The incident unfolded on Aug. 2, 2022, after police received several 911 calls saying a man had broken into the municipal building and set several fires inside.
Officers arrived to find the suspect still inside the building, armed with a large machete.
Two officers armed with Anti Riot Weapon Enfield (ARWEN) devices shot the suspect nine times over the course of 35 minutes.
Despite undergoing surgery, the man lost one testicle. The other was injured and only a portion could be saved.
They were attempting to talk him down throughout the entire engagement. They don’t just shoot nonlethal without giving instructions. They also warn saying things like “drop the machete or you will be tazed/bean bagged/pepperballed.” Eventually he did drop the machete, and the pain from nonlethal may have contributed to that. I’d rather the suspect be in pain than be shot to death.
If the suspect was still inside the burning building, there was likely a sense of urgency to get him out before smoke inhalation, high heat, or building collapse became a significant threat to his life.
According to the article the only thing they cops said/yelled to the guy was to drop the weapon.
And a “sense of urgency” to get the guy out of the building would preclude the cops from spending 35 minutes using him as target practice.
If you read the police report linked in the article, the suspect refused to drop the machete and asked police to shoot him. The suspect was escalting the situation and actively resisting police while in the burning building.
Sorry, I learned long ago to the take “police reports” with a pound of salt. As far as I’m concerned those are not a trusted source for facts.
If they released the body camera footage, that’s a different story. But they didn’t, did they?
Assuming that the police report is always wrong is just as bad as assuming that it’s always right. I don’t think there’s any question in this case that the suspect was committing arson—the presence or absence of fire damage would have been hard to hide from the public. Arson is a pretty serious crime that might have endangered innocent bystanders if the fires had spread sufficiently. Was he really brandishing a machete at the police? I can’t say for sure, but it isn’t implausible. Was the force used to bring him in disproportionate? Maybe, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone was aiming at this guy’s testicles on purpose. They’re just not a very good target.
This isn’t like the cases of someone being seriously injured or killed during a “wellness check” or for standing on a street corner while Indigenous. In the absence of any other information, I’d say that the injuries that the suspect suffered here really weren’t intentional and a misaimed plastic bullet ricocheted into his crotch. If you want a flagship case for demonstrating police brutality to the public, I wouldn’t pick this one.