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To keep this thread open for discussion, please READ THIS BEFORE POSTING:The following types of posts are banworthy: - Nation bashing. - Significantly disrespectful posts toward any of the parties involved. Please familiarize yourself with some of the basics on the use of force in the United States before posting in this thread. If you feel the need to post a reaction to the news, post a comment on the youtube video. Don't bring it here. This thread is for a discussion on the topic, and your post better have substance to it. Low content posts will be met with moderator action. Here is a good post by someone with experience in escalation of force training. Read that too. This post might change your opinion of in the incident. |
On January 26 2012 12:05 Blasterion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 11:58 FREEloss_ca wrote:
There's always an alternative to ending someone's life. Seriously, shot ~10 times to death because he threatened police officers with a crow bar? The guy was out-numbered and out-gunned.
This makes me sad. It sickens me that people are OK with this man being gunned down by police. There's no justification for this murder.
They could have tazered him, pepper sprayed him, surrounded and disarmed him, shot him in the legs, etc. Come on it's not murder, it's self defense. Some crazy is waving a metal weapon at you clearly posing a threat. Why shoot him ten times? you don't know if he has other weapons on him. You don't know if he's wearing body armor, You can't see this event with hindsight, Shoot at the leg? what if you miss and bullet bounce into something? Body is obviously a bigger target. Other wise what if you cripple him and he sues you? You'd get a guilty sentence for crippling the man. you'd be in financial ruins. Just kill the guy and get it over with.
Yes, kill the man so he doesn't sue you
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They do NOT kill people for financial reasons.... they STOP the threat which often but not always results in the attacker dying.
Stop posting such ridiclous theorys....
Edit:
As people with experience with a Conduit Bender already explained earlier, with enough power ONE HIT to the head can kill a person, which was exactly what the criminal was intended to do. The Officers shot because they were attacked, had the criminal surrendered or laid his weapon down, he would have not been shot. Here you have your "no kill"-alternative.
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i count 5 officers. mass tackle as he exited the place wouldn't have worked? Somebody might pull a muscle? Much easier to blind side with electricity and hooks? Pepper spray him, or combination of all three?
*I'd say anger, and moving your body to address the stimulus of your surroundings is a natural response in that situation.
Also it appears the officer only stuck him, then when electricity was activated did the suspect become enraged.(explains fumble prior to going for gun) I'd also say the other cop was far enough away and not in imminent danger. (mass tackle still works here) Hit him from behind, he seemed pretty oblivious until he was attacked.
These cops allowed this situation to occur, and the first volley absolutely sent him to the ground, the second was a retaliation action from a scared, failing and flailing officer. Or we can acknowledge the danger of a prone man bleeding to death with a sledehammer type weapon.
Could've been handled better, without this whole "shoot him in the leg" bs. (he has a melee weapon, wouldn't damaging his eyes with pepper spray been preferable?)
These cops had forewarning and enough time to set a plan of action that wouldn't result in discharging weapons. The kids who took video had enough time to exit store and go film it. Riot gear or something. a helmet solves this, but no because they can they did.
Edit: I may have mistaken two of the guys in hoodies as officers, but they are in proximity and after the shooting one of them looks like he is in meant to be there. The other was probably not an officer, but with the dog the count is still five.
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He was shot 5 times. In what universe could he instantly take out a concealed gun and do anything with it.
I wish I had exact numbers to give you but unfortunately I do not. I do however know for an absolute fact that people are capable of receiving multiple rounds to their torso/legs/arms and still carry on a fight.
I'm not even talking about little 9mm rounds that are standard issue for most police forces these days. I'm referring to .308 rifle rounds, AK-47 7.62mm rounds and M-16 5.56 rounds. An alarming amount of people take solid hits and if they aren't instantly killed their ability to continue to fight is remarkable.
I've personally witnessed this many more times than anyone would ever want to. Believe me, someone can take five rounds and easily turn around and kill you. It happens all the time. (I am not being number specific, one round, five rounds, 100 rounds, whatever.)
What I don't get is why don't cops shoot people in the legs? To disable them, instead of the chest/face, to kill them.
I've already answered this in a previous post as have many others since. Short answer: Collateral damage.
A couple of fast examples for both quotes above:
1st Sgt Brad Kasal Still think shooting the legs is going to do something?
