[onceone]

It seems evident that the media has tried to throw a blanket over this quote, "When he saw something he said something and then turned it over to the professionals,” Bloomberg said of the alert construction worker."

I guess a member of the NYPD can only get the "professional" tag attached by the good mayor after gunning down innocent bystanders.

Don't get me wrong, the LEOs initiated the appropriate action, it is just the execution of such action that needs to be corrected, not justified.

[fireman15]

Video of the gun fight is on the Internet. The police came running up to the guy. He turned and pointed his .45 directly at them. If the .45 hadn't malfunctioned one of the officers would most likely be dead. The officers’ instincts took over and they fired until the bad guy hit the ground. It was probably 2 seconds between the time that the .45 was pointed at the officers and the gunman was on the ground.

Even though the officers already had their weapons drawn the whole incident developed so quickly that there was no time for them to develop any type of plan. It is pretty easy to be critical after the fact especially since the bullets they were using fragmented and the pieces flew into a crowd of bystanders; but watch the video and see what you think could have been done differently.

I hope whatever “lessons are learned” here do not further hamstring the police officers and make all of us less safe. It is possible that if the officers had somehow confronted the gunman in a different way that everyone could have been put at less risk. Once the shooting started in a crowded area bystanders were likely to get hurt no matter how much range time or previous experience the officers had.