Poll: Was this police shooting justified in your opinion? (Graphic)

[Lord Kloo]

Wait was that an actual gun with bullets or a taser gun being fired, I'm a little confused..

Anyway I'll say it as I always do, in this situation I wouldn't expect a soldier with a pistol to unload a round onto someone with a sledge, I'd expect them to do it cleanly with one shot or not be so close in the first place that they put themselves in danger..

 

[TheEnglishman]

I don't think I can really condemn the police here because that man didn't flinch when they tased him, and I know people don't go flying back like in the movies when shot, but this guy seemed to be taking the first few rounds in his stride. Excessive, yes, but the shooting itself was the only way to make sure the officers lives weren't endangered.

So really, you asked the wrong question about human life: Is a police officers life worth less than a robber trying to potentially kill someone?

 

[JonnWood]

I love how Thyunda insists the police provoked the incident by getting too close to the perp, but still thinks they should not have tryed the taser, and should've subdued him in hand to hand instead. You know, the method that is a greater risk to the suspect and officer, and requires that they get even closer than they actually did, well in range of the suspect's weapon.

The other officer, seeing this, immediately starts shooting in defense of his fellow officer who at that very moment does not appear ready for such an attack.

A "leg shot" or anything other than center-mass shot is exceedingly stupid and just as likely to be lethal.

My conclusion is: Absolutely justified shooting. If the officer with the dog hadn't started shooting, the other officer might well be seriously injured or even dead right now.

This. Absolutely this.

If a cop hesitates when being attacked, no matter the weapon, that cop may die.

Cops don't point guns for fun. If they are pointing a gun at you, then they believe that you are trying to KILL them.

Cops shoot for center mass. Actually, anyone who's had any weapon training shoots for center mass. Anything else is movie magic - no one in the real world shoots for legs. It isn't possible (and as noted, leg shots are actually MORE fatal than many body shots - the femoral artery is a *****) to accurately hit the leg of a moving target.

So yeah - totally justified. The guy with the recording was still being an asshole though - I'll give you that one OP.

Correction; if they are pointing a gun at you, they believe you may be a threat. If they are firing at you, then they believe you are a threat.

The guys speaking in the recording apparently thought they were using rubber bullets.

 

[senordesol]

Wait was that an actual gun with bullets or a taser gun being fired, I'm a little confused..

Anyway I'll say it as I always do, in this situation I wouldn't expect a soldier with a pistol to unload a round onto someone with a sledge, I'd expect them to do it cleanly with one shot or not be so close in the first place that they put themselves in danger..

He was tazed first, turned to attack an officer, THEN shot.

It might also interest you to know that cops aren't soldiers, and that soldier's almost never fire a one-shot kill unless they are SpecOps

 

[JonnWood]

An Australian police officer would have difficulty claiming he followed correct procedure in that case;

I've seen some of the Aussie standards. You're wrong.

The officers got too close to the offender. There was no need for them to not maintain distance.

They needed to get within effective range for the taser, to attempt to subdue the suspect less-lethally. This was still outside the range of the suspect, unless he threw the crowbar. Note how the officer with the dog covers his partner against exactly this sort of thing happening.

The officer with the Taser shot at the head not body.

Body was covered in a thick jacket, less chance of penetration.

The officer with the dog should not have fired (his job is to deploy the canine unit if required). There are numerous other officers available and more back-up on the way.

Incorrect. He's there to support the other officers in the arrest, which is exactly what he was doing. Or would you have him just stand there as his partner got his head caved in? The dog has almost no chance of making it in time.

The officer should not have emptied his entire clip into the offender.

Why not? Once you employ deadly force, you do so until the suspect is not a threat, even if it kills them.

IMO the officer paniced and used more force than required, probably resulting in a fatality that could ahve been avoided.

I like how none of your points put any responsibility on the perp. If could've been avoided if the perp hadn't tried to take a swing, at which point his life was at the mercy of the police and Providence. Even if he had succeeded in the attack, he would've been shot.

