Up until the 80's, it was legal for cops to shoot people simply for running away.

Point-by-point:

No, running from police is no longer an acceptable reason for shooting a suspect.

I was military police. Pretty much a given that you don't fire at an UNARMED PERSON running AWAY from you with his BACK TOWARDS YOU.

so what's the excuse for him planting a taser? claiming he performed CPR when he didn't? Or are these all holdovers from the fear he was feeling?

This is idiotic. Your point "you don't run away from law enforcement, period" is indicative of the PROBLEM IN THE FIRST GOD DAMN PLACE - that an unarmed man fleeing from a police officer in an empty lot where there is absolutely no threat whatsoever to the police officer, gets murdered in cold blood.

Congratulations...you've done it! You've just written the most pathetically stupid post I've ever seen in my entire life.

The SCOTUS ruled that a police officer can only shoot a fleeing suspect if the said suspect is armed and pose immediate danger to the general public.

So no. Just because you are running, doesn't mean the cops can shoot. Otherwise, shows like "Cops" would be very different. I mean why bother running through hedges when…

Fuck you, fuck your brother and fuck anyone else who keeps repeating this shit about how "the cop feared for his life."

Fucking a. I came in wanting to say "Not for me". And its true. Every cop I've ever met, even when I fucked up as a teenager, was nice (or at least... respectfully assertive).

Building a Clickhole resume? NICE!

Bad Kinja.

180 seconds of my life I will never, ever get back.

Mice can take many forms. One must always be on the alert.

Obligatory

Video game coverage isn’t garbage. I love Kotaku!

So....were the "Air Force" sons in Lawrence's story threatening to bomb San Francisco if this restaurant didn't give them a military discount? I'm trying figure out if they could have possibly meant anything else.

Perfect. Diplo is hanging with Beiber. They are a match made in heaven.

Karen Blake (or anyone in a similar position) should look into getting a sexual harassment suit filed through the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). A thing that a lot of people don't realize is that for victims in most employment law cases, one can usually get free legal counsel through the EEOC—this…

This is a bit dramatic (I assume intentionally so...).