DPF said yesterday “I have always been amazed that there has been any controversy over the shooting of Steven Wallace.”
In my last post I lambasted Tim at Tumke for his post on the matter. However, that doesn’t mean that I agree with DPF.
While I’ve been supportive of the police over people who’ve created a rod for their own back by abusing them, the Wallace case is not one where I nessessarly take that position.
Because he’s dead.
The fact that someone armed with a baseball bat, not a firearm, is dead is actually pretty good evidence in and of itself that the police screwed up mightily.
I am very glad that this has been investigated to the extent it has, because of that fact. Wallace is no longer live to put his version, regardless of what happened, no appeal or investigation can restore his live.
However, since the matter has been investigated, that investigation investigated etc the police have come through well – not perfectly, but well. Reading the various reports, it’s clear that the police acted like humans – they didn’t fill out the forms when checking out the guns for example. However, the did act professionally when approaching Wallace, giving good warnings so that he could be in no doubt of the consequences of their actions. It is clear that, even though he is dead, Wallace was without doubt the author of his own destiny.
(Of note is the fact that the family have never (according to yesterdays report) bothered to explain why Stephen was angry. One can’t help but wonder if the anger from the family is a result of their own guilt.)
The fact is, they should have acknowledged their son was at fault some time ago. But that’s understandable to some extent – their son is dead.
What I have no time for is cretins who concoct hate fantasies about police wanting to murder “‘cos they’ve been dissed” – fantasies that are clearly proven as such by carefully written and throughly investigated reports on every point.
The matter is serious, and such lunacy simply whips up hate and makes future re-occurrences even more likely.
Something should go here, maybe later. 