And as laid out before, from what we know the entire chase itself was something that need not have happened. This guy tried to do it alone. That gave the kid a motive to break as well as a direction to run...
And that's why I say he came in with a bad plan and set up a situation that didn't need to happen.
Did I miss something? How did the officer's actions give the guy "a motive to break?" The cop was responding to a report of someone with a gun who was threatening people at a wedding.
Perhaps he was. But if, again, one watches the video, clearly there's no altercation going on when Officer McMillin arrives (nor is he in any haste to get there as if something was happening). In the first view of Walker and a female bystander they're calmly talking, as you can see in the body language. In other words there is no situation that requires immediate or urgent action. At this point, and for several subsequent minutes, Walker appears to be alone. Not even a partner in the car.
He could at this point engage the bystanders in conversation to kill time until his backup arrives. Once they do, they can take positions to Walker's other side. If they really are there to investigate a gun threat, that's a reasonable course, right?
But McMillin doesn't do that; he immediately starts pinning handcuffs on Walker. Now Walker can see McMillin's alone, which is quite a different scenario from being surrounded. So he makes a break. McMillin of course gives chase -- it's too late to do anything else. When McMillin shoots the target, his backup STILL isn't there yet -- you can hear him on his radio imploring them to "step it up" (hurry up).
What I'm saying is, if he does
not successfully hit and disable Walker, the kid gets away, whereas with backup on the scene he may not have had an avenue to run. Or alternately if he hits him and takes him down but Walker is not dead -- let's say armed and still sentient enough to shoot -- McMillin has spent all his ammo and is standing there a sitting duck, to mix metaphors. Walker could have then picked him off and taken his time about it.
That's what I mean by poor planning. McMillin did hit him and it turned out, did disable him, but in that time with the kid down, the crowd clamoring and his backup not there yet, McMillin's unarmed and powerless.
That doesn't seem like a brilliant plan to me.