The Love Field Shooting Was Another Overreaction By A Thin-Skinned Cop

The latest shooting at the Love Field airport is going to complicate things, already with reports of airplane bombings and the increased security at airports worldwide.

The Inquisitr provided the details as they came in on the Love Field shooting, which took place Friday when a man apparently approached police with a rock, during a domestic dispute with his ex.

The incident will also feed the debate of officers who overreact to a situation when deciding to use lethal force against a black man, which will cause a lot of eyes to roll by people who are sick of that narrative or are of the opinion that police officers get a free pass to decide when they use their weapons.

However, the fact is that the Love Field shooting is really no different than any of the other incidents caught on camera where officers use deadly force, and whether it is a white on black thing is a separate issue left for debate.

What happened at Love Field is, in fact, a case of cops overreacting to a man with a rock, similar to those incidents reported where people throwing rocks at border patrol officials or even rock-throwing Palestinians in Israel are also met with lethal force.

We should look at why they felt that shooting was the best option, with the intention to kill someone who clearly would not have gotten very far with attacking an officer with a rock.

According to the reports, the man with the rock identified as 29-year-old Shawn Diamond told the officer(s), “You’re going to have to shoot me,” which is probably the “OK” the officers were looking for.

Property Valued Over Life?

That he was smashing up the woman’s car could be for a lot of reasons, none of them a good reason to open fire on him with the intent to kill as it’s only property that is damaged, and ONLY property.

If we take out the fact that he was approaching the officers with a rock or two and look at the destruction of his ex’s car — the DPD video above shows her chucking his luggage on the ground, clearly she was sick of him, too — then would the officer open fire on someone for that alone?

Who’s property are they protecting? Is insurance coverage, repairs, and all that comes with repairing a damaged vehicle such a hassle that an officer or anyone for that matter can decide that shooting the person who caused it is worth lowering the bill?

The officer was placed on administrative leave which should not lessen the scrutiny they deserve for attempting to bury more than one bullet into Mr. Diamond, who is currently as of this writing in critical but stable condition.

Police Intimidation

Even with the sweeping changes to police departments across the nation over the consistent reports of lethal force used on citizens, there is still the hardened idea that officers can make those decisions, especially for an incident as questionable as this.

And that it was at Love Field which is considered one of the busiest airports in the world, would an officer who thought that a black man with dreads coming at them with rocks is a good enough reason to unload on him?

Perhaps to the officer, the dreads made Shawn look like the alien in Predator, in which case he might have a better case to hold up his reasoning to say that he’s not able to make the distinction between fact and fiction, or he’s unable to even have the commonsense to know the difference between a guy with a rock or two and a person who’s really dangerous.

New York Daily News is one of the sources reporting that Shawn had already been causing trouble earlier in the week before the Love Field shooting, driving recklessly and spending Tuesday night in jail.

Having an attitude problem — while officers might feel is a good enough reason to shoot to kill him — is still not reason enough for the shooting at Love Field.

Power Tripping The Possibilities

Even knowing that it would cause systematic problems with processing airline passengers is a given, as anyone assigned to patrol that area knows enough about the airport’s already dire problems along with everyone else to know they have the power to decide when they will cause even more problems by pulling the trigger.

And so there’s enough of a reason for the shooting at Love Field to be scrutinized from all angles, especially against the officer who decided pulling the trigger was the best option for him to flex the power he has to cause airport gridlock.

Even further, the reason these officers and anyone making the argument that tasers are not an option is for one reason only and that is the chance that it won’t stop the suspect.

Much like the killing of Harambe last week, as described in an op-ed by Inquisitr, the decision to shoot Shawn Diamond came down to what he “could” have done with those rocks, if the taser didn’t work.

The thing at the Dallas airport today the bf was using rocks & his fists. Cops used guns, but for once it was justified.

— Budini (@Budini) June 11, 2016

Does anyone see a pattern on the “what if” scenarios we’re plagued with when these shootings take place?

Of course, if the connection is made that metals are minerals also forged from certain types of rocks, then perhaps a connection can be made with knives to the rocks he was holding, in which case, the officer either overthought the incident or he’s got a great argument to make that those rocks are the same as knives.

There is no doubt that the Love Field shooting is going to be debated, very likely without any of these ideas being considered. Mostly because every party involved is going to do what they can to distort the obvious, which is that the officer acted under the existing climate of transition, between a police force that’s fighting to keep the power they once had and the call for them to stop being so hot-headed every time there’s a rock involved.

[Image by Emily Schmall / AP Photo]