According to witnesses the teenager was carrying the gun in his left hand as he walked along the right side of the road. This would make it visible to passersby and to the police. If the command given to the teen was 'drop the gun' and rather than comply with that order the teenager turned to his right and brought the gun around with him the police would have less than a second to decide whether to shoot.
-btw If you'd like to see what happens when someone does decide to shoot at police with an AK47 just google "ak47 police video" there are plenty of examples.
If he was such a threat then how come only one of the two officers discharged his weapon???
A timeline released Thursday by the Santa Rosa police shows that only 10 seconds passed from the moment that the sheriff’s deputy and his partner called dispatch to report a suspicious person to the moment they called back to say shots had been fired.
The deputy who fired was a 24 year veteran while the one who didn’t was a new hire.
The victim’s body had 7 bullet entry wounds — two of which were fatal.