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opinion:
Police deserve
benefit of doubt
On May 7, more than
75 protesters marched from their small community to the Huntington
Beach City Hall and police headquarters.
The protesters
were charging racism after investigators confirmed that the
gun an 18-year-old farm worker allegedly pointed at officers
during a fatal weekend shooting was in fact a toy rifle.
On May 5, at approximately
1:39 a.m. two Huntington Beach police officers saw Antonio
H. Saldivar looking into a parked vehicle. A short foot pursuit
ensued and when the officers were able to catch up to Saldivar,
they saw he was armed with a rifle.
Saldivar did not
listen to their commands to put the gun down and proceeded
to point the rifle at one of the officers. Fearing for his
safety, the officer fired at him with his handgun, hitting
Saldivar an unknown number of times.
Saldivar was transported
to the UCI Medical Center where he died a short time later.
Place yourself
in the officer's shoes. A police officer's duty is to investigate
suspicious activity. At two in the morning, it is reasonable
to want to speak with a person that is peering into car windows.
Not knowing if
this rifle was real or not, would you pull your gun on him?
While pointing your gun and telling him repeatedly to put
down his gun, he ignores your commands. He begins to point
the rifle at you. What would you do?
Even though it
was later discovered that this was a toy rifle, how could
you expect the officer to be certain if it were real or fake? Would
you risk your life guessing if the rifle were real or fake?
If Saldivar's weapon
had been real and the officer hesitated where would we be
now? Would the officer be the one dead? Perhaps his family
and friends would be grieving.
As a nation we
expect our officers to make split-second decisions and always
be right. Doctors in an operating room have dozens on their
staff to help make all their decisions. Lawyers have months
or sometimes years to prepare for a case before they present
it to a jury.
Police officers
are human and make their fair share of mistakes. In this particular
case it seems as though the officer did everything we as citizens
would expect him to do. He looked into the suspicious activity
and attempted to investigate it.
We as a society
are too quick to point the blameful finger at police officers.
Julie Sipkovich
is public relations major at Cal State Long Beach.
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