San Leandro Police murder Steven Taylor

Steven Taylor

My wife and I were driving back from grabbing some lunch at Top Dog and while on the freeway, flying past, I look out the side of the window and see an absolute ocean of police cars with their lights flashing outside the Walmart. My first thought, wrongly or rightly, was, "I hope the police didn't kill someone."

It was just a halfway serious thought.

I should be more serious.

Turns out that's exactly what happened.

Of course there is room in libertarian philosophy for self defense. But does the shooting rise to the level of self defense? Did the officer truly fear for his life? If it was a regular person who shot Steven, would that person be in jail?

Steven Taylor, while clearly acting erratic, did not seem to credibly threaten the officer. While Steven did raise the bat at one point, it was when the officer tried to take the bat away. Steven pretty clearly was just trying to keep it away from the officer.

When he was actually shot, Steven appeared to just be inching slowly toward the officer. While not a move anyone should be making, there were a myriad of options the officer could have taken. Steven was not making a sudden attacking motion or even really in a ready to swing stance.

To make matters worse, the officer was pointing the gun at Steven while innocent bystanders were walking around behind Steven. One of the big rules of guns is to understand your target's surroundings, including what's behind it. A fired round could easily have gone through or past Steven and into a bystander, whether it was the person walking past or a shopper behind the racks.

Then the second officer tasing Steven after he had already been shot and dropped the bat was clearly excessive force even if he had just arrived on location.

In a situation of baseball bat versus a gun, one clearly has the advantage over the other. If the person shooting wasn't a police officer, there is little doubt that the person would be in jail for shooting a person with a baseball bat that wasn't making an actively threatening move.

While this isn't as egregiously bad as, say, the incident with Duncan Lemp and his murderers, this further illustrates just how poorly trained and how little restraint the police have in these situations. The police need to start being held to a higher standard than normal gun owners, not a lower one.