A man who was shot by police and later died had to wait 10 extra minutes for an ambulance after an officer having a “mild anxiety attack” took the first one that arrived at the scene, according to a newly released state investigation.
Dyshan Best, 39, was shot in the back last year as he fled from officers in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A report released Tuesday by the state’s inspector general found that the shooting was justified because Best had a gun in his hand and the officer pursuing him had reasons to fear for his own safety.
But the report raised questions about what took place after the March 31 shooting, which left Best, who was Black, bleeding with severe internal injuries.
Hypothetically, yes there are justified shootings. Deciding if a shooting is justified should be done by a jury though, not an internal investigation. All lethal use of force cases should be prosecuted and guilt/innocence should be decided by a jury. The use of lethal force justification being decided by a judge/prosecutor/police is short-cutting the legal standard that any other victim would see their perpetrator held to and is therefore a 14th amendment violation.
Ya, that does seem like a fair way to handle something like that.
Is that actually how it happens, or is it typically done internally and decided by a judge/prosecutor/police?
That is not how it is done. It is the police chief saying, “We investigated ourselves and (found no wrongdoing)/(everything was within policy).” Occasionally it will be a prosecutor saying something along the lines of, “There isn’t enough evidence to get a guilty verdict so we are not going to pursue this.” If it gets past both of these the judge will dismiss the case for some random excuse or they do a bench trial where instead of a jury the judge just decides the cop is innocent. Very rarely it will make it to a jury trial and the cop will lie his ass off and never get charged for perjury.