Something else that I hope folks will consider.
Every step backward you take as a police officer facing an armed and/or deranged individual is emboldening them, putting you in a situation where you may trip or back up against something, giving them the opportunity to rush you, OR puts an innocent in the attack radius of the offender.
At some point you have to draw the bright red line and go back no further.
As far those advocating for the LESS lethal response of a TASER, well TASER works very well WHEN it works.
When you miss with one or both barbs, or they fail to penetrate the clothing to the skin, you are in big trouble if you dealing with someone with a weapon. The vast majority of TASER cartridges are 21 foot deployment length (with optimal range between 6 and 15 feet). If you have a failure, and need to transition to a firearm these things have to happen first.
You need to mentally acknowledge the failure.
You need to override the training to reach for the second cartridge underneath. (You won’t have time)
You need to drop the TASER.
You need to drop your hand to your holster and unholster your duty weapon, overcoming all retention devices while dealing with the loss of fine motor control.
Draw your weapon and present it while trying to deal with the tunnel vision which hampers your ability to see stuff beyond the target you don’t want to hit.
You must be able to hit the target who is undoubtedly moving at a rapid pace toward you, especially since you have “attacked” them.
This is why you don’t use a TASER in a lethal force situation. There’s just not enough time and certainty.
They played the video of this on ATLANTA TV station last night. They were telling, basically begging the guy to halt, to stop advancing. At one point they asked him his name two or three times especially, told him this was not necessary, to put down the knife or whatever he had. His response was
“ well, shoot me, “ he said that multiple times and continued to advance towards them.
Spot on. You’ve probably see this, but here’s a video where a cop tries to use a TAZER on a bat-wielding man, the TAZER shot fails, and the cop is now faced with dealing with a large angry man in close proximity with a bat. Fortunately the cop was good with his sidearm.
http://youtu.be/7KP-Un0PbII?rel=0
But I saw it on TV!
Actually, now that I think of it, this would make a good scene in a movie - slowing down the exchange to show and spell out everything that an officer has to go through in that circumstance.
Like the hero’s confrontation with the Russians in “The Equalizer.”