African-American activist Quanell X saw things from a different perspective when a man who was frantically pacing back and forth approached a responding police officer that tried to calm the man down.
The man who clearly had some sort of issues going on in his life had a baby in tow, pulled out some sort of object as he approached the leader of the Houston area Black Panther Party. Quanell spent no time hesitating and tazed the men and brought him to the floor; the object turned out to in fact be a knife.
It turns out that Quanell was not actually a police officer, but was put into a scenario where civilians try and understand the feeling of panic when someone approaches you in a violent manner.
“I didn’t even see it. It could have been anything in his hand, and I still would have used force to stop him,” exclaims Quanell who said he would have pulled the trigger no matter what.
Quanell then added, “It all happened so fast. You don’t know what they could have in their hand.”
This is a perfect experiment and scenario that expresses the stresses on officers who are faced with these high-pressure situations. While many believe that the shootings of unarmed victims are based on race, many are not put into the situation where they would have to choose for themselves what to do.
Quanell said he walked away with a few things, which includes, “Many of these officers do not have adequate training and they should not be patrolling by themselves. Having backup would stop them from being skittish and firing their weapon. Also, we have to teach our community that, even if you disagree with the officer; do not try to litigate with them on the spot. Live to see another day. Don’t let our pride get in the way. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up.”
Photo By: TAMMY MCKINLEY