I can't find a link to any news story but there was a young Marine who fired upon, and hit several times, an oncoming enemy in Fallujah. The enemy was down on the ground, his weapon had fallen from his hand and wasn't moving. The Marine continued onward in the fight and felt bites in his side/back and turned towards the pain and saw the exact same enemy sitting up with his weapon firing at him. Unfortunately for this Marine he didn't kill the enemy and is now a paraplegic because he didn't follow through. The thing to note is that this enemy was found with 3 bullet holes in his chest and 1 in his arm. We use this experience as a learning experience in our training now. Follow through, be sure.
This situation with the officers in the OP will also be used as a training tool and can be used to illustrate how rapidly things can deteriorate/escalate from a routine takedown/disarm into a shooting.
In my original post I made absolutely no reference to these individual officers training, I only attempted to explain their actions and the training behind those actions. It is a sad truth that our LEO's are woefully under-trained and underfunded. This is why I have so many LEO clients ranging from patrol officer to SWAT teams because simply put, the police training isn't good enough.
On the issue of the K9 officer holding his weapon like a gangster.
If he had fired from this position I'd be right there with you. However, he fired from a perfectly acceptable posture. At the time of firing his weapon was up, he had the ability to obtain clear sight picture/sight alignment. Before he fired he was gesturing/pointing. Take your hand out and point at the wall next to you, notice how it's flat exactly like the officer was holding his weapon, it was simply an extension of his arm until the time in which he used it.
On being close to the suspect
From all appearances the officers were attempting a take down after the failed taser shot. As it was said earlier the man was completely ignoring the officers. Unfortunately the suspect turned around and postured as if to strike and that was his final mistake. For the guys saying you can't swing from this position.... you can hurt someone from this position. Will it be a perfect homerun swing? Probably not, can you hurt someone severly with a heavy object with a pick-like protrusion on the end with a fast strike? Definitely.
On using hand-to-hand combat
I already made this thread as well so I'll mostly just directly quote it.
I am very confident in my hand-to-hand abilities, I am very well trained over many years. I've had to use that training on more than one occasion. That being said, your hand-to-hand skills are your fail safe, NOT your go-to. You never want to put yourself in more danger than you must. In this situation there is no way I would approach that individual.
There's a quote we teach and live by:
If you show up for a fair fight, you are not prepared.
What If's absolutely suck. I hate them, everyone hates them. But guess what? In a Time-Is-Life situation your life is defined by that "what if." You absolutely cannot take a chance because your life literally depends on it.
In this situation it means:
What if this guy has a gun in his waistband?
What if this guy has a shitload more martial arts training than I do and kills me? What if my partner fires on him and hits/kills me as I'm trying to subdue him?
The list goes on and on.
AS FOR THIS VIDEO IN ITSELF!
We cannot see or hear well enough to make any judgements on these officers. We see maybe 1 minutes worth of what appears to be a 20-30 minute (or more?) confrontation. Everyone speaking in absolutes such as "This was murder," "..Better ways to do this," etc are simply speaking purely from emotion. Watching an individual die, even on a youtube video, is a traumatic experience. The problem with you (the reader and viewer) is that you have no context in which to base your opinions and are letting your emotions and personal opinions rule your thought processes.
We don't know what was said, we don't know what happened inside the building, we don't know what prompted the man to act this way, we can't see anything after the first salvo of rounds..... There is SO MUCH we don't know and yet you make your judgements like they are the end-all-be-all. This is where my problem with you lies.
Based purely on this video I can say with an absolute certainty that this was a justified shooting. The two officers who fired will have a months leave and a mandatory 1-6months of therapy (or more.) And, probably, that will be the end of it.
But guess what? I have no idea what happened before this and so I could be absolutely wrong, and I know that and will be the first to admit it if that's how it plays out.
I'm sure everyone here has played the "Whisper Down The Lane" game at least once in school. Person A whispers something to person B who whispers it to person C and continues down the lane to person Z+. By the time it gets there "Barney is a purple dinosaur" at person A turns into "How I Met Your Mother is an awesome show." Well, this is like that "game" except on crack.
There are tests we do to illustrate this in our classes. Someone will barge into the room screaming with a gun and fake a robbery, we then take individual statements from every single person in the room and you would be utterly amazed at how different the results are from eye witnesses not even five minutes after the occurrence. Let alone a 40 second, bad quality video with a horrendous view, no sound and no understanding of what has been happening prior to those 40 seconds.
