I think the reality, going forward, is that any use of lethal force against someone 18 and under, or who is mentally disturbed, who can’t be conclusively proven to be armed with a *REAL* gun, is going to be pretty much a guarantee of riots, huge payouts and ended careers.
We had a 14 year old shot here in Santa Rosa.. same line “he took the orange tip off”. That ain’t going to fly anymore, if it ever did; kids modify things, kids don’t have a lot of sense and I fear for the riot that is going to result the next time a police officer shoots only to discover it was just a BB gun.
As one who has worked with officers for over 20 years, who’s brother is an officer of 24 years, good training that is followed in the field could prevent many of these shootings. For example, the Cleveland shooting was a case of officers being too close to a potentially armed individual thus severely decreasing those officers reaction time. Officers should have been several YARDS away coming at the suspect from different directions barking out commands as they approached. This would have given them a greater time window for reacting to the kid’s actions. Same goes for Officer Wilson in Ferguson, why on earth was he close enough to PROVEN hostile suspects that he was able to be assaulted in his vehicle through an open window?? Don’t get me wrong, according to the many officers I have conversed with regarding these cases, all strongly feel that the shootings were justified given the immediate circumstances but that better training or training that was not utilized could have prevented both shootings.