2dimes wrote: Firearms unfortunately are not even relevant to the murder described in the original post.
Just as a bit of a devils advocate here. A gun was not used, but that fact the officers were armed with guns may have been what stopped the bystanders from stopping the murder they were witnessing. The asian cop did at one point make a furtive moment towards his gun when he felt threatened, and when he did reach his hand to the gun the people backed off.
I'm not really saying cops shouldn't have guns or anything along those lines, but just suggesting the presence of firearms by the police, and the lack of firearms among the bystanders... those two facts had some impact on how things played out. One can imagine that if the cops didn't have guns one of the bystanders might have intervened and prevented the mans death (the fear of being shot is worse than the fear of being arrested). One can also imagine a situation where many bystanders were carrying guns, and could force some kind of standoff leading to the man being arrested in a way that didn't lead to his death.