Some of you seem extremely clueless about the mind state of police.
Let's remove the racial component for a sec. Even on a good day most police are like Seth Rogen's character from "Observe And Report". They seriously think they're living an action movie.
Look at the police response to Eric Garner, or Mike Brown. I don't mean the obviously racist, ignorant police. I mean the ones that seem somewhat neutral, but are "toeing the line" and supporting their fellow officers.
Virtually all of them talk about how thankful we should be for them, as if they're Batman. And how we could never do their job, how dangerous it is, etc. Nevermind the fact that the statistics don't back any of this up. They could be patrolling Mayberry with zero crime and they still talk like they're John McClane.
This is before the racial component. Add that in, and you have people that are terrified out on patrol, because they've psyched themselves into thinking they're living a "Die Hard" movie.
I have no idea what happened here, and I won't comment until the facts come out. That might be months from now, same as I did with the Mike Brown case. But he could've had a pistol, or a cell phone, and it's not as if this would be the first time the police didn't differentiate between the two.
Fred.