Police killed Jason Maccani as he held a fork, one of many cases of confused Los Angeles officers rushing to use lethal force
The first report from the Los Angeles police department about the killing of Jason Maccani on 3 February immediately drew scrutiny: an officer had fatally shot a man who had been “armed with a stick” and threatening people in a building on Skid Row, the department said.
LAPD’s update a day later raised new concerns: the 36-year-old Maccani hadn’t been holding any weapon, but rather a “white plastic fork”.
Body-camera footage released two weeks later raised even further questions about LAPD’s shifting narrative. The footage showed Maccani alone walking out of a unit into the building hallway, not threatening anyone, when seven officers approached with weapons drawn. The officer who fired the fatal shot opened fire within roughly 15 seconds of seeing him.
I feel like that video just makes the LAPD’s case worse. Guy had a plastic fork… They had a very long huddle discussing tactics all of which resulted in a complete failure. Like this is epic levels of fucking removed. Re assign all these officers to simple traffic duty and take their firearms.
Or we can just continue letting a bunch of jacked up half wits wander around heavily armed free to just shoot citizens with cutlery.