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You’re absolutely right, the guy in the wheelchair was almost certainly mentally unbalanced, or else he would not have gotten hit by a train. Sitting in his own feces in wheelchair in a group home probably did not improve his disposition. I suppose the cops might have used night sticks or tazers, but I wouldn’t want to second guess them as quickly as most of the posters here.

There are a lot of messy situations in life and we leave it up to the cops to clean a lot of them up. It “behooves” us not to jump to judgments about incidents about which we do not know the facts and did not witness.

If a civilian shot a one-armed one-legged person in a wheelchair, and claimed to the responding authorities he killed the man because e got cornered and felt threatened (and somehow the cripple managed to aggressively manoeuvre the wheelchair - while waving the threatening pen - all with one arm) ...the cops would put the shooter in handcuffs and toss him in the back seat. There are three reasons why more and more FReepers appear to be anti cops: a) the increase in reports of law enforcement officers acting like thugs; b) the fact that they get away with stuff that no civilian ever could (that lady who shot some guy in a road rage incident ...she must be regretting why she never chose to be a cop since the 'I felt threatened' defence would have worked wonders), and c) people who will tell others that cops should not be judged harshly because of the hard work they do.

I personally respect cops, but I totally believe that because of the authority bestowed on them (that ranges the gamut from arresting someone to even taking their life), that cops should always be held to a much higher standard. They should never be given the benefit of a doubt but rather a higher degree of confidence should be expected of them. The more power one is given the more accountability one should be expected to provide. Police officers are human beings, with the same virtues and vices the rest of us have, who have been given formidable authority.

That shouldn't require us to give them 'a break' but rather to demand more accountability and sense from them. I do not know what caused this cop to shoot a one armed one legged wheelchair bound man who somehow had sufficient dexterity to makeover a wheelchair while brandishing a pen with one arm (maybe it was a motorised wheelchair, or maybe the man was telekinetic). Time will tell what happened. However, under no circumstances should the shooting cop be immune from people 'second guessing' him. As an officer of the law he should be put to a higher standard and be expected to provide full accountability. Especially considering if a normal civilian had shot a one legged/one armed person, and claimed he got cornered, that the cop would have 'second guessed' him all the way to the back seat of the cop car.

Cops do not deserve understanding or the benefit of a doubt. They are keepers of the peace and enforcers of the law, and should be paragons of what they represent. To serve and to protect. Most cops are brave people who serve a tremendously important role, but since they are humans there will be bad apples. Considering the size of the police force, this would mean that the bad apples may be in the high hundreds to low thousands (maybe much more?). The work of good cops shouldn't be used to cover for the bad apples.

I have to admit, I have a pretty good imagination, yet I cannot conceive of any situation where it would be necessary to shoot a one-armed, one-legged man in a wheelchair who is waving a pen at me. Keep in mind, this man could not even move at the same time he is waving the pen around. He can either roll (and not well) or he can wave the pen. Not both at the same time. I'm not a cop, and I don't have all their fancy training or stellar situation defusing skills, but I think that I could nevertheless figure out how to disarm a bipalegic man waving a pen around without shooting him.