Police Shooting at 20-Year-Old Willie McCoy 55 Times for Sleeping in His Car is ‘Reasonable,’ Says Paid ‘Expert’

Willie McCoy, age 20, was asleep in his car on Feb. 9 in the parking lot of a Taco Bell in Vallejo, Calif. An employee had called the police to report someone unresponsive in their car when six officers surrounded McCoy’s car with guns drawn.

The officers did not try to wake him up or announce that they were police. When McCoy went to scratch his shoulder, the six officers opened fire – 55 rounds were released in only 3.5 seconds.

His family said McCoy’s body was riddled with so many bullets he was unrecognizable.

The police tried to claim that they feared for their lives. But after body camera footage was released after significant public pressure, it became obvious that the white officers had outright murdered McCoy.

Related Story: Vallejo Police Release Body Cam Footage of Willie McCoy Shooting: Video

But even the video evidence was not enough to prove the officers’ guilt. After the shooting, officials disclosed the extraordinary number of rounds in a report released this week, months after the policemen shot the up-and-coming rapper.

Then, the city of Vallejo hired a so-called consultant, a white man named David Blake. The 51-page report by David Blake, a paid “expert” and retired officer, said, in the report, that the killing of McCoy was “in line with contemporary training and police practices associated with use of deadly force”.

Blake also said, “the 55 rounds fired by 6 officers in ~3.5 seconds is reasonable based upon my training and experience as a range instructor as well as through applied human factors psychology”.

“What it says is there was never any real intention of trying to work out this situation to where my brother’s life would still be intact,” Marc McCoy, Willie’s older brother, told the Guardian on Wednesday. “Our community is so used to this type of violence.”

Vallejo’s police department is well-known for the extreme use of deadly force and history of misconduct and abuse cases. Blake also has a history of writing similar reports concluding law enforcement murders were reasonable.

According to Blake, shooting off fifty-five rounds of ammunition was even “a level of self-control”.

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