“... no non-lethal options apart from pepper spray”.
IMHO, it was a good shoot. If NYPD had waited or tried a non-lethal means and a citizen got hurt... people would be criticizing them for not protecting them. He was acting crazy, had a large knife and mobile... suicide by cop was his choice (not NYPD’s)
I share your view. It's just that they had pepper spray on hand when they should have had tasers. And the ubiquity of patrol cars (not to mention precinct HQ's, which are within a mile of each other) tells me that tasers are not part of the standard non-lethal NYPD kit. The long record of multi-million dollar payouts from NYPD entanglements in dubious but successful (thanks to NYC juries) wrongful death lawsuits should have prepped them for this circumstance.
By the way, they pepper-sprayed the guy. It just annoyed him. Tasers pack a lot more punch, and area hospital emergency rooms are typically no further than a mile away if the tasered perp goes into cardiac arrest.