Tristan Romani
2/04/2019
English 12
Mrs. Nelson

Identities Paragraph
Police officers often get the benefit of the doubt, but what should we do when a officer fires upon an innocent. Should they be punished. “Identities” written by W.D. Valgardson is a story written about a man living in Winnipeg, Manitoba who takes a drive at night in his Mercedes when he looks at his surroundings. He notices the difference in clothing around him and the different styles of wear they use in this area of town as read in “There jackets gleam with studs. Eagles, tigers, wolves and serpents ride their backs. He passes a 10 foot wire fence enclosing a playground bare of equipment and pounded flat.” Valgardson 1 The man realizes the change in scenery and continues to drive down the road without noticing the police car creeping in the shadows behind him. The man continues down the street until pulling over next to the curb and gets out. Unknowing the police car had done the same and the officer is now behind him. The man believing his uptown appearance gives him immunity in this situation doesn’t think anything of seeing the police officer behind him and reaches for his wallet for the officer. Before he knew it the inexperienced officer nervous for his life fired his gun thinking the man was reaching for his weapon. Concluding the story. There are many different ways you could view this story depending on who you are. I believe that the officer was not right to fire at the man for multiple reasons. The officer did not have reasonable grounds to suspect the man was reaching for a gun/weapon. Firing upon the man should be considered a crime for the lack of evidence. The police officer had a prejudice as seen in “Who is suspicious of the car and because he is trained to see an unshaven in blue jeans as a potential their and not as a probable owner” the officer made some assumptions with who and what he thought the man was and was going to do, because of the environment they both were in such as mentioned in this quote “The houses are squat, as though they were once taller and have slowly sunk into the ground. Each has a band of dirt surrounding the bottom” showing the lower quality of the area and it being unkept. In my eyes the officer assumed the man was reaching for a weapon because he assumed that since they were in a shady area he was going to pull out a weapon, if the officer was in a higher end area of the city the officer may have not made that assumption. The officer didn’t give the man many directions as to what he wanted out of the situation. The officer only yelled halt to stop the man without giving further instructions such as “put your hands in the air” or “can I see some ID”. The officer could have asked the man as he started to reach for his wallet “stop! keep your hands in the air” which most likely the man would have listened to and complied with the officers orders without any violence taking place. In final with the evidence I have provided the evidence is clear that the police officer could have done more to prevent this fiasco, and the officer is more to blame for this event, due to having a major lack of evidence for what the man was going to do.