The point is the same. Same with my 75 year old mother. Old guy who makes a mistake and spooks an inexperienced cop and BAM.
Look, I understand if he had been resisting arrest and being chased, or the license plate had been called in as stolen car, or if he was visibly attacking the woman in the car with him, etc. But an old dude, innocent of any crime, didn't understand this high-minded "dynamic situation" and it almost cost him his life. I think we have a problem as a society if this is happening. That guy isn't a good cop.
But if you are comfortable living like this then cool.
I get it, you like pot and you don't like cops.
You trot out the imaginary and intentionally extreme, bordering on the absurd, scenario of a police officer shooting your 75 year old mother simply for reaching into her purse, absent any other circumstances, as if it had some sort of relevance to the particular incident that is the subject of this thread. If such an incident were to happen in this vacuum, with no other factors involved (as you posit), then of course the officer should be charged with homicide and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. At no point have I, or anyone else you may be deriding for "defending this cop," advocated that law enforcement officers should be allowed to shoot people willy-nilly for simply reaching into their purse or other similar activity. Again, however, that is not what happened in the particular incident that we are discussing in this thread. And you know it.
Again, you seem to be completely unwilling to, or totally incapable of, putting yourself in the law enforcement officer's shoes and seeing the situation from his perspective. This was not just an "Old guy who makes a mistake and spooks an inexperienced cop and BAM," as you claim. Watch the video. There were a lot of factors that would, and did, lead a reasonable deputy to believe that he was facing a deadly threat. That deputy had to make a split-second life or death decision with incomplete information. Had the deputy known that in reality, the subject was an elderly man, likely with hearing problems, who was just reaching for his cane in the bed of his truck, of course he not have shot him. But the deputy did not know this, and could not have reasonably known this. Your expecting him to have this sort of omniscience is what is unreasonable.
I am sorry that you feel insulted when I point out that you do not seem to understand the "tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving" (to quote the Supreme Court) nature of these kinds of incidents, but with each post you demonstrate more and more to me that you indeed do not. You insinuate that law enforcement officers should have no reason to be on their guard during "routine" traffic stops, and that they should anticipate danger only if the subject "had been resisting arrest and being chased, or the license plate had been called in as stolen car, or if he was visibly attacking the woman in the car with him, etc." You are very naïve in this view. Hell, Timothy McVeigh was pulled over simply because the license plate on his car was missing. He certainly wasn't a dangerous individual, was he?
You appear to advocate a bright-line rule of engagement in which an officer must wait until he is staring down the barrel of a gun before he can respond to defend himself and others. This is not the law throughout is nation. Numerous Court opinions have held that "our constitutional safeguards do not require an officer to gamble with his life," or words to that effect.
See e.g. Commonwealth v. Morris, 537 Pa. 417, 644 A.2d 721 (1994) (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania)
At no point have I seen you acknowledge that the officer's life and safety are of any value or merit any consideration in these very difficult situations, no two of which are alike. You talk about yourself and your 75 year old mother, and both of your lives are indeed precious and irreplaceable. Likewise, this deputy was a 20ish or 30ish son/husband/father/brother, who has a very tough and dangerous job. His life and safety are also precious, and do not diminish in value simply because he is wearing a badge.
I agree with others in this thread who believe that these kinds of incidents are in large part a product of the fact that a lot of people have guns in this Nation, and that
some of them do stupid and illegal things with them. That reality is not the deputy's fault, but he and others who do his job have to deal with that reality every day. As sad as this incident was, I am quite confident that the North Carolina or South Carolina SBI (whoever is investigating the incident) will find that the shooting was justified. Moreover, the deputy would almost undoubtedly be entitled to qualified immunity against any civil suit against him pursuant to Section 1983.