Justified?

Another training video. Discuss.

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Stop running from the police people. I think the Taser would have been more appropriate.

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I can’t speak to what started the confrontation or if it could have been avoided. Without sound or seeing the start or finish it is hard to read how serious a threat this man might have been or if the officers had other options.

There is one moment in the video where he lifts his arm up and it looked to me like he was about to throw the knife. It is hard to throw a knife accurately and make it stick but someone with a lot of skill or a little luck could do a lot of damage with a thrown knife to the right spot. I don’t know if that was the moment the officer shot or not but I could see a solid argument for someone believing that they or their partner were being imminently threatened with sever bodily injury or worse based on that move.

Whether or not the officers actions before and after that moment were justified, I cannot say.

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From what we can see I don’t think I can make a clear judgment of any kind. I will only say the number one priority of all first responders is there safety first. But again I think the comment about the taser may have been spot on. I just don’t know.

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I agree. But I can also see them being reluctant to use the taser on a disabled man who started out by just waiving a knife around. They also probably would have faced some serious flak from the public for just tasering the disabled man. Though at least the man might have survived.

But to play devils advocate. What if we put ourselves in that situation where we might be covering the man with our firearm while our partner covers him with the taser? I think this would be a reasonable strategy with someone armed with a knife who you aren’t sure is intending to kill someone. Now imagine we suddenly see the man make a move to throw the knife either at ourself or our partner. Do we just stand there and hope that our partner has seen the threat and shoots the taser in time to stop the throw? Are we sure the taser will hit the target and not get caught up in the bulky clothing? Could we ever sleep well again if we didn’t act and the knife seriously injured or killed our partner? What would our families do if we were the target and didn’t make it home?

I also think that we have to be carful not to give too much potentially undeserved sympathy to this man just because he is disabled. A person with limited mobility can still be perfectly capable of shooting a gun or throwing a knife. And just because someone is dealing with a disability doesn’t necessarily make them a good person. I’m not passing judgement on this guy. Just saying that we should not be making assumptions without all the facts.

I’m no a fan of bad cops. I just don’t know if these two are or not based on this limited evidence. And I’m very glad I don’t have to make decisions like this on a regular basis!

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For me, fully justified.
But from moral perspective, was it needed? Hard to tell. These days human’s life means nothing. People kill each other for stupid reasons. If LEOs were put in the position they could be afraid of their lives, using deadly force was justifiable.
Watching the video brings some lessons.
First - don’t run away from Police.
Second - don’t use deadly weapon against Police if you don’t want to end up in bag
Third - if you run away with deadly weapon… don’t stop and wave it… :zipper_mouth_face:

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Trying hard to convince myself it’s the latest from The Babylon Bee :honeybee:

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Tasers are generally contraindicated when faced with a lethal threat.

Knives are generally considered lethal force.

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Apparently, he had stabbed someone in an unprovoked attack.
They did try to tase him.

Double amputee, 36, shot dead after attempting to run away from cops (msn.com)

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My dad was in Montgomery, Alabama, at the time of the Selma protests and riots. Local news one evening showed film of a black woman hitting a police officer on the head from behind with a Coke bottle, followed immediately by several white cops grabbing her and throwing her into a paddy wagon.
15 minutes later national network news showed film of several white cops grabbing a black woman and throwing her into a paddy wagon.
Justified?
Do you have the entire story?
Can you really trust your lying eyes without seeing the full event?

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Context is key.

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