Reply To: The Shooting of an "Unarmed Man"

[Unseen]

Matt wrote:

So if a policeman (or anyone really) sprints at me and I’ve done nothing wrong I can shoot him dead? I don’t understand. Are you saying it’s ok to kill people because they disobey your authority?

What happened to the policeman’s taser? Were there no other non-lethal options left?

People run in my direction when I’m downtown and I don’t shoot them. Of course, police are often dealing with people who have been engaged in a crime or have been acting hostile toward them or others. That’s a major difference.

Tasers have a much higher failure rate than pistols. I wonder why you didn’t ask “Why didn’t the cop shoot in the air first?” or “Why didn’t he shoot him in the foot?”

Cops want to be home with their kids after work just like the rest of us. We ask them to deal with potentially dangerous situations then we second-guess decisions they have to make often in less than a second. And much of the time the injured/killed party was being less than cooperative.

The safety zone for someone charging a cop with a knife is said to be 21 feet. In other words, if the cop’s gun isn’t already drawn and ready to fire and the baddie is within 21 feet, the cop probably won’t be able to fire in time. If he has his taser out then he doesn’t have his gun out. Then the taser fails to stop the attacker. Dead cop.

I find all this second-guessing by amateurs with no idea of the realities depressingly amusing.