Time Gap in Offering Aid After Police Shooting Stirs Concern

By LISA MARIE PANE, ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA — Sep 21, 2016, 4:58 AM ET

Philando Castile. Eric Garner. And now Terence Crutcher. Each was a black man fatally shot by an officer, with the aftermath captured on video. And each time, the video leaves the impression of a wounded man left to die alone, with no sense of urgency to try to save him.

Law enforcement experts say it's not a sign of callousness, but of trying to ensure the officers and others are safe before approaching someone who could be armed or remain a threat even after they've been shot.

Civil rights activists call it the ultimate indignity and one more example of indifference and quick-to-shoot attitudes of police toward minorities.

"When the police take actions that result in injury to you and then leave you on the ground to die, well, I think that's a constitutional violation," said Randolph M. McLaughlin, a civil rights attorney and professor at Pace Law School in New York City.

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