Shooting wasn’t justified, nor finding
   “Gang mentality” is what happens when fearful people (or animals) band together so that they can put up a bigger front to their immediate world. Unfortunately, when they band together like this, their fear often turns into aggression, which escalates slowly into more and more violent acts and eventually murder.
   I am not describing the gangs that plague some of our neighborhoods, but the people who are supposed to be protecting us. How can officers, trained in different kinds of hand-to-hand combat, and having all the modern weaponry to make their job of “protecting the community” easier and safer for them, need to resort to deadly force to “restrain” an obviously unarmed man?
   Were they afraid that young Fouad Kaady would hit or slap them? An untrained citizen was able to knock him down. Were they afraid they wouldn’t be able to follow and stay with him until more help arrived? Were they unable to remember their training of how to talk to someone who is obviously not in his right mind to calm him, to plead with him, to do anything but yell at him, confusing him and provoking him? Were they acting in “self-defense?” (He obviously had no weapons — he was naked!) What about demobilizing him: hitting a leg or foot so that he couldn’t get away?
   This bothers me. But what bothers me more is that they were found “free from wrongdoing.” This is where the gang mentality steps in: “I’m afraid that this is all going to get out of hand, so I need to make sure that we, our gang, is feared more than anyone else. Therefore I am not wrong, in fact I have a right, when I get scared or nervous, to shoot to kill. And someone will vouch for me that I did right — that I am free from wrongdoing.”
   Those officers did not have enough physical training and/or psychological training to act calmly in the situation. They did wrong. Admit it, and get into another line of work. Don’t come back onto my streets and tell me that you’re protecting me. Defending yourselves is only going to bring down the peace and justice that you have sworn to defend.
   Marty Larson
   Southwest Portland