Based on the video and eyewitness accounts, it doesn't look good for the cops involved.  Now, they were responding to a report of someone pulling a gun and threatening another person in the parking lot of that store, but there's nothing in the video to indicate that he ever pulled it. 

 

The fact that they removed it from his pocket after the incident was over is a pretty good indication that he probably never even reached for it before someone yelled gun and the cop started shooting at him point blank. 

 

Now, the fact that someone screamed "he's got a gun!" in the middle of that altercation could certainly take a cop who is already on a hair trigger knowing that he's dealing with a perp who is armed and potentially dangerous based on the initial report, and send him into hyper mode in the way he responds.  That's certainly a possibility here.  It doesn't make it a clean shooting.  He's still in the wrong, but the reaction would be somewhat understandable in the heat of the moment.

 

Conservatives may support law enforcement in general, but they're not going to stand behind someone when it's a bad shooting.  We don't have all of the evidence, and we only have a grainy cell phone video to use as witness, but it certainly sounds like the local PD and the state of LA have done their part to handle this correctly so far.  I think the JD swooping in and opening a civil rights investigation is a little knee jerk based on what we know so far, but that's a political operation that is always going to respond to incidents like this in this manner.

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