Social Media Slams Officer Who Shot Unarmed Man Despite Compelling Dash Cam Footage

AJ+, a video news platform from Al Jazeera Media Network, uploaded a video to their Facebook page on March 12 showing a police shooting incident. The incident in question occurred in 2014, but the dash cam footage wasn’t released until this year.

As of this publication, the video has been viewed nearly 38 million times, and has received 225,000 “likes.” The video has also been shared 426,000 times on Facebook.

As intense, percussive music plays in the background, text in the AJ+ video states:

This man was shot by the police because he was holding his wallet. The scene happened in 2014 in Opelika, Alabama–but the video was just released after the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing by the federal court of appeals.

Air Force veteran Michael Davidson survived the shooting. He had stopped on the side of the road after a small accident with the truck in front. As he was still lying wounded on the ground, police officers kept ordering him several times not to move.

Officers later realized what they thought was a weapon was actually a wallet. Davidson had been left without assistance for about five minutes. The cop apparently responsible for shooting him had an emotional breakdown, and got support from his colleagues.

Davidson suffered “severe artery damage,” and “extensive internal bleeding.” He filed a lawsuit against the officer who shot him, but the court said the police acted reasonably.

According to WRBL:

A call came into the Opelika Police Department on the night of March 6, 2014 about an erratic driver on Interstate 85. Officer Phillip Hancock responded to the call. Davidson got into a minor accident with a tractor trailer where Davidson swiped the back of the tractor trailer. The tractor trailer and Davidson pulled over on the side of the road to exchange information.

That’s when Officer Hancock came on the scene. As Davidson was exiting his vehicle, Hancock ordered the Air Force veteran to show him his hands. Davidson, who was initially holding his wallet only in his left hand, proceeded to grab it with his right hand as well. Officer Hancock, allegedly thinking that the black wallet being gripped by Davidson in both hands was a gun, opened fire.

WRBL adds that the court ruled in Officer Hancock’s favor:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment of the Southern District Court of Iowa in that the use of force by Ofc. Hancock was reasonable. However, they did call the shooting a disastrous mistake, but that the position of Davidson’s wallet and hands right before the shooting meant that the mistake did not violate Davidson’s constitutional rights.

No one is arguing that what happened wasn’t a terrible mistake; no one is arguing that Michael Davidson deserved to be shot. The question at hand is whether or not Officer Hancock was justified in his alleged belief that Davidson was milliseconds away from firing a gun. If one carefully studies the video, the only conclusion one can reach is that the officer was indeed justified.

The following is a sequence of three images from the dash cam video that make it appear as though Davidson is holding a weapon:​

It was an awful mistake, and the video shows Hancock’s immediate shock and remorse upon finding out the “gun” was actually a wallet–but that’s not enough to quell the anger of the armchair quarterbacks in the comments section.

While some commenters on the AJ+ video are reasonable, the majority are incredibly hostile:

These people have no idea what it’s like to be a police officer; they don’t understand the life or death choices that must be made in fractions of seconds. More troubling is the fact that they seem totally unwilling to view the situation through the officer’s eyes. This hostility is likely a direct result of the Left’s years-long propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting law enforcement.

For anyone critical of Officer Hancock’s split-second decision, the following video is an important watch.

In 2015, civil rights activist Rev. Jarrett Maupin, who is an outspoken critic of police use-of-force, was invited by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to participate in a mock “shoot/don’t shoot” scenario. The results may give individuals who are unreasonably critical of police use-of-force something to think about: