Living In the Media Age

Or, alternately, "How Not to do a High-Risk Car Stop". I was reading this article on CNN, and was interested in watching the video of the shooting. In their infinite wisdom, however, CNN has provided a site where only Windows machines can watch video, even though my Mac is capable of playing Windows Media files.

So, I zipped over to Google Video and found the video on my first search.

The audio portion is tough to make out, because they bleeped almost the entire thing. Personally, I think if you get shot three times, you should be allowed to swear on national TV. I think you're having a sufficiently bad day that it's justified.

Even though most of the audio is missing, you can clearly tell that it's either a case of prejudice or enormously bad judgement. Early in the video the airman is talking to the cop, probably trying to calm him down, and he gets shot as he's slowly standing up (following orders to do so). The CNN article references his physical therapy, but frankly, the man is lucky to be alive after getting shot at point-blank range.