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Never take a knife (bayonet) to a gun fight. Seriously though, while tragic, it sounds like the officer didn't have much choice.
"An autopsy will be performed today"
Uhhh! I can save the coroner some time.
He was killed by a BULLET!
Oh, and the "boys father" is a complete idiot for allowing his kid access to drugs and weaponry in his own home. I guess Darwin was right about a few things.
bang
The Boise police are issued bayonets?! Cool...
Too bad the officer didn't have a Taser.
There are two kinds of bayonet fighters. The quick and the dead.
sounds like a clean shoot to me .... the boy was carrying a spear
There is not quite enough information about this in the article. And it may be simply unknown. The officer was well within his rights to shoot someone trying to poke him with a bayonet. I would question whether putting 4 shots in the kid was excessive. It may have been, it may not have been. If the kid kept coming, the officer certainly should have kept firing, but if the officer was at all careful in where he shot kid, the first three should have been sufficiently debilitating to eliminate the threat.
That said, I don't think there is any criminal liability it the officer's actions. He faced a deadly threat with deadly force. But it is possible that better training could have led to a better outcome.
I really feel sorry for the Officer; he had no choice but to do his duty and defend himself, and I'm sure he'll carry the guilt around for the rest of his life.
But the bottom line is, don't threaten or attack a Police Officer. Period.
If the officer was really in fear for his life, how does he let a 16 yo get close enough to poke him with a bayonet?
If it happened as stated, why does the officer not take the boy down as I'm sure "he has been trained" to do without killing him?
Has any police officer anywhere not "responded as he was trained"? You never, ever, hear a police Chief say "officer So-And-So handled this imporperly and definately shouldn't have shot the suspect in the back."
I'm not defending the kids actions, but don't the cops ever take a risk to try and help the confused? It was a kid.
One more instance where the parents are making a mistake to call the cops. "Hello, police? Yeah, my kid is acting up again. Could you come over and shoot him or something?"
What a terrible shame and waste of a young life. May God watch over his soul and give those who knew and loved him some peace in their minds and in their hearts.
This kid may have been shot dead by the police, but he was really killed by his use of drugs, probably meth.
Very sad.