the Kajieme Powell shooting video

[Zen]

Originally Posted by Drunken Master

They are. Lethal force is supposed to be a last resort.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to say that the cops were right in this situation. I wasn't there. I do think they acted within their "rights" just based off the video though.

They had their guns out almost immediately upon exiting their cars.


This could be because they're trigger happy.

However it could have also been because whoever called them there had already seen the knife. Or maybe it's a neighborhood with a lot of gun violence. Maybe whoever called the police exaggerated the situation and the severity putting the police on alert.

Then when the police arrived he had his hand in his pocket and wouldn't remove it (yelling at them to shoot him) and then lunged.

I know watching the video quite a bit of time passed, but those situations are much harder to gauge if you're right there in the thick of it. They don't get to pause it and see if there is a better option. They went from yelling, to (in their minds) defending themselves. Didn't really have time to swap out for the tazer.

"As tensions continue to flare over Brown's death, many question the circumstances under which the law justifies a police officer's use of deadly force. When faced with a perceived threat, why don't officers shoot to wound rather than shoot to kill?

The reason, according to law enforcement officials and experts on police accountability, is simple: Officers have long been trained to shoot to kill because that is the only way they say they can neutralize a threat. The idea of shooting someone in a limb is fiction.

"That's a Hollywood myth," John Firman, director of research, programs, and professional services at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, told The Huffington Post. "In all policy everywhere on force in any law enforcement agency in America, the bottom line statement should read: If you feel sufficiently threatened or if lives are threatened and you feel the need that you must use lethal force, then you must take out the suspect."

Firman said shooting to wound is impractical because "the likelihood of success is low." The officer may miss the target, leaving both the police and the public at risk, he said."

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08...-not-to-wound/