Fatal police shooting of teen in Pocatello raises serious questions | Opinion

The fatal police shooting of a Pocatello teenager deserves a thorough investigation into not only the shooting itself but the training of police officers when responding to such calls.

Absolutely no one — not the family, not the community, not the police — wants the death of an autistic, nonverbal teenage boy who also had cerebral palsy.

So the question must be asked: Could police officers have done anything differently to prevent this horrible outcome?

It all started April 5, when police responded to a 911 call from a neighbor reporting that an apparently intoxicated man with a knife was chasing someone in a yard, according to previous Statesman reporting.

It turned out to be Victor Perez, 17, who was not intoxicated but walked with a staggered gait due to his disabilities, Perez’s aunt, Ana Vazquez, told The Associated Press. His family members had been trying to get the large kitchen knife away from him.

Responding officers shot Perez nine times. He was taken to the hospital where he was taken off life support one week later, on April 12.

Videos of police shooting raise questions

We recognize that police officers have a dangerous job and are all too often on the receiving end of a fatal incident. When faced with an imminent threat, officers are trained to shoot to kill, and it can be difficult to second-guess officers’ actions when faced with a split-second decision.

But videos of the Perez shooting raise serious questions.

The videos show four police officers rush to a chain-link fence surrounding the yard, where Perez was rolling around on the ground.

Officers quickly pulled their guns, pointed them at Perez and began yelling at Perez to drop the knife.

Perez got up and stumbled toward the officers, holding up the knife. It was then that the police officers shot Perez nine times — within seconds after arriving.

Where were de-escalation attempts?

We see no evidence of attempts to de-escalate the situation.

To the contrary, aggressively approaching Perez, pulling out their guns and shouting at Perez escalated the situation.

“Everybody was trying to tell the police, no, no,” Vazquez told the Associated Press. “Those four officers didn’t care. They didn’t ask what was happening, what was the situation.”

Yes, a knife is a deadly weapon, but we, like Perez’s family members, question whether Perez posed an imminent threat to officers, who were separated from Perez by a chest-high chain-link fence and easily could have moved away from Perez.

“How’s he going to jump the fence when he can barely walk?” Vazquez told the AP.

Based on the videos, it appears police officers were very quick to the trigger.

Police appeared to have more time – and other options – before pulling the trigger. One officer, according to Pocatello police, fired a bean bag round from a shotgun. Could other, non-lethal tools have been used here?

Police shooting investigations

Like other police shootings, this incident will undergo an investigation, and if history is any predictor of future results, the officers will be cleared of any wrongdoing, and the shooting will be classified as “justified.”

But we hope more scrutiny is paid to the circumstances in this case, and any investigation considers whether pulling the trigger was indeed the best option available.

We’d also like to see a more thorough examination of the training that Idaho’s police officers are receiving. Does the training that Idaho police officers receive at the POST Academy lean too heavily toward a “warrior” mentality?

Is lethal force too often stressed as a first option? Does training focus too much on the hypothetical consequences of failing to use lethal force, and not enough on the grimly certain implications of using it? Are officers well-trained enough in de-escalation techniques and empowered to use them?

One thing is certain: This won’t be the last time that police officers encounter such a situation.

If there are lessons to be learned from the fatal shooting of Victor Perez, we hope they are used to prevent another similar horrible outcome.