Officer Grant Morrison approaches a patrol car and collapses. Fellow officers help him up, and he keels over the hood of the car, face in hand, sobbing.
“I thought he was going to pull a gun on me,” Morrison, an officer in Billings, Montana, tells one of the officers assisting him.
Since Missouri teen Michael Brown’s death prompted a move to put body cameras on all of America’s policeman, Americans will likely witness more recordings of the crucial moment when an officer decides to pull the trigger.
It’s ugly, as a dash cam from Morrison’s patrol car reminds us. The video was presented as part of a coroner’s inquest into the April shooting of Richard Ramirez.
A squad car’s headlights shine on Morrison as he walks away from a dark driveway in the background, where he had pulled over a car carrying Ramirez, who Morrison thought was a suspect in an armed robbery and shooting. Morrison shot the man after he did not comply with orders to keep his hands in sight, dash cam video shows.
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“He had a BB gun,” she yells.
“I didn’t know that,” Morrison responds.
The man later died of his wounds.
Opinion: Police body cams: Will they really help?
