Police Footage Shows Barrage Of Gunfire That Killed 25-year-old

Many white peo­ple are desen­si­tized to police vio­lence against peo­ple of col­or. Others say just do as they say in a cold, cal­cu­lat­ed way that is devoid of under­stand­ing that police are not oper­at­ing with­in the laws but, from what we say dai­ly, are oper­at­ing as occu­pa­tion­al forces in our communities.
Ant to be fair, some con­sci­en­tious white peo­ple under­stand that what is hap­pen­ing is not polic­ing but mur­der under the col­or of law.
On the oth­er hand, when it comes to defund­ing police depart­ments and using the mon­ey for oth­er com­mu­ni­ty uses, and hold­ing police account­able the white pop­u­la­tion, Republicans and Democrats once again coa­lesce around the con­struct of policing.
This writer is a strict law and order per­son who spent a decade in law enforce­ment. Nevertheless, I can­not remain silent and pre­tend that what police are doing under the col­or of the law is not murder.
It pains my heart to see police offi­cers snuff­ing out the life of peo­ple, using pre­tex­tu­al stops as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to abuse and mur­der citizens.
As I have said, white dis­in­ter­est in police vio­lence and mur­der of black peo­ple and oth­er peo­ple of col­or is a dan­ger­ous strategy.
If we are not vig­i­lant in con­trol­ling the peo­ple we give pow­er to, they will use it against us, who gave it to them in the first place.
No one is safe if police can sim­ply shout ‘gun’, and sum­mar­i­ly exe­cute a per­son in the safe place of their car, home, or any oth­er place.
Whether black or white, we are all one race of people.….the human race. The illic­it tak­ing of inno­cent life in the United States by police is a can­cer that threat­ens us all. (mb)

First, they came for the social­ists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller

Police in Farmington, Utah, released body cam­era footage Wednesday that cap­tured the bar­rage of gun­fire which killed a 25-year-old man dur­ing a traf­fic stop last week. Chase Allan was pulled over by Farmington police on March 1 at around 3:20 p.m. near a post office after an offi­cer spot­ted an ille­gal license plate — a plac­ard with a flag — on Allan’s blue BMW, Farmington police Chief Eric Johnsen said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence Wednesday. During the press con­fer­ence, Johnsen told reporters that offi­cers start­ed to shoot after they saw Allan reach down, but also said that it is unclear exact­ly what hap­pened in those brief sec­onds because the body cam­er­a’s view is unclear.

The footage — a com­pi­la­tion video of five body-worn police cam­eras and a sin­gle dash­board cam­era — shows a police car fol­low­ing Allan’s BMW into a park­ing lot. The offi­cer parks behind Allan’s car walks over to it, and taps on the dri­ver’s win­dow. Allan cracks open the win­dow while hold­ing a cell­phone. “The rea­son you were stopped today is there is no reg­is­tra­tion on your vehi­cle,” the offi­cer tells Allan in the video. “I don’t need reg­is­tra­tion and I don’t answer ques­tions,” Allan replies. “Alrighty,” the offi­cer says, and then pro­ceeds to call back­up. The offi­cer and Allan go back and forth about why he was pulled over, before the offi­cer tells Allan he is “detained and not free to leave.” He then con­tin­ues to ask for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Allan can be heard cit­ing what he claims are legal argu­ments for his refusal to pro­vide one. “I under­stand what you are say­ing,” the offi­cer replies. “But you are law­ful­ly required to iden­ti­fy yourself.”