“Still not grounds for shooting the participants dead.”
hmmm. OK to shoot black rioters dead but not white MC gangstas?
Who said that? I've not heard anyone on this thread say that.
Certainly the authorities treated black rioters with kid gloves. They were allowed to arson and loot to their hearts content, none were shot, dead or otherwise that I recall.
And that rioting lasted for days and covered many square miles of a city.
Here 100 bikers get into some sort of fight and the police, from pre-set enfilade, open fire on them.
My take: a little more force, or show of force, should have been used to protect the innocent property owners in Ferguson, a lot less force might have been used by the various police agencies in Waco to de-escalate without massive loss of life.
However, I would agree that brandishing a pistol in a parking lot in the middle of a biker gang brawl does make you a legitimate target for police fire. From the AP report above it seems like there was a little bit of that going on.
Brandishing a knife or chain probably doesn't require a police sharp-shooter with a scoped rifle to take you out from across a parking lot, particularly if you are just threatening other similarly equiped bikers.
Ohhhh...now I see.