Much remains unclear about the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in El Cajon, California, on Tuesday. We caution people against believing unsubstantiated claims being made on social media about the death of Alfred Olango, whose sister called 911 for help during an erratic episode and told an operator he was mentally ill. El Cajon police, for one, denied initial reports that cellphones of witnesses were confiscated, saying officers only have one phone, and that it was relinquished voluntarily.

Yet two points need to be made immediately. The first is that it is unacceptable for a police department to selectively release information to try to frame a lethal incident in as favorable a light as possible. The release of a single still image from a cellphone video of Olango’s deadly encounter with police shows him posing as if he has a gun and pointing toward officers. The public needs to see the entire video, not be pushed to judgment.

The second is that, in general, too many people in America die at the hands of police. The Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling in Graham v. Connor says officers may use force depending on the “severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.”

While we are not saying this is the case in El Cajon, there is an unsettling righteousness about any and all police shootings in some parts of law enforcement. Many fatal shootings by police may be defensible under the Graham v. Connor standard. But defensible is not the same as justifiable.

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