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" If I take a utility knife or box cutter and cut about an inch deep into someone's throat, I guess there must be no real danger. Think Mohammed Atta "

Try thinking two armed police officers in a parking lot....not surprised untrained people in a enclosed tube ( aircraft). Lets add the fact the man is intoxicated or at least mentally confused. If they can't handle this situation without dropping 8 bullets into the guy somethig is wrong.

I've seen alot of post on police shootings here and if trained properly they shoot 2 in a group . With that in mind both officers would have shot assesed the threat and shot again 8 bullets. Looks extremly excessive to me.

Lets add the fact the man is intoxicated or at least mentally confused.

If he is high on PCP or something like that, eight rounds may be just enough to stop him. Or maybe not. He was not kind enough to submit to toxicological tests beforehand so the officers had to make a snap judgement. On a slightly different note, if he was sloshed, he should not have been near a vehicle. He would be a danger to all others on the road.

I agree with you. This is part of the "zero tolerance" mentality that pervades county governments at all levels: set a parameter and when the parameter is exceeded, apply the same (maximum) punishment no matter the specific circumstances. Then hold an investigation to show that you uniformly applied the punishment prescribed for the parameter that was exceeded. Very circular, very little thinking required to implement and execute.

Welcome to the one size fits all world of government policy.

The drunk upset man was stupid to pull a utility knife on the officers. Drunk upset men do things like that, routinely. These supposedly trained police officers have a "zero tolerance" mentality when it comes to using deadly force. They outnumbered him, were probably both bigger than him, he was drunk, they had guns and he had a utility knife, and the only solution they can come up with is to shot him eight times. Maybe "fear for their lives" made them shoot that many times. But I feel they felt empowered to kill him because he had fulfilled the deadly force parameter.

There are plenty of policemen that would have just shot him once in the leg to put him down then pinned his hand and stripped him of the utility knife before cuffing him and taking him to the emergency room (en route to jail).

This was clearly excessive. I hope they lose their jobs and face criminal charges.