I know two rangers from Mammoth Cave and one from the Lincoln Home in Hodgenville. They have meth problems that are mind boggling. Mammoth Cave has placed some areas "off limits" due to the problems with meth labs being set up on the fringes of the park and tourists wondering in to the "kill zone" the dealers have set up.
FWIW, and form my own perspective (having been attacked once upon a time by a man weilding a club)...the guy got exactly what he should have gotten.
He was threatening the officers both verbally telling them he was going to kill them and approaching them menacingly with the means to do so, he would not obey their directions, he came at them and their attempts to use non-lethal force (per what both PharmBoy and JR indicate they would have liked to have seen the officers try) failed, and so, when he continued approaching with a deadly weapon (and a club is a deadly weapon), they shot him...and they shot to stop. Ten feet is a short space and their lives were definitely in danger.
In my instance, it was an early instance of road rage in 1982. I took a hit to the head from a deflected piece of the club that the guy swing through the window at me and I barely avoided. A piece broke off when it hit the door frame, ricocheted, and it broke my orbital bone, my nose, and my glasses put a deep cut above my eye. I lived to talk about it...and actually chased down the perp in his car with my auto and when he wrecked, held him for the police. I will tell you now, if I had, had a gun, I would have done all in my power to shoot the guy dead. He (like this guy) was out of control and my life was in danger and was preserved mainly by the grace of God...and a quick, lucky movement of my head.
BTW, the guy assaulted me, trying to kill me, because he thought I had cut him off in traffic two days earlier, 50 miles from that scene. On the day he was talking about, I was at the hospital all day with my wife when she delivered our third child.