Ep. 1817 - Why These INSANE Police Bodycam Videos Are Getting More Views Than The Nightly News

**Matt Walsh** (0:00)
A year ago in Aurora, Colorado, a 37-year-old black man named Rajon Belt Stubblefield was driving drunk in his Jeep with a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit. And when an officer attempted to pull him over, Stubblefield drove away at a high rate of speed and eventually rear-ended a car before flying over the median into oncoming traffic and hitting another car. At that point, Stubblefield exited his Jeep with a handgun, which he immediately threw towards the grass nearby. And then as the officer attempted to arrest Stubblefield, he fell to the pavement. Now, after regaining his balance, the officer drew his weapon and ordered Stubblefield to the ground. Instead of complying, Stubblefield squared up to fight. Stubblefield also walked towards the officer in a threatening manner, backing him into traffic. While doing so, Stubblefield told his son, who was nearby, to retrieve the firearm from the grass. He also repeatedly taunted the officer, saying, You ready for this? Another pretty unmistakable signal that he was about to attack. Finally, as Stubblefield rushed to close the distance with the officer, the officer responded by shooting him. Stubblefield was hit three times and died immediately. Now, there is no dispute about any of these facts. The entire incident was captured on the officer's body cam, as well as other cameras nearby.
We'll show that to you right now. Here it is.
Stay in the car.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:25)
Don't move. Don't move.
Motor 45, I've got a crash. Six, just east of 225

**SPEAKER_3** (1:39)
Get a couple of cars here now.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:42)
Stay in the, give me your hands. Show me your hands.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:45)
Get your hands up, dude.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:48)
Get your hands up right now. Get your hands up.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:04)
Get on the ground. Get away from that.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:37)
So, are you ready for this? You ready for this?

**SPEAKER_2** (2:40)
Get on the ground.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:42)
You ready for this?

**SPEAKER_6** (2:43)
You ready for this, huh?

**SPEAKER_7** (2:45)
You ready for this, huh?

**SPEAKER_2** (2:46)
Get on the ground.

**Matt Walsh** (2:56)
Well, so there you go. There's no way to spin it any other way. This was a fully justified shooting, obviously. Stubblefield clearly posed an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to the officer. He received multiple warnings and lawful commands. He ignored every single one of them. Instead, he charged towards a police officer with his fist clenched that he had already thrown to the ground after already endangering the public by colliding into multiple vehicles while driving drunk. This is yet another example out of countless others of a suspect, very often a black male, who did literally every single thing in his power, every step of the way to escalate an interaction with a police officer into a deadly confrontation. Okay, this was someone absolutely determined to turn what could have been a comparatively minor DUI charge, if you can call such a thing minor, into a life or death struggle. And the thing about a life or death struggle with police is that you will always lose. 100% of the time, one way or another, you will lose. Now, the fact that the cop was armed while Stubblefield was unarmed at that particular moment doesn't change the fact that Stubblefield posed an imminent threat to the officer's life. A gun isn't useful anymore if somebody jumps on you and beats you and takes it. And very clearly that's what Stubblefield was trying to do to this officer. All of his actions pointed in that direction.
Okay, when you're going fist clenched to attack somebody who's pointing a gun at you, what is your intention? There could only be one intention, which is this is someone who wants to, that you want to disarm the person.
Now there's a reason he told his kid also to grab his gun. There's a reason he told the officer to get ready for a beat down. Same reason he drove drunk and crashed into multiple vehicles. He was drunk out of his mind, had no regard for his life or the life of anybody else. And in this scenario, when the guy lunges towards you, even though he knows you have a gun, you have to assume that he's going to try to kill you. And you have every right to respond accordingly, police officer or not. What's the other option? What is the other? The other option is that is to just allow this to turn into hand-to-hand combat over the gun. So in that situation, the combat has two choices, either shoot the guy or engage in hand-to-hand combat over the gun with the guy.
Does any reasonable person think that it's the officer's obligation to choose the latter? Does anyone think that that's when you're out in public with other people around, is that the most responsible thing? Is that the most ethical thing, the most moral thing? Obviously not. For your sake and the sake of everybody around you and the public, you have no choice but to neutralize this threat. Now, you also have to wonder how Stubblefield must act towards other people in his life if this is how he acts towards an armed police officer pointing a gun at his chest. This is very clearly a volatile, unhinged human being. We see this kind of thing so often that we become inevitably desensitized to it, but it's worth pausing to reflect on this fact a little bit. Let's look at the scene where the man in the battlefield was charging towards an officer, an armed officer with a gun pointed at him.