The Curious Case Of Christian Taylor

[Gravekeeper]

Rather peculiar one thats been in the news the last few days.

TL;DR: Clearly impaired/high college football player breaks into car dealership, police respond, he ends up shot dead. But no one can clearly explain why. They can't find any security footage from inside the dealership. The police will not or cannot provide any clear details on exactly what happened inside the dealership.

The officer that shot him is a 49 year old trainee ( what? ) who was with his supervisor/trainer. His supervisor fired his tazer, while the trainee fired his service weapon. So far even after debriefing both officers, the police have not been able to determine whether the tazer was fired before or after the trainee fired his service weapon.

To the precinct's credit, they have called in the FBI to investigate.

As it stands, if they don't clearly know what happened even after debriefing both officers it sounds like perhaps the trainee made a mistake and his trainer is trying to cover for him?

Addendum: There is no question Taylor committed a crime. But breaking and entering is not punishable by death last I checked.

[Greenday]

I heard a "tussle" occurred but God only knows what happened during said "tussle". I also heard security footage would be released within a week. Hopefully it is. I mean, they have footage of him crashing into the dealership window, but mysteriously nothing after?

[ParkingWitch]

From what I heard on the news tonight, the owner said there were no cameras inside the dealership.

[HYHYBT]

It doesn't seem strange to me that, if two things happened very close together, they'd be unsure which was first.

[Gravekeeper]

It doesn't seem strange to me that, if two things happened very close together, they'd be unsure which was first.

Well, no one said it was strange and the police haven't said if that was the case.

If it did happen that way that lends more credence to the trainee ( most likely ) making a mistake. If the senior officer pulled a tazer and the trainee pulled his service weapon so close together they can't determine what happened first, then one of them may have misjudged the situation.

The police chief wouldn't answer any questions about what the altercation was, how far away the suspect was from the officers when he was shot or anything like that. So either the police chief knows something looks amiss or the accounts of both officers involved aren't square with each other and they haven't pieced it together yet.

The fact he's proactively called in the FBI means there's something or at least the appearance of something though.

[Gravekeeper]

From what I heard on the news tonight, the owner said there were no cameras inside the dealership.

That would explain the lack of footage.

Also from the news tonight, the trainee officer has not yet been interviewed?

[Gravekeeper]

On a side note I can't help but keep rolling the 49 year old trainee thing over in my head. It just seems odd that you can randomly decide to become a police officer with no prior experience at the age of 49 and be on the street with a gun 6 months later.

Which is not to say there are not people in amazing shape at the age of 49. Just that this officer doesn't look like he'd live through the physical assessment testing up here ( Nor would I ). So it makes me wonder what the requirements are down there.

Ah, here we go.

Not to slag on Arlington but that seems rather easy compared to the shit they put you through here in Canada. But I guess its not standardized in the US?

[Nyoibo]

Wow, those requirements are pathetically easy...

[Shangri-laschild]

On a side note I can't help but keep rolling the 49 year old trainee thing over in my head. It just seems odd that you can randomly decide to become a police officer with no prior experience at the age of 49 and be on the street with a gun 6 months later.

The department I work for has several tests we do when hiring:
Written test - generally the same type of test you'd take when entering college I believe though not the same standards

Physical training test-
-Run a certain distance in a certain time that is based on your age
-Certain number of situps
-Bench press that I believe is based on a percentage of your weight?
-Sit and reach
There might be one or two other things, it's been a while since I helped out with the testing. This tends to disqualify all the people who wouldn't make it through the training acadamy which has a lot of physical stuff including daily runs to start with. Less people pass the physical test than you would think despite it being easier probably than Arlington's test.

If they make it through all of that and the background check, they have to go to a Psych eval as well.

Once you get through all of that and then the academy, you shadow only for a certain time period and at the beginning of that, you don't go out on calls like that.

We've had people apply who were in that age range before. Can't discriminate based on age. The department's physical test is important but I'm less worried about the entrance testing as I am the police academy training that they are getting. If the training is good enough, then even if the dept's testing isn't good enough, the person isn't going to make it through the training anyway. Academy isn't a walk in the park physically (or isn't supposed to be anyway). The vest adds bulk and also sometimes adds misleading bulk, the officer in question may be more football player type bulk rather than out of shape bulk. Can't really say for sure. I'm curious what the dept's use of force policy is. I highly doubt it includes using a gun on a fleeing subject. The policy is one that should have been reviewed quite a lot at the very start of the training with the specific department. I can't see at all how pulling a gun would have lined up with his training and if it did, the training needs to be fixed.

[Gravekeeper]

The trainee officer has now been fired:

While outlining the events leading up to the fatal shooting of Christian Taylor, Johnson said rookie officer Brad Miller “exercised poor judgment” that led to “cascading consequences.”

Miller’s “unilateral decision to enter the building alone and to pursue [Christian Taylor] helped create an unrecoverable outcome,” Johnson said, adding that the decision put other officers on the scene at risk.

Johnson said Miller shot Taylor when Taylor began to advance toward the officer. But he said there was no physical contact between the officer and Taylor before Taylor was shot.

So there wasn't any physical altercation like they first said.

Turns out he also did shoot Taylor as the other officer was tazing him. He shot him once as the other officer was drawing his tazer than 3 more times after the other officer had tazed him.

Its now going to the DA to see if the trainee officer will be indicted.

[Kara_CS]

I've been waiting for more information so I can make an informed opinion on the situation, but more information is still pending. As it stands, I can see no legitimate reason why this kid had to die.

[Gravekeeper]

I've been waiting for more information so I can make an informed opinion on the situation, but more information is still pending. As it stands, I can see no legitimate reason why this kid had to die.

It looks like the rookie cop rushed in after the guy with no plan and without telling his partner or the other two officers ( Turns out there were 3 other officers on site ). When they arrived behind him his partner used a tazer but the rookie was already shooting.

Per the conference:

At a news conference, Chief Johnson said Tuesday that Mr. Miller made bad decisions in communicating with other officers and initially approaching Mr. Taylor on his own without a plan for arrest. There were other officers on scene, the chief told reporters, including Mr. Miller’s training officer, who tried to use a Taser to subdue the suspect.

The Arlington police chief, Will D. Johnson, said that the officer, Brad Miller, 49, had been fired for making mistakes in the fatal shooting of Christian Taylor, 19, which included entering the building without his more experienced partner and which led to “an environment of cascading consequences.”

Chief Johnson offered a detailed account of the confrontation, saying that Mr. Taylor never made physical contact with any of the officers at the scene and indicating that Officer Miller’s own actions had escalated the confrontation.

Chief Johnson said that the criminal investigation would proceed and that the evidence would be turned over to the district attorney, who would make a decision on whether to present it to a grand jury for a possible indictment.

[Aragarthiel]

I know how this site likes to say police officers need better training, but I don't think we can say that here. It sounds like the other officers were properly trained, while the trigger-happy rookie saw an opportunity to "prove himself" and did what he wanted to do.

[Shangri-laschild]

I know how this site likes to say police officers need better training, but I don't think we can say that here. It sounds like the other officers were properly trained, while the trigger-happy rookie saw an opportunity to "prove himself" and did what he wanted to do.

Yeah, it sounds like this guy was either over eager or jumpy and impulsive but either way, it's good he was removed. Some people really aren't cut out to do this kind of work.