Crawfordsville, Indiana, is a small Midwestern city of about 15,000 residents, about an hour or two west of Indianapolis. Actor James Duff was filming a scene for a movie in which he was playing the role of a robber. Three seconds into the clip below, a real police officer fires his weapon at a guy trying to film a scene — you know, doing his job.
The officers showed up at the scene after a call was made to emergency services. Upon seeing the masked actor holding a gun, cops started shouting "Drop the gun! Drop the gun now!"
Duff shouted back, "we're doing a movie."
That's not something people generally lie about for fun when guns are pointed at them, but to the cop's credit, the camera crews and other actors were out of view. It's nonetheless difficult to shake the gut-wrenching irony of watching people whose job it is to protect civilians shoot at civilians. Again, Duff was working when the officer fired the shot.
It's also completely legal to carry a firearm openly as long as the person has a permit.
According to the Washington Post's "Fatal Force" record keeper of people shot and killed by police officers, as of October 5, 748 civilians have been hit by bullets fired by a police officer and died in 2017.
In 2016, police shot and killed 963 people, down from the previous year's tally of 995, when the Post first started keeping track.
By comparison, 51 people have been shot and killed by police Australia during the 13-year period stretching from 2000 to 2013. On average, US cops have slain 83 civilians per month in 2017.
In the UK, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and New Zealand, police do not carry firearms as a matter of policy except in appropriate situations where a firefight is expected.
