Monumental Patience

Another release of body cam footage and once again, the police did everything humanly possible:

• Videos released Friday by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability show the tense negotiations between Chicago police officers and a bipolar man before they fatally shot him during a standoff earlier this year inside a Woodlawn home.
  
  The police oversight agency released six videos and seven audio clips from the May 22 encounter that ended in Myles Frazier’s death in the 1300 block of East 61st Street. A man called police about 10:15 a.m. to report that his son, who had bipolar disorder, was armed and distraught, [spokes-weasel] said at a news conference after the shooting. He asked for police to help.
  
  Officers arrived and tried negotiating with Frazier, 22, who was barricaded inside a second-floor bedroom, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Police body cameras captured their hourlong negotiation, during which an officer assures Frazier he’s not going to jail.

A hour of negotiations, while the subject was doing what?

• At one point, an officer says, “Nobody’s gonna die today,” to which Frazier replies, “Really?” before firing a shot. Later, from the bedroom, a crying Frazier tells them about the death of his daughter, and an officer opens up about his late grandmother, video shows.
  
  Tension escalates about 30 minutes in as Frazier fires more shots. “Myles, don’t point the gun at nobody else!” an officer yells.
  
  Frazier fired at least five shots, Valdez said. Some of those shots went outside the house.

This offender is firing numerous shots out the window, each capable of wounding or killing officers, passersby, neighbors. And the officers still tried to talk him down. There ought to be a medal just for the patience exhibited on scene.

The outcome was dictated by the guy shooting the gun out the window.