The officer stopped, fired and hit him in the back as he was running away with a tazer that had been fired. How is he a threat?
In that split second how did the cop know for a fact what exactly was in in the hand? Could have gotten the other cops gun in the struggle, No way to know at that moment. Further, letting a felon get away could lead to further crimes in an effort to avoid capture. What if took hostages? Hijacked a car? You just dont know.
Cops are trained that if a suspect grabs your tazer then he could use it on you, take your gun and shoot you - so it falls into the "deadly force" criterion. Once the cop starts that action, he is likely to follow through based on training, rather than thinking.
A good example of this is the Walter Scott shooting. Scott reached for the officer's taser, then turned around and ran away. He was 15-20 feet away from the cop when he was shot in the back.
"He grabbed (or reached for) my weapon (or tazer)" used to be a get out of jail free card for cops. Now that these incidents are looked at more closely, more examples are coming to light where that excuse doesn't justify the fatal action.
Because the taser can still be used even though the projectile taser had been used, there is still a contact taser function available. He could’ve used that on anyone, carjacked someone and caused a crash with multiple deaths or who knows what else.
Look at how the process started, the cops were being reasonable, talking with him calmly, he got out of control and assaulted two officers and was showing a propensity for violence towards police. What makes you think he was going to stop there?
There are a multitude of scenarios here that could’ve went down. Letting him go is not one that should be considered given the circumstances. Shooting him while running away may seem questionable, but in the end he was still a threat as he was “running away”. He may have been running towards someone else in hopes that he could leverage them or their vehicle, etc...
He fired the taser at the officer and was shot. 100% justifiable shoot!