Well I guess since nobody was indicted, we can all shake and go home.
But seriously… it would have been horrible if the officers were indicted for doing their job. Though the fact that Alvarez also gets to walk bothers me less since he already survived his “trial by ordeal.” I mean the guy was shot 23(!) times, “27 holes,” and four bullets in his body. Let’s just count that as time served.
From the story in the Times:
Mr. Alvarez had gotten into a fight with another man, Luis Soto, who Mr. Alvarez said had shot at him.
The police had accused Mr. Alvarez of shooting at them as they converged on the fight. In a frantic span of about 10 seconds, with about 500 people swarming the block, four officers fired, and Mr. Alvarez received 23 gunshot wounds.
Bring the civil suit. Guy had a gun pulled on him and he got shot for wrestling it away. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Giffords had wrestled the gun away from Loughner. This is much worse than when the police shot Officer Torbit (which may have been justified.
I'm sure you would have handled it sooo much better if you had been on-scene.
I hate to break it to you but police are allowed to protect themselves.
A "block party" has ended in the middle of the projects. It's late at night. Hundreds of people are about. Many are armed. Many are high. Many are angry. Time to go home. And then two thugs with a beef start fighting. One has a gun and pulls it out. They fight for it. The gun goes off. There's chaos. The crowd is screaming. You run toward the danger and they see now the gun is shooting at you.
The end result is no innocent people got shot.
Those are shoes I thank my lucky stars I've never been in.
I say well done, NYPD.
The guilt or innocence of Angel Alvarez has not been established. All that has been established is that, on this occasion he got a gun pulled on him and wrestled it away from the person threatening him.
Within those factual confines there are possible scenarios where Angel Alvarez started the fight and was actually the initial aggressor. Within those factual confines are possible scenarios where Angel Alvarez got attacked by a man with a gun, just like Congresswoman Giffords or Officer Brenton.
Like, I said, above, bring the civil suit. We need more answers (even if we don't like where they lead).
All that matters is that the officers saw the gun and felt in fear for their lives.
All the back and forth bullshit about who started the fight means nothing.