Video appears to show Texas cops killing man with hands raised
Cell phone footage from Bexar County, Texas, appears to show two sheriff's deputies shooting and killing a man as he stands, still and shirtless, with his hands raised in the air.
The incident occurred after officers responded to a domestic violence report, arriving on the scene to find an injured woman and baby. They said that the suspect, Gilbert Flores, was brandishing a knife. While the police report said that Flores was resisting arrest and endangering the officers' lives, the video appears to contradict their story. "He put his hands in the air, and they just shot him twice," said Michael Thomas, who filmed the shooting.
The two officers involved have been placed on administrative leave pending investigation of the circumstances surrounding Flores' death. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office has criticized the local news affiliate that released the shooting footage, saying on Facebook that the decision to share the video was "unethical and sad" and "sensational."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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