The Other McCain

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Kentucky Cops Shoot a White Guy

Posted on | March 20, 2021 | Comments Off on Kentucky Cops Shoot a White Guy

The Police Activity YouTube channel has put out a lot of content in the past week, including bodycam footage from the Feb. 20 incident in which police in Kentucky shot 57-year-old Randall Lockaby:

 

When watching that 10-minute clip, I was impressed by how friendly the cop’s conversation with Lockaby seemed, up until the moment when he asked Lockaby to step out of his pickup truck and Lockaby emerged pointing a 9-mm pistol at the cop. Why did it escalate so suddenly?

Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders said Friday that two Villa Hills officers were justified in the use of force in a Feb. 20, 2021, death of Randall Lockaby during a traffic stop on I-75.
Lockaby, 57, of Manchester, Kentucky, was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center in Florence where he died. The shooting took place outside of Villa Hills, but police have county-wide jurisdiction.
Officers Sean Dooley and Jacob Bolton did not violate any laws based upon a review of the Kentucky State Police investigation, said Sanders.
Lockaby was seen drawing a handgun from his waist and pointed the gun at officer Dooley, according to a letter Sanders sent to Villa Hills and KSP officials. Dashboard camera video from Bolton’s cruiser and body camera video from both officers captured the entire incident in which Lockaby refused to follow Dooley’s commands to step to the rear of the vehicle, according to the letter.
Sanders said Bolton fired after he saw Lockaby point a gun at Dooley. Bolton reasonably perceived the need to use deadly force to prevent Dooley from being shot, according to the letter.
The prosecutor said the officers had a reasonable belief they would be harmed based upon Lockaby’s threat to use the handgun on the officers.
Sanders told The Enquirer that he has spoken with Lockaby’s family.
“They say this is very out of character for him, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family,” he said.
Police started the traffic stop as a speeding incident on I-75, Sanders said.
Investigators found that Lockaby was a convicted felon who was not legally allowed to carry a gun.
Lockaby may have known officers would find multiple handguns in the car, and that he would go back to prison, he said.
“I don’t think this confrontation was anything anyone knew was coming other than Mr. Lockaby,” Sanders said.

Compare this to the shooting of Nika Holbert, which I examined yesterday and said “race had nothing to do with it.” In that case, what caused the situation to “escalate” was that Holbert had a prior record, she had drugs and a gun in the car, and knew that if she allowed cops to search the car she would be facing prison time — the same basic reason that caused the sudden escalation of Randall Lockaby’s traffic stop.

It is the consciousness of guilt that causes these deadly confrontations. Always the national media want to call attention to the relatively rare cases where the police shooting of a black suspect is not legally justified, where racism can be suggested as an explanation, but such cases are statistical anomalies in the overall pattern of law enforcement. The vast majority of cases in which police shoot suspects (whatever their race) are proven to be justified, a fact well known to the audience of the Police Activity YouTube channel, which has more than 2 million subscribers. The more of these videos you watch, the more you recognize the behavioral patterns which lead to shooting incidents.

Over and over again, we learn that the suspect who got shot by cops was not a first-time offender. Many, if not most, of them are habitual offenders with the proverbial “record as long as your arm.”

We don’t know the details of Randall Lockaby’s criminal record, except that he was a convicted felon who could not lawfully possess firearms. From the moment he got pulled over for speeding, Lockaby was conscious that he would go to prison if cops found the guns he had in his truck. And the police officer’s seemingly friendly conversation with Lockaby was actually part of his investigation technique:

“Listen, man, you’re not hauling anything illegal in here are you? Nothing illegal in here? No large amounts of anything you’re trying to haul or anything like that? . . . If I were to ask you for consent to search the vehicle, would you let me search the vehicle real quick? . . . Listen, partner, you’ve had a lot of pretty nervous behavior sitting here talking to me, OK? . . . You know what I do for a living, man? I catch drug dealers and drug smugglers. . . . A lot of your mannerisms and gestures while you’ve been sitting here talking to me, I’m trained to read people, OK?”

Bingo. The superficial friendliness of his conversation was a tactic — the cop talks in a friendly manner, so that the suspect has no obvious reason to feel intimidated, and if the suspect then shows telltale behavioral signs of nervousness, why is that? Consciousness of guilt.

Cops aren’t mind-readers, but with training and experience, they become quite good at recognizing the behavioral patterns of criminals.

There ought to be a default of respect for police who, after all, are acting as public servants on behalf of all law-abiding citizens. The two officers here in this small town in Kentucky showed remarkable professionalism, and as such are a credit to their community. No protest marches about this shooting. CNN doesn’t care. White lives don’t matter.




 

Category: Crime, Kentucky

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