Glad to hear the officers are all safe.

Go to 6:58 and see where his hands were when the shots were fired. Then say he was reaching for a weapon

It seems like they could have used a tazor to But I think he would have been dead within 3 years anyway. Could the cops have kept him alive? I think so. But my personal opinion, right or wrong is he would have eventually been shot by someone else. Not many hero stories from a repeated drug dealer with a stolen gun. He was given chances and fucked them up. His fault or not. It happened. His family acts like they were totally shocked. Bullshit. They had to know something. This does not mean I am giving the cops a free pass. They need to be accountable for their bullshit also. They have to answer for a lot of bad policies and I think some will get fired. Totally tragic on both sides.

@ Slight error in your URLs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v.Garner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grahamv._Connor

Well crap. Of course the comment system is just going to keep omitting them. Stranger: fix your comment system from garbling these underscores!

And as the convicted felon, who ran from the cops, reaches for his gun on the ground, low and behold, he meets his maker (a.k.a. some dude his mom met on Aurora Ave in 1988).

Thank you SPD.

It’s usually not a good idea to take a taser or mace to a gunfight, and to those who seriously suggest as much, I say, “You first.”

“I asked SPD spokesperson Sean Whitcomb what changed during those 20 seconds to require an officer to open fire but he declined to comment.”

What happened? The dead, gun toting armed felon and convicted heroin dealer, who ran from the cops after a routine and legal stop, chose to fight the cops who caught up with him, had an illegal firearm, and apparently ran out of time to mend his ways.

Thank you SPD.

Fuck me. (WHAT a Fucking Occupation)

Not to armchair QB, but, with so many police onsite, why was he given an (seemingly viable) escape path?

"Not to armchair QB, but, with so many police onsite, why was he given an (seemingly viable) escape path"

Armchair comfy is it? Maybe because instead of pulling over to the side of the road, calmly showing his license and insurance to the police as required during a legal stop, politely explaining who he was and where he was going, he chose to run across Aurora Ave with his gun out and then fight with cops.

Maybe he got away at first is because the cops were just too damn polite when they first pulled him over, thinking he was a decent citizen instead of the convicted, gun toting fentanyl dealing shit bag he apparently is?

" no reason to surround the guy with three cops in an unnecessarily intimidating manner, let alone cuff the guy"

He was pulled over because his license plate matched a driver with felony arrests for dealing heroin and fentanyl AND a suspended license (thank you SPD for your proactive police work along Aurora Ave). Now, maybe you want him as a neighbor, I don't, but his record, and illegal hand gun prove (gun control!) that the police were correct in stopping him and using extra officers.

Don't agree with me? Go park your car unlocked with your computer in it and walk up Aurora Ave tonight at 2am waving an iPhone X with a hundred dollar bill hanging out of your crotch.

When you have a problem, call an anarchist for help.

" only been discovered after the fact."

or

"They ran a license-plate check on the car, discovering that the registered owner had a suspended driver’s license".

You chose.

And yep, as good cops do, they made correct assumptions about the danger this man was to society and called for backup.

@21

Again, I suggest you try policing Aurora Ave someday and tell us how you would do it better.

Well, they had six cops chasing the guy.

And the video indictes they were all behind, or to the right side of, his vehicle.

Is that normal for a stop on Aurora Ave?

"I suggest you try policing Aurora Ave someday and tell us how you would do it better." --cereal poster GTA 1-16

I leave that up to the Experts.

Who, most likely, will review and see if it could, in fact, be done better.

@24 - For cops to stand behind the vehicle while running the driver for warrants and checking his DL is not only normal, it's a trained safety measure (I retired as a Dallas cop). If they were truly concerned about him being a greater than usual hazard, one might have been standing off the right-rear corner of the car to watch him from a position of tactical advantage while another officer checked him. Otherwise, right, left or center doesn't matter; they were to the right only because that's how they pulled up behind him.

The notion that the driver presented a significant hazard apparently wasn't much of a concern, tho. That many officers makes me think it was slow at the moment, and a few of them were just stopping by because they were driving by or were around the corner and were curious what the initial officer might have. Don't forget, the vast majority of traffic stops don't end even in foot pursuits, much less shootings. Some old research suggests an officer will be involved in a shooting an average of once for every 20 years of operational assignment, which is the street and not some desk job. My experience tells me that's probably about right. In any case, that's a lotta traffic stops without shooting anyone.