Eh, anyway looking up I'm realizing I'm rambling on and writing a book. Sorry lol
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@Rebel
May I ask you where you see 5 Officers? I only count 2 (3 with the last one arriving at the scene after the shooting)
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On January 26 2012 12:07 W2 wrote:
You know he's alone, you know what weapon he's using, you know he's mentally ill because he's smashing random windows... And your plan is to have two cops point their guns at him?
Cops are so dumb sometimes. Just because you carry a gun doesn't mean you have to use it. If you think the cops did great, pick up a sledgehammer and face off against me and a friend barehanded. I guarantee nobody will have to die.
Wait i don't get this? A sledgehammer is pretty damn heavy if i even weakly hit you with it the mass of the sledgehammer head will do enough damage to kill you if i hit an vital organs.
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On January 26 2012 12:11 Rebel_lion wrote:
i count 5 officers. mass tackle as he exited the place wouldn't have worked? Somebody might pull a muscle? Much easier to blind side with electricity and hooks? Pepper spray him, or combination of all three?
*I'd say anger, and moving your body to address the stimulus of your surroundings is a natural response in that situation.
Also it appears the officer only stuck him, then when electricity was activated did the suspect become enraged.(explains fumble prior to going for gun) I'd also say the other cop was far enough away and not in imminent danger. (mass tackle still works here) Hit him from behind, he seemed pretty oblivious until he was attacked.
These cops allowed this situation to occur, and the first volley absolutely sent him to the ground, the second was a retaliation action from a scared, failing and flailing officer. Or we can acknowledge the danger of a prone man bleeding to death with a sledehammer type weapon.
Could've been handled better, without this whole "shoot him in the leg" bs. (he has a melee weapon, wouldn't damaging his eyes with pepper spray been preferable?)
These cops had forewarning and enough time to set a plan of action that wouldn't result in discharging weapons. The kids who took video had enough time to exit store and go film it. Riot gear or something. a helmet solves this, but no because they can they did.
This.
I can't comprehend how anyone can think this is justified. Justified legally perhaps, justified based on what the police have been trained to do, maybe. Justified morally? Fuck no.
Perhaps we need to reevaluate what we're teaching police officers.
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On January 26 2012 12:11 sMi.EternaL wrote:Show nested quote +He was shot 5 times. In what universe could he instantly take out a concealed gun and do anything with it. I wish I had exact numbers to give you but unfortunately I do not. I do however know for an absolute fact that people are capable of receiving multiple rounds to their torso/legs/arms and still carry on a fight. I'm not even talking about little 9mm rounds that are standard issue for most police forces these days. I'm referring to .308 rifle rounds, AK-47 7.62mm rounds and M-16 5.56 rounds. An alarming amount of people take solid hits and if they aren't instantly killed their ability to continue to fight is remarkable. I've personally witnessed this many more times than anyone would ever want to. Believe me, someone can take five rounds and easily turn around and kill you. It happens all the time. (I am not being number specific, one round, five rounds, 100 rounds, whatever.) Show nested quote +What I don't get is why don't cops shoot people in the legs? To disable them, instead of the chest/face, to kill them. I've already answered this in a previous post as have many others since. Short answer: Collateral damage. A couple of fast examples for both quotes above: 1st Sgt Brad Kasal Still think shooting the legs is going to do something? I can't find a link to any news story but there was a young Marine who fired upon, and hit several times, an oncoming enemy in Fallujah. The enemy was down on the ground, his weapon had fallen from his hand and wasn't moving. The Marine continued onward in the fight and felt bites in his side/back and turned towards the pain and saw the exact same enemy sitting up with his weapon firing at him. Unfortunately for this Marine he didn't kill the enemy and is now a paraplegic because he didn't follow through. The thing to note is that this enemy was found with 3 bullet holes in his chest and 1 in his arm. We use this experience as a learning experience in our training now. Follow through, be sure. This situation with the officers in the OP will also be used as a training tool and can be used to illustrate how rapidly things can deteriorate/escalate from a routine takedown/disarm into a shooting. In my original post I made absolutely no reference to these individual officers training, I only attempted to explain their actions and the training behind those actions. It is a sad truth that our LEO's are woefully under-trained and underfunded. This is why I have so many LEO clients ranging from patrol officer to SWAT teams because simply put, the police training isn't good enough. If he had fired from this position I'd be right there with you. However, he fired from a perfectly acceptable posture. At the time