unmagical , 13 hours ago (edited 12 hours ago)

Do we actually know if he had a knife? Initial reporting was that the police knew he had a knife because he refused to take his hands out of his pockets. While he did threaten them, it was contingent upon them continuing to follow them. He did not actually attack them until after multiple officers attempted to tase him. Furthermore, so what if he had a knife? As far as we’re aware, he’s got a second amendment right to keep and bear arms. Being armed isn’t an excuse to be killed by cops because you are generally explicitly allowed to be armed.

All in all:

• We don’t know he’s armed
• We don’t know his intentions
• He didn’t immediately attack anyone
• While he did threaten them he made no indication that he intended to follow through until he was attacked
• He continued to try to leave the situation until he was attacked
• The police attacked him first
• He didn’t have a gun
• 4 people were shot by the police; he was killed (this seems to have been erroneously reported earlier. He is now reportedly in critical condition), an officer and 2 bystanders were wounded
• No one was stabbed

While that is textbook escalation, it really doesn’t seem like they shot him cause he had a knife. They shot him (and 3 others) cause he didn’t care about their authority and they couldn’t let the guy that was already on the train go. And all that came about because he tried to skip a fare that costs around the same amount as the bullets fired.