People excusing this away seem to have a complete loss of perspective. They seem to think that police have no responsibility at all to know and use their weapons systems correctly. Ignoring that those fundamental proficiencies are rooted in training and practice (in this case over 26 years) and are the baseline requirements you have to achieve in exchange for being given the elevated responsibility and authority to use force against citizens. These officers should be (but sadly, are not) held to a higher standard. The same way other state actors like judges have a special trust and confidence.
Imagine if a citizen panics and accidentally shoots a cop during a no-knock raid. A citizen with no LEO training or even awareness of the situation. They're arrested, if not killed, immediately. This woman 'confused' a pistol with a taser, items on opposite sides of the service belt and purposefully different ergonomics to prevent this exact thing, and now people like MWB who normally have well reasoned stances are just "Leave her alone! The guilt of being a colossal **** up is punishment enough!" Bad optics aside I don't view this through the lens of Chauvin. It's a person that made an incredibly negligent blundering mistake that they were explicitly trained not to make. Prosecute.
Normally, given the negligence/recklessness of it I might say let the civil court handle it. But we can't, because of qualified immunity. So, in lieu of that remedy, Prosecute.
yeah, i don't love my texting and driving analogy, but here's a situation where a person is wielding a deadly instrument, and has full training and awareness of how to use it and the damage it can do. but there's this super casual incident where they go on auto\pilot, forgetting the instrument they're wielding can kill someone and do something insanely irresponsible.
her mistake wasn't a brain fart. it was that she lost touch with her unique ability to kill someone with her work-issued equipment. if that was at the forefront of her mind, she would have tased him. but she lost the thread and killed him instead.
no malice, but also no innocence