of firing his weapon was up, he had the ability to obtain clear sight picture/sight alignment. Before he fired he was gesturing/pointing. Take your hand out and point at the wall next to you, notice how it's flat exactly like the officer was holding his weapon, it was simply an extension of his arm until the time in which he used it. From all appearances the officers were attempting a take down after the failed taser shot. As it was said earlier the man was completely ignoring the officers. Unfortunately the suspect turned around and postured as if to strike and that was his final mistake. For the guys saying you can't swing from this position.... you can hurt someone from this position. Will it be a perfect homerun swing? Probably not, can you hurt someone severly with a heavy object with a pick-like protrusion on the end with a fast strike? Definitely. I already made this thread as well so I'll mostly just directly quote it. I am very confident in my hand-to-hand abilities, I am very well trained over many years. I've had to use that training on more than one occasion. That being said, your hand-to-hand skills are your fail safe, NOT your go-to. You never want to put yourself in more danger than you must. In this situation there is no way I would approach that individual. There's a quote we teach and live by: If you show up for a fair fight, you are not prepared. What If's absolutely suck. I hate them, everyone hates them. But guess what? In a Time-Is-Life situation your life is defined by that "what if." You absolutely cannot take a chance because your life literally depends on it. In this situation it means: What if this guy has a gun in his waistband? What if this guy has a shitload more martial arts training than I do and kills me? What if my partner fires on him and hits/kills me as I'm trying to subdue him? The list goes on and on. We cannot see or hear well enough to make any judgements on these officers. We see maybe 1 minutes worth of what appears to be a 20-30 minute (or more?) confrontation. Everyone speaking in absolutes such as "This was murder," "..Better ways to do this," etc are simply speaking purely from emotion. Watching an individual die, even on a youtube video, is a traumatic experience. The problem with you (the reader and viewer) is that you have no context in which to base your opinions and are letting your emotions and personal opinions rule your thought processes. We don't know what was said, we don't know what happened inside the building, we don't know what prompted the man to act this way, we can't see anything after the first salvo of rounds..... There is SO MUCH we don't know and yet you make your judgements like they are the end-all-be-all. This is where my problem with you lies. Based purely on this video I can say with an absolute certainty that this was a justified shooting. The two officers who fired will have a months leave and a mandatory 1-6months of therapy (or more.) And, probably, that will be the end of it. But guess what? I have no idea what happened before this and so I could be absolutely wrong, and I know that and will be the first to admit it if that's how it plays out. I'm sure everyone here has played the "Whisper Down The Lane" game at least once in school. Person A whispers something to person B who whispers it to person C and continues down the lane to person Z+. By the time it gets there "Barney is a purple dinosaur" at person A turns into "How I Met Your Mother is an awesome show." Well, this is like that "game" except on crack. There are tests we do to illustrate this in our classes. Someone will barge into the room screaming with a gun and fake a robbery, we then take individual statements from every single person in the room and you would be utterly amazed at how different the results are from eye witnesses not even five minutes after the occurrence. Let alone a 40 second, bad quality video with a horrendous view, no sound and no understanding of what has been happening prior to those 40 seconds. Eh, anyway looking up I'm realizing I'm rambling on and writing a book. Sorry lol
You are very smart and experienced. Rather than disagree with people, I'm just going to copy paste this. Thank you, easily one of the best posts on this thread imo. Considering the other running theories are "Leg Shot" and "Mass Tackle" it isn't saying much. Just know that I appreciate the effort you put in, and found it very informative.
Sometimes it's hard to understand that personal safety trumps objective morality. I feel like people expect cops to all be like Sherloc Holmes, Max Payne, and Ghandi rolled into one.
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On January 26 2012 12:07 W2 wrote:
You know he's alone, you know what weapon he's using, you know he's mentally ill because he's smashing random windows... And your plan is to have two cops point their guns at him?
Cops are so dumb sometimes. Just because you carry a gun doesn't mean you have to use it. If you think the cops did great, pick up a sledgehammer and face off against me and a friend barehanded. I guarantee nobody will have to die.
Alone: correct
Weapon he's currently using: correct, however, you do not know if he has another concealed weapon.
Mentally Ill: No. Someone randomly smashing windows doesn't mean he's ill, he could be on drugs or just be in a rage - with the last giving him the option to drop his weapon and surrender when demanded to do so.
