribly subjective. If you want to have a real hoot, listen to the prosecutor’s ridiculous version of events, and try to square that with the evidence.

  8. I came across the chest cam video on accident. It was a couple of days after the shooting. It had not yet been seen by many people. There was not much dialogue on it. So I was able to gather my own facts and make my own assumption with little to no bias.

    In my opinion with what information I had it was a bad shoot. The driver was a piece of trash I won’t dispute that. The officer handled the situation poorly. He escalated it and then shot the guy once things got out of hand. That is what I saw.

    I tend to not really like black people. I stay away from them and I am not liberal. So for me to say a black man was killed for the wrong reasons means something.

  10. It is possible that Dubose didn’t realize how dangerous it was to drive off with a cop on your door. See the Shanghai incident at the end of the video.

  12. I have to say, the first time I witnessed the body cam footage I thought what I saw was clean cut murder. But after watching this, no less than fantastic breakdown, I have to say I more or less am “on the fence” about this now.

  13. Richard Cuellar – That was an outstanding dissection of the event.

    I think the prosecutor made a snap decision that he was not going to have the media (and the race-baiters) turn against him and essentially threw the cop under the bus (or under the car as it were) without really doing an objective analysis of the evidence and that the Defense is going to chew this case up and spit it out.

    • I second that opinion. They threw out both murder and voluntary manslaughter charges hoping that one of them would stick. The driver pinned his arm against the steering wheel and was attempting to drive off (you can hear the engine start to rev up) before the shot was fired, even it the officer messed up by sticking his hand in the car in the first place. I just don’t see it passing the burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

      Also, was the officer’s vehicle not equipped with a dash camera? If it was, that could solve a lot of confusion. If it wasn’t, why not?

  14. This is the first I’ve heard of that case, and I tried to watch the video and follow along, and to be honest, the footage is so grainy and it happens so quick, I can’t tell what’s going on, so I have no opinion in this case, however, I wonder just what we’ve really done in having police with body cams. They can only be used against one party or the other, and by this grainy footage it’s obvious to me that people who support one side of the events are going to see what they want to see and people who support the other side will see what they want to see. In the end, the situation isn’t any different than what’s happening right now. Next thing you know, they are going to require police officers to carry 4k UHD 3D cameras with image stabilization, that co-witness the event in infrared and thermal imaging, and record the officer’s biometric data like pulse rate, stress indicators in saliva, and neuro-patterns.

  15. Anyone who’s ever been dragged by a car like that knows how friggin scary it is and how you naturally kinda get sucked under the car, or at least feel like you are going to – and instinctually grab on to whatever you can to try to hold yourself up. I had something similar happen when i was young and we were messing around as kids and I was FREAKED out. If I would have let go, I for sure would have ended up under the wheel, and that car wasn’t even turning into me. My only surprise in all of this is how quickly he made the decision to shoot and was then able to get the shot off. But when shit like that happens, it seems like time slows down and everything goes in slow motion.

    • One scene I maybe should have added was a challenge to Deters; you vs. honda accord, stick your left arm in, let the officer grab your arm and accelerate, then tell us when you feel like shooting him.

      • …or maybe that’s something the Defense could have the jury try.

        It only takes about 5 feet or so before your leg is under the tire.

        Either way, I thought that video dissection was pretty damn impressive. Cuellar has a lot of talent, i hope he is earning a good living with that, because I’m sure there are a thousand law firms who would want to keep him on retainer.

    • He was never dragged by the car. I gave the officer the benefit of the doubt. Let’s face it the guy he pulled over was a piece of trash. Never the less in this case I cannot side with the officer. How would you respond if a cop tried to pull you out of your car and started opening your door. I cannot say it would have gone much better.

      • The first time he asked for a license, and not the 6th, I would have produced a valid one. If he asked me to step out of the vehicle until he was done verifying it, I would shut up and do it. If I get a bs charge, I get my day in court and challenge it. If the charge sticks, I grit my teeth and pay the fine. Driving off with a cop on my door is not an option.

