With the current anti-police hysteria, it may seem easy to lash out at police every time they have to use lethal force. This is especially true when the police shoot a black man these days. Regardless of what actually happened, some will invariably make it a case of police brutality.

Too bad for some of these folks that police have dash cameras.

These body and dash cams have exonerated officers more than once. This is another perfect example of people trying to spread misinformation that makes officers, who were only trying to conduct a routine traffic stop, look bad. Charles Smith was shot and killed by police on the morning of December 7, after he pulled a gun while being patted down. Friends and family members of Smith, who was also nicknamed “C.J.,” proclaimed that officers murdered him in cold blood. “The police already tased C.J. and had him on the ground and they didn’t even see the gun and had his head on the ground and C.J. knew they were already going to kill him,” a friend of C.J.’s told THV11. Shortly after, the story that Smith was executed began to circulate from Smith’s friends and family. “We’re not protected and we don’t know how we’re going to be protected. A traffic stop turns into an execution, it’s scary,” a family friend, Devon Hatchett said. Thankfully for the officers involved, they had tangible video evidence that showed exactly what happened that Sunday morning. After mounting pressure from those involved with the 17-year-old, the North Little Rock Police Department released the dash cam footage of what transpired that morning.

The video clearly shows that C.J. pulled a gun and tried to shoot police (warning: graphic content).

Also note that the officer interacting with these guys was being, not just polite, but friendly, asking them questions about things like how they liked their shoes and so on. This does not look like a group of cops looking to gun someone down.

And, frankly, if they were, the last thing you should probably do is try to draw a firearm. If police are looking to do some killing, that’s kind of like raising your hand and screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!”

But no officer, no matter how friendly, is going to let you draw a gun on them. It’s not going to happen. Especially in this day and age when people openly advocate shooting police.

As a result, C.J. is dead and his friends that have been spouting nonsense about how he was executed look like complete idiots.

I’m a proponent of both dashcams and bodycams for police. They tend to keep the bad ones in line and the exonerate the goods ones. This is a prime example of how video makes the evidence clear. The officers’ lives were at risk. They had a choice, them or the suspect, and they made the call they should have in such a situation.

While I understand C.J.’s family and friends are upset, all I can do is shrug. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If ever there was a prime case of that, this is it.