Two Guns: It was ONE Office with a Gun, the other Officer was holding a Tazer untill he was attacked and pulled his gun AFTER that.
People are dumb sometimes, Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people.
Lastly, that "come and I'll show you what I'll do!!"-thing is utterly nonesense, because it cannot recreate the situation of that particular case, EVER.
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On January 26 2012 12:22 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 12:11 Rebel_lion wrote:
i count 5 officers. mass tackle as he exited the place wouldn't have worked? Somebody might pull a muscle? Much easier to blind side with electricity and hooks? Pepper spray him, or combination of all three?
*I'd say anger, and moving your body to address the stimulus of your surroundings is a natural response in that situation.
Also it appears the officer only stuck him, then when electricity was activated did the suspect become enraged.(explains fumble prior to going for gun) I'd also say the other cop was far enough away and not in imminent danger. (mass tackle still works here) Hit him from behind, he seemed pretty oblivious until he was attacked.
These cops allowed this situation to occur, and the first volley absolutely sent him to the ground, the second was a retaliation action from a scared, failing and flailing officer. Or we can acknowledge the danger of a prone man bleeding to death with a sledehammer type weapon.
Could've been handled better, without this whole "shoot him in the leg" bs. (he has a melee weapon, wouldn't damaging his eyes with pepper spray been preferable?)
These cops had forewarning and enough time to set a plan of action that wouldn't result in discharging weapons. The kids who took video had enough time to exit store and go film it. Riot gear or something. a helmet solves this, but no because they can they did. This. I can't comprehend how anyone can think this is justified. Justified legally perhaps, justified based on what the police have been trained to do, maybe. Justified morally? Fuck no. Perhaps we need to reevaluate what we're teaching police officers.
"This" is pretty much bs, because there were neither 5 police officers present during the shooting nor does this person respect any of the already plenty made explanations in this thread.
They are teaching police officers to protect their own, their teammates and any civilan lifes - what is there to reevaluate?
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On January 26 2012 12:25 ChronicleEU wrote:People are dumb sometimes, Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people.
Exactly. They absolutely didn't have to shoot him ten times.
The only time I can understand an officer discharging his weapon is when his/her own life is at risk. From this video, I seriously don't think this was the case.
A mutual friend and acquaintance of mine commit suicide via police officers. However in his situation, he had a gun pointed directly at an officer for a good minute (according to eye witnesses). The officer didn't fire until my mutual friend discharged his weapon (intentionally missing the officer for the sake of provoking him to shoot). The officer only fired one shot to kill him. I have a lot of respect for this officer. He risked his own life because he chose to try and talk him out of it.
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On January 26 2012 12:30 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 12:25 ChronicleEU wrote:
Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people.
Exactly. They absolutely didn't have to shoot him ten times.
Good thing for you I like to repeat myself:
Police Officers are trained to shoot multiple times (3-5 times, as was explained already) to stop a threat immidatly - after the first salve, the criminal was NOT DOWN, which concludes to "threat not stopped" and thus another salve was shot.
If the guy had a pistole concealed anywhere in his baggy clothes and the officers had not shot again to make sure the threat is stopped, he could have turned around - because he was NOT DOWN YET - and shot one of the officers or a bystander, which would have been the fault of the officers for not COMPLETELY stopping the threat at hand.
Get that already.
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Honestly, I don't think the guy was even going to swing and was just trying to look like a badass or whatever, but its impossible to tell in the moment and police aren't going to risk their lives in this situation. They tried using a tazer, they tried pepper spraying- neither did anything but piss the man off. They only had one option left as far as I'm concerned.
As for them shooting the man multiple times, theres an old quote: "Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice." And to people saying "They should've shot him in the leg!" : I doubt you have ever even fired a handgun. It's not practical, reliable, or what people are trained to do.
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On January 26 2012 12:30 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 12:25 ChronicleEU wrote:On January 26 2012 12:07 W2 wrote:
People are dumb sometimes, Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people. Exactly. They absolutely didn't have to shoot him ten times. The only time I can understand an officer discharging his weapon is when his/her own life is at risk. From this video, I seriously don't think this was the case.
Edit: Instead of reading this post, you could read sMi.EternaL's post on this same page above. He's smarter than me.
Edit 2: I originally put the first edit in his quote accidentally. Wasn't going for that angle of insult at all. apologies.
