They spent four hours trying to calm Rodriquez down. The violent part started when he swung the machete at a negotiator who ducked the edge of the blade but got struck on the side of the head when Rodriquez came through on the backswing with the blunt edge and another cop standing to the side shot him.
As long as that was the case the cop had every right to shoot him dead.
I also might note that Mr Agorist kinda accidentally forgot to mention that the Midland County Sheriff Dept. guy who was their main negotiator was shot in the head and killed less than two months ago in one of these cases.
No doubt that was just an unplanned accidental oversight on Agorist’ part.
>swung the machete
never a good move unless in the jungle.
If that’s what happened that completely changes the equation.
CC
If that is what happened, I think the cop did the right thing.
The details you gave do paint a different picture of the story. Tough call on this one.
So a mentally ill man, who was already having a problem, sees his house surrounded by a SWAT team with armor and air support and he gets scared and lashes out. Wow, who could have seen that coming.
I think even a healthy person under similar circumstances would have been scared to death.