dWintermut3

Not exactly, since you cannot prove a negative.

What they needed to prove is that it was unreasonable to assume what he saw was a weapon, or that another officer in his shoes would not have acted the same.

That is difficult in this case because there was a gun involved and the officer knew that. In different circumstances, like cases where police have shot people holding garage door remotes or a tin-foil-wrapped burrito they could argue about whether a burrito looks like a gun, how much like a gun, from what angle, does that match what the officer says he saw, and so on.

It's damn tough just because you are basically attempting to prove the impossible, that something didn't happen, but there are some legal routes open.

Chris did say that CPS investigated and found no evidence the child had been abused, thank God.

I think that you can also make a good argument that the poor redaction of the data (exposing PII on crime victims and things like home phone numbers and SSNs) had a compound effect as well--

the presence of such data made it easier to get international cooperation (some countries privacy laws would oblidge them to act no matter how they feel about US law enforcement), helped justify vigerous action that would be hard to excuse if it was "merely" governmental data, and legitimately concerned some news agencies and activist groups that may otherwise re-report or even host the data.

riding a horse takes immense upper leg and gluteus muscle strength because those muscles are your shock absorbers in rising stance on a several hundred pound, fantastically strong animal moving up and down.

so yeah, horse riders have some thicc thighs and an ass you could bounce quarters off of.

I hate to say it, but they might have just been bad at their jobs.

Some mechanics don't know cars as well as they think they do, some receptionists have terrible people skills, and some cops are just bad at handling situations or have misguided notions and misconceptions about the law and what it entails/requires.