Wednesday, September 7, 2016

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I am writing about my opinions on reflecting back on the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting that we viewed in class last week. The video is a dash cam of the former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke brutally gunning down McDonald 16 times. I am not a police officer, but I know that in the academy you are to use your firearm to take someones life. The way Officer Van Dyke used his firearm was to the extreme. The ammount of bullets discharged from the firearm was a gross number. It would have been more justified if the officer had only fired at max 2-3 times, but the fact he shot him so many continious times even when the threat was over was outrageuous. You can see in the video that even after McDonald fell to the ground the officer was continuing to shoot him as you can see McDonalds body twitch and move after each shot is put into him. I think in this situation the way the shooting happened due to the severity of it makes it a wrongful act, however I cant exactly agree on one or anothers side because I wasnt there at the time of the shooting, and I didnt know what was going through the officers head during the incident.

2 comments:

  1. It's horrible, that shooting. But you write very carefully, attentive to the many potential angles. Nicely done!

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  2. Jason Van Dyke's shooting 16 times was extremely excessive. It's horrible to see things like this still happen, especially in this day in age. I agree with Dr. Kyburz on your attentiveness to the many potential angles this situation could be viewed from.

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