I’ve been seeing similar logic all over social media forever. The idea that someone’s rap sheet or unresolved alleged crimes should factor into our feelings about their unnecessary death/maiming at the hands of police.

The answer is and always will be no. (1/) https://twitter.com/someguyoffthest/status/1299088493524721673

It’s not up to police to execute people for alleged crimes—nor crimes in progress, for that matter, if they can avoid it.

I know if “Gary’s” family member was murdered by police for an alleged offense instead of tried in a court of law he wouldn’t be defending it. (2/)

This concept dominates every defense of an officer abandoning approved tactics & unnecessarily using a firearm.

It’s often driven by racism—the need to twist facts into whatever allows the dead black person to be at fault.

But it’s also a (3/)

...sign of our totally screwed up relationship with the police. They’re supposed to DE-ESCALATE. They’re supposed to protect lives, not take them.

Can you even hear yourselves arguing for police to have the right to murder someone who MAY be guilty of something? (4/)

We really gotta re-examine the role we want police to have in communities. The things they’re asked to do that they’re not qualified for & things they choose to do they’ve been trained not to. Just how much we’ve lost our way when it comes to the police-citizen relationship. (5/)

If someone has committed a crime, I hope the court system holds him accountable. And if the court system fails, as it so often does in cases of sexual assault, then we keep fighting to make it work, we don’t fight for police to serve “justice” with bullets in the back.