        • True, true. The question is not whether it was a good shoot or not, but why didn’t the POS in the car comply with the officers instructions. All this could have easily been avoided if the driver did not have an attitude problem.

  16. Assuming the events are as depicted, it does not appear to be murder 1. However, what was his training regime like for vehicle stops? In the event that a suspect tries to flee, it is procedure to reach in and try to grab the keys out of the ignition? I doubt it because it is a really bad idea which means that he violated procedure and it was a bad shoot. For that, the cop should face the music.

    Cops are given great power and great responsibility. They must be held to a higher standard.

    • I also thought this, but it turns out that just about every single cop dragging ever for which the suspect was convicted started in a similar way.

  17. Officer Tensing WILL be acquitted as will Officer Slager in North Charleston and those elected officials that pandered to extremists on “the Left” sacrificing cops to a violent mob MUST be held accountable by the voters once the riots (which are inevitable) end.

  18. I really appreciate the effort that Mr. Cuellar put into his analysis. Having said that, I am not entirely convinced of his reconstruction. Key evidence that Mr. Cuellar ignored was the audio from the recording. If you listen, you can hear the suspect start the car, you can hear it idling, then you can hear the engine rev up as the car drives forward. The time involved? Within two seconds after starting the vehicle, the policeman shoots the driver. The most relevant questions therefore are:
    (1) What was the car capable of doing in 2 seconds?
    (2) What was the policeman’s reaction time?

    Let’s assume the car had an automatic transmission and the driver went from Park (neutral) to Drive (first gear). After starting the engine, the suspect moves the gear selector into a forward gear. All cars take about 1 second to engage their forward gear from Park. In other words it would have taken about 1 second for the engine to begin moving the car after the driver started the engine. And that is even ignoring the time it takes the driver to move the drive range selector.

    Next, let’s look at the policeman. He claims that the driver was dragging him and that was his reason for shooting the driver. What is the policeman’s reaction time to decide that deadly force is necessary, actually draw, aim, and shoot? It has to be at least 0.5 seconds, correct? Since the policeman shot the driver within 2 seconds of starting the engine and the car was only capable of moving for the last 1 second, this means the car was only physically capable of moving for 0.5 seconds before the policeman began the process of recognizing the movement and deciding to draw and shoot. The speed of the car at the time he pulled the trigger is irrelevant. What is relevant is the speed of the car at the time the policeman decided to pull the trigger.

    So, how fast was the car moving 0.5 seconds after going into gear? Maybe 1 m.p.h. In other words the car had barely moved. That hardly constitutes dragging someone. I think a much more realistic justification is the fear of the driver driving off with the policeman stuck to the side of the car. But saying that he reacted to being dragged away is a huge stretch in my mind.

    Furthermore, I didn’t even mention another physical aspect of the car. The drive shafts between the transmission and the wheels are NOT infinitely stiff. Rather, they have a certain amount of springiness. When those shafts have not had any torque on them and the engine suddenly applies torque, those drive shafts absorb ALL of the engine torque for the first 1/8th of a second or so as the engine “winds them up”. Once they are wound up, then they can apply torque to the wheels to accelerate the car. That means there was even less time available for the engine and transmission to actually move the car before the policeman decided to draw and fire.

    I think the car could have moved at most about 1 foot, maybe two feet, before the policeman decided to draw and shoot. Take that for what it is worth.

    • Fascinating. I now wish I had learned about the car. I guess my response would be; it doesn’t even take one foot of travel to set you off balance, the karate guy did it without moving an inch.

    • I disagree to some extent. If the officer’s arm was pinned in the case and he cords not pull away (an assumption for argument) any movement of the car I think is justification. George Zimmerman was not obligated to wait until he sustained more severe injuries, or to give martin more opportunity to try, once the concrete below his head was established as a potential source for such an injury and Zim could not move away due to being pinned, he was clear toi shoot.