So where is GermanSausage now?

@27 best comment of the day. YOU WIN SLOG!!!

@28 That’s “aspiring” rapper motherfucka!

@28 I think Che Taylor is the true poster child of police brutality here in Seattle.

Did they cry about the Krispy Kreme truck afterwards?

@31: So does his brother "Gorgeous Dre," who's making bank off a false narrative about his darlin' lil' bro. You'd think Che was distributing Bibles rather than heroin and meth, the day he got shot while diving for his gun.

You mean Che's brother, "Gorgeous Dre", who was convicted of sex trafficking a 15 year old girl in Nevada and did time for sex trafficking? That Dre? Who now stands with Kshama and Nikkita?

Best Che Taylor headline:

"Shooting of “Deeply Beloved” Rapist Angers Seattle NAACP"

1 And with those words you declare what a slob fucking idiot you are.

@35, The Stranger never did interview Che Taylor's rape victim after he was shot and killed to get their perspective of his suicide by cop.

@26. Thanks, Morty.

These guys and gals put their Lives on the Line* (as you did) every time they put on a uniform and badge and venture out into an America that's getting more and more stratified; their Safety is paramount.

As is the safety of the Populace.

Income disparity and a Republican-driven lack of good care for those without is making too much of America desperate.

We need to stop giving the Wealthy TRILLION DOLLAR tax cuts (see: Reagun, Cheney/bush, Trumpfy); in fact, we need to Raise the tax rate, especially on those with incomes that'd make a Pharaoh blush, and truly re-Invest in America.

Hell, it'd probably make Billionaries safer, too.

*Top six most (mortally-) dangerous jobs in America, according to Time Magazine?
Loggers, fisher(wo)men (fisherpeeps?), pilots, roofers, garbage collectors, and truck drivers.

@34:

The "Gorgeous Dre" alliance I find remarkable is the one he has with Lisa Daugaard of the 'Public Defender's Office' and the 'Community Police Commission.' She's the unchallengeable brains behind 'LEAD,' which is a triumph of marketing (the only proven accomplishment is reductions of felonies to misdemeanors; no competent outside, independent entity has ever examined the program to verify that there is indeed a reduction in criminal behavior among the program's 'clients.') They worked together on I-940, as Andre peddled his completely false narrative about "Che." But 'social justice' makes strange bedfellows. Still, it was more than mildly ironic that Daugaard is willing to use a pimp to pimp her causes. And in the age of 'Me Too.'

@18, "450" is cop-speak for a nutter.

6 cops can't control a guy on the ground without shooting him. And the commentariot can't rush fast enough to defend them. Last I checked none of the crimes listed carried a sentence of extrajudicial on spot execution. But I guess I'm some crazy left winger who thinks 6 cops shouldn't be executing people held down in the street. Yay freedom!

@43 then don't ever pretend to be a supporter of the rule of law or due process.

He had an illegal gun and knew that he'd be patted down, they'd find his gun, he'd be taken immediately to jail, and he'd be open-and-shut convicted. His choices were: 1 - Accept the prison sentence. I don't know what the penalty for a repeat offender with a stolen gun on him are, but I'd guess it'd be 10+ years, if not longer. The other option was to run. He chose the later. Many of us would choose the later if our logical brain is working - even more if we were in a heightened state of fear. The second he got pulled over, it was over for him - unless he could successfully evade police.

@18 per http://www.interceptradio.com/wiki/index.php/Seattle_Police_Department_Codes, 450 = DUI (there's an underscore between each word of the end of the URL, starting after 'Seattle', n case the url gets eaten by SLOG)

@42 we're living in a world where micro-aggressions are violence, where even Katie Herzog "LITERALLY has the blood of trans people on their hands"... yet on the flip side, someone pulling a gun should be given every benefit of the doubt.

Listen, I generally don't like cops. I don't think they should have guns in general. I feel like Iike I'm more likely to be shot by any particular cop than I am by any particular drug dealer or banger (they've got other things to do, meanwhile, it's a cop's job to be up in my business). But that being said, cops are still humans - when you try to pull a gun on someone, IMO, you can't criticize them for shooting you first. I don't think it's fair to ask people to step in front of bullets for the cause.

6 cops. Guy grappled on the ground. Cops shoot guy. Not reasonable. But, very American as this comments thread indicates.

