This subreddit is usually a great place for discussion. But it saddens me that so many of you are now blindly "taking sides" with the police officers, in a situation that's not black and white.

First of all, some are claiming that police officers are just human beings and that "we have to understand this". While this is true, they are still trained police officers. They have a mandate on violence, that a regular civilian lacks. They brought the guns to this situation. The gun that this man was grabbing for, was a police officer's gun. The point here is not to defend the man grabbing for a police officers gun, but that the police has the mandate here, the monopoly on violence.

We expect police officers to act with great, great care and respect, given that they have this mandate, this monopoly. However, these kind of shootings and other forms of police brutality happens often. Too often, one could argue, for the mandate being justified.

Secondly, the argument that "if you grab a police officer's gun, that's a death sentence" is simply absurd. Yes, the police has the right to kill a person in some situations. Perhaps this was one of the situations. But it's too primitive to simply accept a man being shot, execution style, by five(?) professionals. Again, this is not some LA gang fighting each other. These are five police officers, fully equipped to deal with such a situation, opening fire on a man who is on the ground.

Lastly, all of this doesn't matter that much in the end. This is one all too familiar scenario. We've seen it before. Whether you think the police was right or not, do you not agree that this was violent?

Do we not have enough imagination to imagine how the police could've handled this differently? Or is this it? Is this the only 'truth'? The only way it could've been handled?

Personally, I think it's a cop out (pun not intended) when people blindly support violent measures, regardless if they are military, police or just a plain security guard. We are better than that, we are innovative people after all — Surely, there is a way to better the police force and not get stuck in the discussion: Should they have shot this guy point blank or not?