      Similarly, IF the officer, or anyone else in a similar situation cannot simply pull their arm out (I’m still going to get some asshole calling mew a bootlicker), I see no obligation to let the car gain any speed, the life threatening situation has started.

      Of course that involves some major assumptions.

  19. Chicken spit prosecutor should be arrested for his statements: way to poison the jury pool and play to the masses. After living 20 years in Cincinnati, am well aware that city management will most anything to avoid a riot, even sacrifice one of their own.

    • >even sacrifice one of their own

      Confirm the cops are a special class unto themselves and civilians are merely fodder for slaughter.

      • Not special, but equal, and definitely not guilty until proven guilty in a court of law; not by public opinion or by those pandering to minority masses.

  20. There is plenty of blame to go around here, starting with the university and ending with the prosecutor.

    A campus cop’s mandate should be to protect lives and property on campus. He should not be patrolling streets off campus and making what the prosecutor justifiably called a chickenshit stop. Belatedly, the university has restricted its officers to the campus. It does make sense for campus cops to be fully trained and sworn police officers. Campuses are not immune to serious crime and they need more than private security guards to protect them.

    Why did Dubose try to escape? A ticket for a missing license plate isn’t worth the risk of additional charges much less getting shot. Did he not have a valid license and insurance? Was the car stolen? Was there a warrant for a serious crime? Most of the recent police shootings started with something trivial and escalated only because the suspect resisted.

    Reaching inside a vehicle with a running engine to snatch the keys is asking to be dragged. That’s what happened in the videos Richard appended to his analysis. Officers should be taught better.

    I don’t believe the prosecutor when he claims that Tensing fired in a fit of temper. His poor tactical judgement put him into a life threatening predicament where shooting was his only option.

    • While the officer clearly could not have known about the 2 pounds of weed and large amount of cash, in the vehicle, the fact they were discovered after the fact can be used to establish the suspect’s reasoning for fleeing. It also suggests he likely would not have stopped, and would have continued to acclerate until the cop fell free.

  21. I watched this video before listening to any coverage, and quite frankly, when I saw the pothole in the road, and the cops position at the beginning and end of this event relative to the pothole, it seemed pretty obvious that the car was moving as the cops had stated. While I agree that his shooting has some problems, but the jump to judgement by all the talking heads and the prosecutor saying this was an execution is just pandering to the black lives matter crowd.

    I should note that I believe that most cops have an “us against them attitude”, which results in bad policing. When a bad cop does something bad, the instant reaction from the majority of cops is to defend this bad cop and cover for him/her, which just makes the good cops who engage in this behavior just as bad as the doer, and leads to the distrust we see today.

    With that said, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a cop right now, just too much risk that you will be rail roaded into court because of a political agenda.

  22. I could not make heads nor tails of the original video and not much was conclusive. I think the cop handled the whole stop badly. The cop reaching into the car was dumb in the first place for what was involved. Racist incidents involving Cincy cops are not that unusual. Campus cops are usually bad.

  23. I am not contesting Mr. Cuellar’s thesis here but…
    “why would a man execute another man on camera and try to lie about it? And why would the responding officers immediately support the officer’s claim?” – You should probably ask the other people that have clearly done this.
    Using the same logic – If you were going to try to flee why would you take the cop with you?

  24. Govt Terrorist-Dildofuckery is strong with this one.

    xD

    puhleeze, the twitchy fingered monkey shot him in the head, period. he wasn’t dragged. he jerked, had finger on the trigger already, interpreted the driver reaching to unbuckle his seatbelt as reaching for a gun.

    it ain’t Faluja, motherfucker. you’re a govt servant. don’t like it? go work at a shoe store.

    people wonder how Germans, the most advanced European civilization in science/physics/applied sciences/engineering, philosophy, culture/art/music/fashion, succumbed to Nazism??

    Look around: it’s legions of peon buffoons making excuses for minor to grave govt tyranny.

    the 3rd Reich, did not come to fruition, overnight.

    a demagogue on a White Horse it took, but legions of WILLFUL mass-brainwashed populace made his power real, and lasting, however short the run may have been.

