He was handcuffed, in police custody, in West Valley City Police headquarters. "You are about to die, my friend," one of the officers says. One shot, fired from close range, and the body cam then shows Chad Breinholt's body slumped on the floor, a pool of blood next to his head.
Justified homicide? An officer can be heard screaming that Breinholt had gotten hold of his gun. In a video where another officer explains what happened, he describes that Beinholt was, "grabbing hold of the officer's gun," with one of his handcuffed hands. "His hand is on the officer's gun," he explains, and we must assume Breinholt's hand was on the gun in the officer's holster. The narrating officer says another officer then enters the room. "Mr. Breinholt's hand remains on the gun,' the narrating officer says, "and the officer fires a single shot."
If Breinholt got his hand on the officer's holster, would he have been able to pull it out with a handcuffed hand? Officers were right on him, wrestling him, not giving him room to maneuver even if he hadn't been handcuffed. How is he going to pull the gun upward -- six inches or however much -- out of the holster?
And, they cried, "You are about to die, my friend," and shot him dead.
Think back to just earlier in the video, immediately as the scuffle is about to commence, when the one officer says, "You don't want to fight with me; You definitely don't want to fight with those guys," and he points to the officers behind him.
Was that a threat? Did they not fulfill it?
We are in the last days of June now. The killing was in August. And, yet the district attorney's office is still investigating the killing.
Unjustified police killings do happen. Unjustified homicides. Cases of police brutality. This is one of them. The handcuffed Chad Breinholt did not need to be killed.
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