If you stopped time for everyone but the armed man for 2 seconds, can you tell me with 100% certainty that cop would live? No, hopefully you can't, because you can read body language.
Now realize, you have to be 100% sure, because anything less, like say 99%, isn't good enough.
Would anyone rational take a 1% chance on the next 2 seconds with anything besides a gun when so many other things have failed? When someone is 2 seconds from a coma or death? Nope. That takes either a fool or a man of extreme bravery that can't be expected.
It's easy to step on the moral pedestal when you're this naive.
Oh, and it's spelled 'Brilliance'
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@TsoBadGuy
I have to disagree on the (edited ;P) bravery part. That bravery could cost a life in the worst case scenario, which is exactly why officers are trained to be 100% sure the threat is neutralized.
I do agree to everything else though.
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On January 26 2012 12:30 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 12:25 ChronicleEU wrote:On January 26 2012 12:07 W2 wrote:
People are dumb sometimes, Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people. Exactly. They absolutely didn't have to shoot him ten times. The only time I can understand an officer discharging his weapon is when his/her own life is at risk. From this video, I seriously don't think this was the case. A mutual friend and acquaintance of mine commit suicide via police officers. However in his situation, he had a gun pointed directly at an officer for a good 2 minutes. The officer didn't fire until my mutual friend discharged his weapon (intentionally missing the officer for the sake of provoking him to shoot). The officer only fired one shot to kill him. I have a lot of respect for this officer. He risked his own life because he chose to try and talk him out of it.
If this is seriously what you think, that cops should wait until after they're shot at to fire back, and that they should only discharge once, then I only have this to say to you:
Fuck you, you are a terrible person who wants all police officers to be shot dead.
I should clarify before I get banned for being a belligerent asshole again; what you propose will get every officer shot and killed inevitably if they are ever in a dangerous situation. A common scenario for the police force.
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+ Show Spoiler +
"This" is pretty much bs, because there were neither 5 police officers present during the shooting nor does this person respect any of the already plenty made explanations in this thread.
They are teaching police officers to protect their own, their teammates and any civilan lifes - what is there to reevaluate?
If the officers were into protecting the civilians (of which the suspect is one) why did they wait for him to come out of the store on his own volition? A madman was in there. right? A man so dangerous, so immediately capable of providing a "deadly" intention that they must shoot him 10 times?
*news story says officers claim he swung at them twice. Why lie?
I want to be clear, i think this reached a point where it was inevitable, but in reaching that point fault lies with the officers.
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Wow this thread went the distance. Is there an official investigation underway?
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@Chronicle haha, you caught that (edit) huh?
I agree with you, that bravery could cost a life. But to risk yourself in that circumstance would also qualify as brave, albeit stupid, illogical. That same guy I was addressing had a story about a cop talking someone down from suicide with a gun pointed at him. That's balls.
Not condoning bravery  Just trying to wrap my head around it.
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United States1654 Posts
On January 26 2012 12:30 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 12:25 ChronicleEU wrote:On January 26 2012 12:07 W2 wrote:
People are dumb sometimes, Officers only use their gun when they absolutly have to and when they do, the do it to stop the threat, not to blindly shoot people. Exactly. They absolutely didn't have to shoot him ten times. The only time I can understand an officer discharging his weapon is when his/her own life is at risk. From this video, I seriously don't think this was the case. A mutual friend and acquaintance of mine commit suicide via police officers. However in his situation, he had a gun pointed directly at an officer for a good minute (according to eye witnesses). The officer didn't fire until my mutual friend discharged his weapon (intentionally missing the officer for the sake of provoking him to shoot). The officer only fired one shot to kill him. I have a lot of respect for this officer. He risked his own life because he chose to try and talk him out of it.
So one has to put his life on the line to justify using lethal force? If your friend was actually willing to he could have easily killed that officer, so I don't really understand what you're getting at. That particular officer in your story made a huge gamble, one that a majority of people would not be willing to do. And a gamble like that costs lives, as indicated by this video that many people have quoted:
+ Show Spoiler +
And I love how you say, "from this video, I seriously don't think this was the case". Exactly. You're watching from a video- you can see everything that's happening. You can rewind, play it slowly, and notice every minute detail. But for those officers? All they see is a man looking like he's ready to bludgeon their heads in. And they have literally just seconds to react.
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EPT