    Every time a cop dies, and govt shuts down entire freeway, have some ‘royal’ funeral procession, forcing the peons to deal with their parade? if you’re the type who doesn’t think that N. Korea-level state and state functionary worship, you are a friggin brainwashed zombie Nazi, who’s actively making this Cuntry into the Reich, all over.

    • As one of Robert’s posts said yesterday, if they can railroad a cop they can SUPER railroad one of us. I won’t apologize for putting up a fight. Also, at what point does the suspect reach to undo the seatbelt? Are we talking about the same video?

  25. If they can get you to answer the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answers.
    No one should die over a malum prohibitum law.
    The campus pig commited murder. He should suffer the same fate.

  27. Bad shoot IMO. No reason to reach in like that. Radios are faster than cars.

    Neither one of these men handled the situation well, and unfortunately that got one of them killed.

  28. I couldn’t care less if another dindu gets his self shot. Anyone messing with a cop like he did is risking his life. If you happen to be a person of lower social status (for whatever reason) then your risk is proportionally greater. That’s how societies work. Deal with it! You want equality? Move to another planet. Equality does not promote the survival of the fittest.

  30. After watching that video I’m 100% certain the officer should go to prison for at least criminally negligent manslaughter. He shouldn’t have reached into the car in the 1st place. All he had to do to keep from being dragged was let go. He was “dragged” maybe a foot or 18″ at an extremely low speed before he lost his balance and fell on his butt. If, he wouldn’t have shot the guy, the outcome would have been the same, he would have lost his grip and fell on his butt. He could have then gotten up and pursued the suspect in his car, their was no need for shooting the guy. Without the body cam footage: “The suspect made a furtive motion towards the glove compartment, passenger seat, etc. I saw what I believed was a weapon. I feared for my life, the lives of my fellow officers and every civilian within a 3 block radius.” Repeat over and over, until cleared by weak IAB investigation.

    • It sounds like you have studied the police’s M.O. at least as much as I have. This is just one more incidence in a long pattern of LEO bad behavior. And yet one more whitewash that makes feeble attempts to say the police are always right, no matter how wrong they are, even on video tape. It does amuse me to see the horribly feeble straws they will grasp at in order to distract away from the main issue. In this case that is that he violated the rules and the laws by reaching inside the car without permission, which would make everything that follows his fault entirely, if it was a nonLEO, except it does not work that way when the suspect has a badge.
      For everyone else, all damage following the committing of a felony is the fault of the one committing the felony. This keeps home invaders, for example, from claiming self defense if they kill the homeowner in a gunfight. They cannot claim defense, for they committed a felony by breaking in, and all damage that might follow is a consequence of that.
      But it doesn’t work that way with a LEO. For him, all felonies he might have committed are excused if he just says: “I feared for my life”. In this case, he had no cause to try to take the car, and that is a felony violation, which means the officer was at fault. Whether some guy did up a CGI cartoon or not.

  31. All relatively decent conjecture and educated guesses of distance and speed from a video footage. Even more so, putting thoughts into the head of Dubose.

    None of the speed, evidence, distance, and how Tensing’s arms was supposedly pinned first on the steering wheel then magically got tangled up on the seatbelt doesn’t matter. Tensing escalated the situation. Tensing needlessly reached in the vehicle as if any of his training condoned such action of a potentially fleeing vehicle. Tensing violated training, policy and a citizen’s rights protected by the 4th Amendment.

    While he is not guilty of 1st degree murder, he most certainly is culpable in voluntary manslaughter.

    I’m very glad there is video evidence to testify this fact. Without them, this would have been covered up by Tensing’s side of the story.

  33. >> why would a man execute another man on camera

    Because he is poorly trained, or too gung-ho and used to the benefits the uniform provides him, or believes himself to be the “sheepdog” defending “sheep” from “wolves” by any means necessary, or just generally mentally unstable.

