Jerame Reid Shooting: An Analysis [Video]

Here we go again with an officer-involved shooting of an “unarmed man.”

Let’s break this down.

In this instance, a pair of Bridgeton, New Jersey, police officers pull over two men in a car after the car allegedly rolls through a stop sign without fully stopping.

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Officer Braheme Days asks for a driver’s license (0:50), and then as he’s conversing with the men in the car, he suddenly pulls his sidearm (0:58), and points it at the men in the car, saying, “show me your hands.”

Officer Roger Worley, Days partner and the driver of the police car, rapidly joins his partner, gun out and weaponlight on, focusing on the driver. Days tells his partner that there is a weapon in the glove compartment. Days reaches into the car, and pulls out a large, shiny pistol (1:10).

On the passenger side of the vehicle, felon Jerame Reid is not listening to officer Days, who is repeatedly warning Reid not to move and to show the officers his hands. Days warns Reid that he’s going to get shot if he doesn’t keep his hands up. Reid refuses to comply.

Days had a prior run-in with Reid, arresting him on drug charges last year, and calls him by name (1:35). Days knows that Reid has violently resisted arrest before, and now knows that Reid is a felon in possession of a gun. Reid had done 13 years in prison for shooting at a trio of state troopers.

Officers Days warns Reid repeatedly not to move, and then appears to be attempt to hold the door shut (1:44).

Days takes a huge step back as the door is pushed open by Reid, and Days continues to yell at Reid not to move (1:46). Reid rapidly exits the vehicle and rapidly raises his hands (1:47).

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Officer Days—apparently thinking that the non-compliant Reid is raising a weapon—opens fires with a volley of what appears to be six shots fired from a distance of less than five feet away. On the driver’s side of the car, Officer Worley appears to have fired a single shot, then ducks out of the way as he realizes that the shifting positions of the three moving men have placed him in the line of fire from Day’s gun. Reid collapses to the ground, and no more shots are fired (1:50).

Other officers arrive on-scene within a matter of seconds.

The driver of the vehicle, Leroy Tutt, is compliant with officer Days and later Worley during the entire incident leading up, during, and after to the shooting, his arms not only clearly visible, but projecting from the vehicle. He is not harmed in the exchange of gunfire.

Jerame Reid died at the scene.

“Activists” are already actively lying about the case.

“The video speaks for itself that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person,” Walter Hudson, chairman and founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance, said Wednesday. “He complied with the officer and the officer shot him.”

A Philadelphia lawyer, Conrad Benedetto, said he has been hired by Reid’s wife, Lawanda, to investigate. He said in a statement the footage “raises serious questions as to the legality and/or reasonableness of the officers’ actions that night” because Reid was shot as he raised his hands.

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There was nothing like “compliance” for Reid in the video. He refused to listen to anything that Officer Days told him to do. After repeated warnings to keep his hands up and not to move, Reid pushed open the door, stood, and began raising his hands.

Officer Reid—who knew who Reid’s violent history—had no choice but to open fire given Reid’s refusal to comply, the fact that they knew there was at least one weapon that had been recovered so far, that Reid was emerging from the car and rapidly raised his hands, an act that had the same motions as bringing a weapon to bear.

Leroy Tutt walked away from this incident unharmed because he complied with lawful police commands.

Jerame Reid died because he repeatedly ignored lawful police orders, advanced upon a officer who told him not to move, and rapidly moved his hands in a move easily mistake as raising a weapon.

It’s a shame when anyone dies unnecessarily, but Reid chose his fate when he refused to follow the lawful commands from Officer Days and instead exited the car after numerous warnings from Days.

I’m sure that we’re going to hear comments from the uninformed and untrained that officer Days should have used a taser or should have shot Reid in the leg, shoulder, etc.

Rubbish.

Days had already removed one weapon from the vehicle, and knew for a fact that he was dealing with a violent convicted felon who had fired upon law enforcement officers in the past. Reid was a clear lethal force threat, and officers never use less-lethal systems (batons, tasers, chemical sprays) in such situations.

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Reid was given repeated warnings to not move and to keep his hands up, but exited the vehicle towards Officer Days. Days had every reason to believe that Reid was raising a weapon, and shot to stop the threat. When Reid stopped being a threat, Days stopped firing, scanned and assessed the situation, and then kept Reid covered as an officer responding to the scene handcuffed Reid off-camera. Officer Worley got Leroy Tutt safely out of the vehicle searched him and secured him, and moved him away from the shooting scene.

There should not be any controversy here.

Jerame Reid advanced upon a cop and raised his hands rapidly, as if he was drawing a weapon.

The officer’s response of “front sight, press,” was entirely appropriate.

This was clearly a justified shooting.

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