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Time gap in offering aid after police shooting stirs concern

FILE - In this July 6, 2016 file photo, Investigators search a car at the scene of a police involved shooting in Falcon Heights, Minn. A Minnesota officer fatally shot a man in the car with a woman and a child, an official said. Philando Castile was shot during a vehicle stop in an incident recorded by his girlfriend from the driver’s seat. Recent shootings by police raise a fundamental question: In the moments after officers shoot someone, how soon can medical aid be given? (Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - In this July 6, 2016 file photo, Investigators search a car at the scene of a police involved shooting in Falcon Heights, Minn. A Minnesota officer fatally shot a man in the car with a woman and a child, an official said. Philando Castile was shot during a vehicle stop in an incident recorded by his girlfriend from the driver’s seat. Recent shootings by police raise a fundamental question: In the moments after officers shoot someone, how soon can medical aid be given? (Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP, File) FILE - In this July 6, 2016 file photo, Investigators search a car at the scene of a police involved shooting in Falcon Heights, Minn. A Minnesota officer fatally shot a man in the car with a woman and a child, an official said. Philando Castile was shot during a vehicle stop in an incident recorded by his girlfriend from the driver’s seat. Recent shootings by police raise a fundamental question: In the moments after officers shoot someone, how soon can medical aid be given? (Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP, File)

By Associated Press 5 min read

ATLANTA (AP) – 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.

In the latest case, Crutcher, 40, was killed after his vehicle stalled in the middle of a street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.