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A video from 2015 has gone viral, showing a black anti-police activist accepting an invitation from Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona to participate in police use of force simulation training sessions to better understand the stresses and split-second decisions police officers are faced with on a daily basis.
Reverend Jarrett Maupin, who organized #BlackLivesMatter protests following the officer-involved shooting in Ferguson, participated in three scenarios, each one followed by a discussion of when he sensed a threat and why he chose to draw his weapon.
In the first scenario, Maupin approached a suspect in a parking lot and was ‘shot’ almost instantly. In the second, the reverend approached two men fighting, and fired his weapon when one of the men charged him.
“I shot because he was in that zone,” Maupin explained to a police trainer. “I felt that was an imminent threat – I didn’t necessarily see him armed but he came clearly to do some harm to the officer – to my person.”
The man who Maupin shot at was unarmed.
In the third scenario, Maupin received a call about a possible burglary and was able to get the suspect to the ground, without any shots fired.
Maupin stated that the training scenarios changed his way of thinking, saying, “I didn’t understand how important compliance was… people need to comply with the orders of law enforcement officers, for their own safety.”
WATCH the eye-opening video here:
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