 

[JonnWood]

Wrong. Once you fire at someone, you have employed Deadly Force, and you keep doing so as long as the target is still a threat. This is Firearms 101. The suspect was still standing, so the officer continued to fire until he went down. If the suspect was no longer a threat, whether from being incapacitated or dying, then the second volley would be excessive. But people have ignored gunfire before to strike at their attacker, especially if they were on drugs or mentally unstable. The police were there in the first place, BTW, because the suspect was smashing up the restaurant.

It doesn't take a genius to realise that spraying an unstable person may not be the best way to calm the situation.

They are not there to "calm the situation", they are there to ensure the safety of the public and arrest the suspect. Though letting an armed, mentally unstable suspect go free might be relatively calmer, yes.

Which by the way, they made very little attempt to do so. The suspect walked out of the restaurant with a metal tool and is shot 15 seconds later.

After attempting to use deadly force on a police officer who was trying to subdue him less-lethally, yes.

EDIT: I read up a bit and see you wrote that the police tried every effort before the suspect resorted to violence. He was outside of the restaurant for 15 seconds.

I didn't say "every effort". I said they were trying to capture him the easy way. I also said they had several more options besides tasing available before the suspect decided to smash a vase on the mantelpiece and get nuts [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu3s2ESzHwY&feature=related], metaphorically speaking.

I am glad police officers over here would rather defuse the situation peacefully, so justice can be done legally through the courts instead of by some fat idiot who doesn't know how to hold a firearm. Police are humans, they make mistakes. If this type of behaviour is the normal the risk is much higher for a fatal accident. I am not surprised that the US is viewed rather dimly in terms of law enforcement brutality and shootings.

Police would rather do it peacefully, but sometimes deadly force is warranted, such as when a suspect uses or attempts to use deadly force, especially on an officer.

Which means that he's judging from Irish cultural standards from over ten years ago. UK police generally don't even have guns in the first place.

Like I said, look it up. The police still carry firearms in Northern Ireland, the only region of the UK to do so.

My mistake. You did tell him the guy had been smashing up the windows of the restauraunt, right? He's trained in the use of Tasers? He knows their effective range? What are the current Garda procedures for their use? Does he know them?

You've been doing precisely that when you blamed the cops for this situation, while actively ignoring the suspect's responsibility, as you do even in this post. Yet when someone else does it and disagrees with you, it's wrong.

Hm.

Jesus fucking christ. I am not 'actively ignoring the suspect's responsibility' of course what he did was stupid. If he was off his face on meth or mentally unstable he may not have had full control over his actions (diminished responsibility and all that). The police left very little leeway and as a result had no other option but to shoot the man.

He could've dropped the weapon. He could've done that and gotten on the ground. He could've kept walking. He turned and tried to cave in a cop's skull, which is a ways past "stupid".

This was an indirect result of the cops' actions. It was a direct result of the suspect's actions. Similar events happen all the time, and the suspect is usually captured without serious injury, or surrenders. Of course, most of the time, the suspect doesn't try to attack the cop, and the taser works.

It is the actions of both parties which lead to the outcome, you are the one that has completely neglected to look at one side of it.

No, I have not. The fact that he may have been mentally unstable or on drugs was also evident to the police, but their priority is the public's safety. When he chose to attack them, whether unstable or not, he left them the option of a)risking harm to the officer, or b)ending the threat to the officer and public. If he had succeeded in his attack, the remaining cops would've shot him just the same, then he gets the needle if he survives, which is unlikely. This way, a cop doesn't end up dead or with brain damage.

 

[ElPatron]

Anyway I'll say it as I always do, in this situation I wouldn't expect a soldier with a pistol to unload a round onto someone with a sledge, I'd expect them to do it cleanly with one shot or not be so close in the first place that they put themselves in danger..

First, handguns are poor man-stoppers. This applies to 9mm Luger, .40 S&W or even the mighty .45 ACP. The projectiles are fired from a very short barrel at low speeds compared to rifles and depend on expansion to dump energy on the target. Failures to stop are not uncommon, you can still run around and kill people for a few seconds even if you have been peppered with lead. Hence the common practice is to shoot several times until the threat has stopped. It increases the hit probability on vital organs and compensates for bullets that fail to expand or penetrate adequately.

