Too many Barney Fifes and not enough Andy Taylors ...
I’ve been in a few of these type situations and I either talked the person down or disarmed them by jumping them and the only time that I ever had a weapon was a pool stick once and a chair one time, with tear gas, a nightclub and a couple of guys to help it would have been even easier.
Whack the knife hand with a baton and you're done.
It is mentally draining on you to have to take a life. That is why officers are given a rest period of 2-3 days before they even start writing down the official versions of what happened. There is post-traumatic stress going through this.
I wish officers would keep these facts in mind when dealing with a law abiding citizen who’s just had to defend themselves with their firearm. They are the victims that have been attacked and had to fend off an attacker, they are like the police (law abiding, unwilling participant) rather than a criminal. Yet so often citizens who find themselves in this position, to add insult to injury, are not treated as someone who just went through something traumatic.
Leo’s are scared these days. Sure hope these tough boys don’t come crashing in my door some night, results may be different.
We see cops shooting dogs, this is our second story in as many days about cops shooting suicidal or mentally disabled or sick people. Where's the TASER in these instances?
It seems to me, that TASERS are used much more frequently to get suspects to comply, rather than as a alternative to the use of deadly force.
A naked, 200 lb woman charges at the cops, brandishing a knife. What the hell else are they supposed to do?
Seems like someone with a lot more information on the subject has made a decision. Now here come a lot of folks with almost no information drawing a different conclusion. Mental masturbation......
What? No Tasers?
Isn't this the second mentally ill person the police have shot in the US in about 3 weeks? Wasn't there an article about some guy that had a knife and was going to commit suicide so the cops shot him because he wouldn't drop the knife.
The fact is, in these cases the cops escalate the situation by going into the room with the person, instead of leaving again when the person won't drop the knife and calling for a doctor(because the person in mentally ill)they just shoot the person, because they can. The same reason so many of them shoot people's dogs.
“Officer Smith had responded to a similar call two days earlier, on May 26, when he learned Ms. Williams had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic who had possibly stopped taking her prescribed medication, Mr. Jarbola said.”
And this didn’t move Social Services into action...why ?
Never call the police to deal with mentally disturbed people unless you’re willing to risk them being killed.
There is a financial consideration, in these times of deficit budgets.
In Huntington Beach, CA police shot a teenage girl, because she charged at them in a schoolyard with a knife.
The city settled a wrongful death lawsuit, apparently for $40 million.
There might ought to be some intermediate method, between having the cops turn and run, and having them fill the person full of lead.
The PD has shotguns, in car computer screens, dogs, helicopters, motorcycles...lots of technology.
How about some non-lethal methods for handling people that are mentally ill, on drugs, etc?
And then how about keeping those people locked up?