    >> and try to lie about it?

    Because that’s his only chance to get away with it.

    >> And why would the responding officers immediately support the officer’s claim?

    Because they know that they could be in the same situation later, and then it’ll be the word of some other officer to cover their ass. Or, alternatively, because they know that if they don’t cover for him, other cops at their department will spit on them for the rest of their career. The term “blue code of silence” didn’t appear out of nowhere – look it up on Wikipedia for some rich and colorful history.

  34. I’ve been drug and run over by a mentally deranged driver and wish I could have been able to get to my piece; as I probably would have both my legs, today.

  35. This is the first time I’ve heard about this as I’m too cheap to pay for cable. However, I do have some thoughts:

    1. The officer is a “campus cop”. Does this mean he is employed by the school or is sworn officer that is stationed there? People are saying that he had no duty to make the stop, but if he was not a campus rent-a-cop, and an sworn officer, than he did in fact have a duty to make the stop.

    2. From what I understand, the suspect refused to provide ID when requested for a stop involving a missing plate. Doing so when stopped for no reason is OK in my book, but if you get caught breaking the law, you need to face the music.

    3. Reaching in to stop the suspect from driving off was a stupid move, and he should have let the guy go to be caught later. However, I probably would have done the same thing. The suspect’s resistance to provide ID on a lawful stop elevated him from “traffic infraction” to “possible wanted violent felon”, and I wouldn’t want him speeding away in a residential area.

    4. His reaction speed was very fast with the draw. He probably gripped the handgun while reaching in. I can only speculate to his motivation, but it goes back to “possible wanted felon” the suspect could have pulled a weapon while the officer was in a vulnerable spot.

    5. The officer’s back was towards the direction of motion. A human isn’t designed to backpedal fast at all. Especially if he wasn’t ready for it, he would have been knocked off balance very easily. Even if his arm wasn’t trapped, simply making contact with the moving vehicle would have been enough to knock him back.

    6. A vehicle’s rear tires do not track the same as the front tires. If the car was turning back into the road while the officer lost balance and didn’t grab onto something, there is a good chance that a part of him will get run over.

    7. A vehicle that size (~2000lb), assuming even weight distribution, has approximately 500lb on each tire. Concentrate this weight onto a body part and you have the potential for grievous bodily harm even at 1mph.

    In my opinion, while the events leading up to the shoot are questionable to armchair quarterbacks, the officer is not guilty.

    That being said, he is also not completely innocent. Incapacitating the driver of a vehicle will not stop it on flat ground without hitting something. In 20-20 hindsight, the best thing the officer could have done was to use his gun hand (sans gun) to push off the door of the vehicle and gain distance from the wheels before going too far.

    From what I understand, this video was’t to make a case that this was a “good shoot” but rather this was to show reasonable doubt that this was an execution. I don’t know is LEOs are taught what to do in this situation. If they are not then he obviously panicked when scared for his life and fell back on what he was trained to do when threatened: neutralize the threat.

  36. He may have been justified at the shooting BUT was he justified to stop him? Allen V Write, In Hagans v. Lavine, 415 US F2d 1026 “The law requires proof of jurisdiction to appear on the record of the administration agency and all administrative proceedings. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

  37. You should submit this to his attorney. I think all these cases being publicly displayed of questing a police officers actions against a suvillian is bullshit. Unless it’s a cop just walking up and shooting someone without any altercation I feel they shouldn’t question it beyond the officers word. I feel the process to be a cop should be intensive and whomever they hire to swear in as a cop they should trust and not doubt. NOBODY is In a cops shoes at times of these shootings and who the hell can tell someone how they should react in a confrontational situation with a cop and someone. And I think if a cop says a good reason why he shot someone or says he was fearful for his life then you take their word and stop questioning there authority publicly or no one will take police seriously and then..if we think it’s bad now , it will be very bad . I feel they r making police less respectable and it’s ridiculous. I feel for tensing and I hope the best for him and my heart goes out to him and his family

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