Hmmm, what should lethal force be used for Wolfe?
Hey Wolfe, is an officer just as dead if he gets shot by a wounded enemy?
What happens to a warning shot? Does it just vaporize like the intelligence of a reporter asking a stupid question? No, the lead slug comes down. When it does, it can as easily end a life as the shot fired directly at the threat. The only problem is, it will be an innocent victim instead.
People make choices. If they threaten an officer, the officer is forced into responding. The officer is not required to lay down his life to the person attacking. His job is to return disorder to order as quickly as he and his fellow officers can, to protect life and property.
He is not required to allow people to harm him or the assets of the community.
Doughty, in the spirit of compromise, I promise to fire a warning shot. Through the center of mass. That should satisfy everyone on the thread, no?
There are a very few squeaky clean cops here and there—real goody-two-shoes, “lone rangers,” some of them working for the fed, others not—who fire as everyone else does with groups on ranges but more accurately. Outside of that, those few do make sure that they can hit attackers in other, less conventional but very effective places very quickly and consistently, day or night. Everyone should strive for moral impeccability in relations with others. It’s best in the long run.
Here’s another little known fact. Most people on most ranges do a whole lot of aiming and can’t hit worth a darn.