Second, panic. Shooting a weapon at a human being is not something to shrug off, even if you are a solider or a trained police officer. Fear makes people dump entire mags when they have to defend themselves, and it's not uncommon for a police officer to forget how many bullets he just fired.

 

[I Have No Idea]

Even if this is an old-ish thread, I'll still put my two cents here. This shooting was totally justified. This guy was almost definitely coked up on something serious, a thought made more likely considering the Taser had no effect on the guy. He had a crowbar, he was using it on windows and acting very violently. The officers told him to put his hands up (you can hear it in the video). The officer on the left attempted to Taze the suspect, but since it did squat, he went for his pistol. He was unprepared as the suspect came towards him swinging his weapon, and got exactly what was coming to him. If you say 10 shots was too much, it was two officers doing the shooting, and it's not like they were going to count each other's shots.

And for everyone saying "He could've gone for the leg shot!" consider this:

1) The leg is a small target, much smaller than center mass (the chest).
2) If you miss that small target, the bullet could potentially ricochet or fragment and cause injury to an innocent bystander.
3) Try aiming and shooting successfully at an erratically moving target that is 4 to 5 inches wide. And that target is swinging a hammer at you.

 

[Aprilgold]

Six shots point blank is a little more then enough to kill him. He very much could have shot him in this little area behind the ankle bone, granted, a hard shot, but definetly would droped him. I say its just that they don't equip officers with rubber bullets, just regular, they may work, but there were other methods.

I wonder if people are considering the situation from the cop's point of view.

The armed suspect has just been tazered. My comrade to my right is now unarmed until he resets the tazer or pulls his gun. I have the suspect covered with my gun, my other hand is occupied with the dog. Now the man is making a threatening motion with his weapon towards my comrade. I fire my gun to protect my fellow officer.

And for that matter, the five rounds both officers fired is standard. A suspect, even one not on drugs, can easily shake off five rounds and anything less. We see the man fall behind the car, out of frame, so we can't say with any certainty what happened next; the guy could not have fallen and been in the process of standing back up, he could have been crouched but not visibly neutralized or he could have been prone on the deck.

The other officer, the one who was being threatened, manages to pull his gun and fire another, standard, five rounds. That probably killed the suspect. Police, as with any shooter, are trained to fire until the target is dead. All was standard. Did the officers get too close? Possibly. At any rate, it all happened in seconds. How well could any of the Escapists have handled the situation, in as much time?

EDIT: This is also assuming that every round hit. It's highly probable that between the two cops only half of the rounds fired hit.

If it was a trained cop, all 8 rounds should have hit, and in all honesty, they should have told him to hold his ground, drop the weapon and surrender. As far as I can tell from the video, that didn't happen, what DID happen is that the man with the canine unit didn't release him when he got close. It also wasn't a crowbar, it was a metal tube with a big metal box. The tube very much so could have been very easy to shake off, while the box would pose trouble.

All I'm saying is that eight rounds from a trained cop should hit almost the whole time, also, the canine should have been released on the perp.

Next, the taser hit the head, which is not where you should aim a taser, since, quite literally. Your hitting a very hard bone. They should have aimed lower and at the chest, this would have probably done more then a head shot.

 

[Xangi]

HEY, I LOVE CARL'S JR.!

Yeah, I think the cop panicked more than a little, but seriously, the crowbar guy looked like he was about to bash the other cop's skull in, and if you've ever been on /gif/, you've probably seen what one swing of a crowbar can do to a human skull (hint: If the crowbar wasn't painted red before, it will be now). I would like to see the cop get a bit of psych treatment, because he probably feels like shit right about now for putting 8ish bullets into the guy in a fit of panic, but aside from that, I don't see anything wrong with the outcome.

Oh, and for anyone crying "leg shot" (didn't read the thread, but there are always a few), you clearly have never handled a firearm in your life. Also, a leg shot would just cause him to bleed out slowly and painfully, and still kill him anyway. Arm shots are also equally as non-viable, as it's goddam hard to hit a target that small, and he still would probably have killed at least one of them before he realized he was shot.

