There’s been another police shooting of an unarmed person, this time a California college student named Feras Morad.
Morad was “a nationally-ranked debate team member at Moorpark College” who was going to transfer to California State University-Long Beach for the coming term.
On the night of the fatal shooting, Morad had experimented with psychedelic drugs which apparently made him feel indestructible: He jumped through a second story glass door and, drenched in blood, “didn’t seem phased by those (injuries) at all.”
According the Long Beach PD, the officer who confronted Morad “used verbal commands, a taser and an ‘impact weapon’ to subdue [him].”
Morad then threatened the officer, according to the department and some witnesses. That’s when deadly force was used.
Long Beach police and witnesses said the officer tried to restrain the student before opening fire.
“He was trying to handcuff him, but he wouldn’t obey at all,” said a witness who did not want to be identified. “He was definitely on something I think.”
“(The officer) tried, yelled at him, tazed him, he would not go down,” the witness said.
The officer used “verbal commands,” stunned Morad with a Taser, and used a flashlight with force to try to restrain him, police said.
“It wasn’t until the end when the options ran out that he felt the need to resort to lethal force,” Hendrickson said.
But some questioned the officer’s decision:
“For it to end that way for a kid who could be out of his mind drunk or partying or something, seems very unnecessary,” witness Daniel Browning said.
“Why would they shoot him? He was harmless,” Drina Browning said.
“If that officer wasn’t there, I guarantee you 10 people from this neighborhood could have gotten that intoxicated child down on the ground and into an ambulance for help,” said another witness, who did not want to be identified. “He needed help, he didn’t need to die.”
A guy who just bashed through a glass door from two stories up, who appeared unfazed, and had just threatened an officer after several attempts to subdue him is … “harmless?”
As for the unidentified “Mr. Guarantee,” well, yes — ten people probably could have subdued Morad. The key word, however, is “could.” Good luck getting that two-short-of-a-dozen group together quickly, let alone to act in concert. And would those ten remain in the ambulance to keep him restrained, too?
Despite the officer and witness testimony about the shooting, a protest for “justice” was held at Lincoln Park in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday.
Many of Morad’s friends and relatives have taken to social media to object to the shooting.
Besides the hashtag #Justice4Feras, there is now a Facebook page called Justice for Feras Morad.
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