I’m a little split on this one, not knowing exactly what lead up to the altercation it’s hard to say whether the detention of the kid was justified. After things escalated, the cop was being assaulted and a crowd with apparently aggressive intentions was moving in on him, so he was justified at ‘that point’ in brandishing the weapon.

However, he had no justification whatsoever for firing the weapon, the crowd was actively moving back away from him as he fired. Actually, it doesn’t even really look like it was intentional. There’s a better angle on the event here. You can see the cop draw the gun with his left hand, then someone walks in front of the camera at which point the guys seems to have switched the gun to his other hand. The actual discharge came as the officer was making a lurching motion backwards to haul the kid back.

Think about the mechanics involved in holding onto a kid’s scrunched up shirt in your right hand, gun in your left, then somehow switching hands and yanking on the kid at the exact moment the gun discharges. My money is on him firing accidentally. The thing about California gun law is that if you do end up discharging a gun, it’s better to claim that it was intentional because you can ‘attempt’ to invoke self-defense. If you shot accidentally, there’s no defense to the charge of a negligent discharge. Gun owners here understand that, and this cop definitely would, so i’m betting that’s what he’s going with.

On a lighter note, it amazes me that there are enough idiots out there still running with the “hands up don’t shoot” narrative.