Oh, and one other thing, for you "rubber bullets" people. At that range, they would be lethal. in fact, somewhat more lethal than regular 9mm bullets, as the lack of sufficient penetration would probably shatter the man's ribcage, sending shards of bone into his internal organs. Another very painful way to die.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

It was justified from the looks of it he was about to swing something that looks like it would have at the very least hurt the cop or given him a concussion besides from the way he shrugged off that taser it looks like he wouldn't have reacted any differently to pepper spray or a baton the cop had a split second to decide weather he should let the dog go and probably get hurt or just shoot the criminal that was acting like he was going to beat the cops friend down.

 

[Starke]

If there had been a good distance it would have been advisable to go for non-vital parts like legs or arms imo but sadly the fine gentlemen recording the video were too inconsiderate to give us an angle and a measuring tape on the spot to judge whether or not the situation was 100% justified in using lethal force at the distance.

Not really, no. The femoral artery runs through the leg and can result in a massive rapid bleed out. Shots anywhere, even from handgun rounds can produce fatal levels of hydrostatic shock. There is no "shoot to wound" with modern firearms. It's a myth. Does not exist.

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

Suicide by cop. Fully justified.
As the old saying goes, "Don't bring a metal pole to a gun fight."

 

[Taham]

After you've got a firearm out, it's possible to be forced to shoot. Often there's no choice whether to draw a gun, but in this there was. They should have used non-lethal weapons, but sometimes the wrong choice is made. Those policemen made the wrong choice.

 

[secretsantaone]

Note: Why are you stuck on unrealistic ideas like shooting him in the leg? Or are you some kind of expert that has determined against all the police that you know better than them about shooting at the center of mass?

If I'm wrong and a shot to the leg is totally unfeasible and not even worth trying before shooting a man 8 times, then OK I'm wrong. What about only shooting once to the chest and seeing if the target stops instead of 4 times to the chest? The man with the 'crowbar' can be clearly seen to stop approaching the cop after the first bullet. Yet he is fired upon 8 times.
Shouldn't the police have enough self restraint to stop when a target has been subdued?

Because bullets don't work the same way they do in films. It's designed to pierce, not to stop, basically meaning one bullet on it's own has very little stopping power unless it hits somewhere vital.

There have been several reports of people not even realising they'd been shot until after the shooting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQxzrErec8U

A suspect gets shot and continues to attack the officer.
Imagine if he had a deadly weapon.

I understand this (and reference it in the same post you quoted), I just don't see how it's so hard to take 1-2 shots, back-step a bit and THEN continue firing if the target is still approaching. What about the 4 shots fired as the man with the 'crowbar' was falling down? He was very clearly moving away at that point, how were those 4 shots necessary?

Because he's in a position where if he waited, and those one or two bullets didn't stop him, his buddy could have had his head caved in. I realise the irony in this statement but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Because he wasn't falling down, he was still standing. If a man who has tried to attack you with a crowbar is still standing after 5 bullets to the chest, you put some more in him. Remember, the officer had made the decision at this point that the man had to die, you don't shoot someone 5 times and then attempt to restrain them.

This has already been resolved in later posts. I'm sorry to say but you have wasted your time.

Dat last word attempt.

"Dat" is bad English. Either way, the motive doesn't affect the truth of a statement.

Yeah, nah. There's no such thing as 'bad English'. Nice attempt to hold the high ground though.

 

[Starke]

After you've got a firearm out, it's possible to be forced to shoot. Often there's no choice whether to draw a gun, but in this there was. They should have used non-lethal weapons, but sometimes the wrong choice is made. Those policemen made the wrong choice.

According to the full news report on the incident, they actually did try to take him down with a Tazer. It didn't take.

It may look shitty but it seems like they actually did this one by the book.

 

[Pebblig]

I understand that they may have been completely justified and acted correctly. But does that mean it was necessary? A man died because he smashed some windows and took a swing at a police officer. They might as well take the same approach when it comes to protesters then.