We are a violent angry aggressive culture inside our borders and out. I don't think that's anything to be proud of. I'm in the minority. Carry on cheering for extrajudicial killings. Yay America! Yay freedom!

@49: Well put. It's also reasonable to assume that the majority of police offices hope they never have to go through this to being haunted and traumatized forever over taking a human life.

50 - The fact that he wasn't shot immediately once the gun was observed makes it all but certain they were trying to get him subdued without shooting. They probably had his gun neutralized in some way (held down, his arm held away, pushed back into him, etc.) until he broke it free somehow. Once the gun starts to come around toward them, they're not going to risk one of them being shot at such close range without shooting first to prevent him getting a shot off.

I was in a fight just like that with an armed subject. There were two of us against a skinny, seemingly unthreatening-looking dude, and it was the worst fight of my career. It ended differently in that we kept his gun contained (it was wedged into an open fanny pack he couldn't get it out of) until 2 backup officers arrived several minutes later. All 3 of us required hospital treatment, and we were within the thinnest of hairs of having to use deadly force on him.

People who haven't experienced it would be amazed at how strong someone can be when under the full influence of fear-based adrenaline, as I'm sure this guy was. And oddly, 6 cops is actually probably too many. Anything more than 4 results in officers struggling against each other's efforts to some degree, almost fighting each other as much as the suspect, albeit unintentionally. They're also prohibited from certain actions that could have ended it without shooting, such as impact weapon to the head, or even a neck restraint. Shooting is O-K, hitting on head with flashlight is not O-K. In my day, the latter would have happened as soon as the gun was seen during the struggle. ( I really wanted to say "in my day!")

If it turns out the guy didn't have a gun, or if it was a red plastic water-pistol, or he had a gun and didn't make an effort to pull it, then harsh criticism is warranted, and I would join in that. But if he was indeed pulling a gun during a close-quarters struggle with multiple targets for the suspect, the officer did the only sensible thing to protect himself and the other officers. Anything less given the officers' ingrained use of force restraints would have been an insane risk to themselves that I doubt anyone here would have taken had they been in his place...assuming the SPD account is accurate, of course, and it appears to be.

With our increasingly-two-tiered society, where you (or, perhaps more likely, your progeny) will be either Rich, or Destitute, one's options rapidly begin to narrow.

That's IF the Catastrophic Climate Change* don't getchya first.

"it's all just a liberal HOAX!" --Prez Furor -- who's busy shutting down the evil/hated/vile Gub'mnt, even as we argue here in our warm n' cozy cocoons.

@54 sounds like you're making my case for me. A summation of your post... the cops have created rules that encourage maximum violence (shoot don't strike) and they make tactical decisions that further encourage those maximally violent outcomes (too many cops holding a person down). This isn't some isolated case. This is American policing. Shoot early. Shoot often.

@56 - Well, not exactly. The rules regarding use of physical force, such as no strikes to head, no neck restraints, no strikes to genitals, no strikes to joints, were made due to pressure to reduce injury to suspects and due to risk of death from head strikes and neck restraints...not to increase shootings, which are actually down over the last 20 years anyway. In the meantime, use of deadly force rules have remained pretty consistent.

Reducing injury and death risk are noble goals, but it should go without saying that even the most risky strike or neck restraint is still far safer than shooting. Those things should certainly be heavily restricted, say 1 level below deadly force on the force continuum, but to ban them outright is short-sighted, and I'm sure it has resulted in some shootings over the years. Technically, they can be used if deadly force is justified, but officers are not given training in their use any longer or even any discussion as to when such maneuvers might be preferable to using a gun. Therefore, they aren't things young officers even consider in the heat of the moment. As you know, they are provided extensive training on when and how to use a gun, however.

As to "shoot early, shoot often," that's a wee bit unfair. In a nation awash in well over 300-million guns and with some 2-million gun crimes yearly, I think it's honestly a little surprising cops don't shoot someone more often! See my comment above about frequency of an average officer shooting someone, an average of once for every 20ish years of operational assignment...and that stat comes from a time (1990's) when there were about double the police shootings there are now. 30 years of observation and experience tells me that stat is probably about right, tho.

It may be found these officers or the firing officer did something wrong, and the fact that the firing officer has been involved in 2 fatal shootings in a year is worth looking at...we would have in Dallas...but from what I've seen so far, this particular shooting seems justified. There have been other shootings in Seattle I've questioned or criticized, but not this one...so far.