A Tale Of Two Police Shootings

I don’t like guns; there are far too many guns in this country, and far too many in the hands of lunatics.

Last week, in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Cheviot, Paul Gaston crashed his pick-up truck into a telephone pole. Several people living nearby called 911 to report that Gaston came out of the truck, appeared disoriented and was waving a gun.

When police arrived, they found Gaston, ordered him to lie down on the ground — video shows him on his knees with his hands in the air — and he did lay down for a moment; but, when he started to get up and seemed to be reaching for his gun, police officers fired nine shots  at him.

The gun turned out to be an airsoft pellet gun; the officers did not realize the gun was fake until after Gaston was dead.

Okay, so he had a gun, and maybe the police officers didn’t know it was just a pellet gun — airsoft guns fire plastic balls that are larger and lighter than metal ball bearings fired by BB guns but can still inflict injury — but …

Just a few hours earlier, and about ten miles away,  Mt. Healthy police officers  encountered Christopher Laugle after being called to a home to investigate an assault. When officers entered the home, they say Laugle picked up a gun off the coffee table and pointed it at them.

Laugle was subdued, physically, by the officers and taken into custody.

His weapon was also an airsoft pellet; the officers did not realize the gun was fake until after Laugle was arrested.

Paul Gaston was a black man.

Christopher Laugle is a white man.

Two different police departments, two different cities, but both in Ohio, which is an  open-carry state where a black man and black boy holding airsoft pellet guns were also killed during recent encounters with police.

And the white man is wrestled to the ground after aiming a gun at police, but the black man, who had been lying on the ground is shot nine times just for reaching for a gun.

Something to think about ….

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