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If an assailant has shown intent to cause harm upon another person with a deadly melee weapon only a damned fool would get within striking distance of that weap

by talmand 11y ago

If an assailant has shown intent to cause harm upon another person with a deadly melee weapon only a damned fool would get within striking distance of that weapon. If that damned fool was armed with a potentially even deadlier weapon then he is an extremely dangerous damned fool. The reason the answer is to shoot the guy is because putting more people in danger is not a good solution. It can easily be shown to be an incredibly bad idea. If we're talking about taking the guy down with a non-lethal projectile then that's a different matter. Because it keeps you out of striking range of the melee weapon. It's kind of difficult to perform your duties as a police officer with a claw hammer sticking out of your head.

vidarh 11y ago
That makes the police officers damned fools for approaching in the first place. If that's what you mean, then I agree. The answer first became to shoot the guy because the officers were reckless enough to get that close without more backup rather than getting pedestrians to back away and trying to de-escalate the situation.
- talmand 11y ago
  I watched the video. I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. What I saw was two officers crossing the street in normal foot traffic. As they got close to the attacker, who was standing there non-threatening in the crowd, he lunged at them with a weapon that was likely difficult to see from their perspective or was hidden. The man attacked one officer repeatedly spilling out into the street. The other officer shot him. That's about as clean a shoot you can get. There was no way that situation was going to be deescalated by talking him down. He attacked them before anything had escalated in the first place. What would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do was for the second officer to engage the attacker by physical means instead of drawing his weapon and shooting him. An incredibly stupid thing that you seem to suggest should have been done. Or maybe you mean the second officer should have deescalated the situation before falling back on drawing his weapon even though the situation was the attacker beating his partner to death in the street right in front of him.

by talmand 11y ago

vidarh 11y ago

That makes the police officers damned fools for approaching in the first place. If that's what you mean, then I agree. The answer first became to shoot the guy because the officers were reckless enough to get that close without more backup rather than getting pedestrians to back away and trying to de-escalate the situation.

talmand 11y ago
I watched the video. I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. What I saw was two officers crossing the street in normal foot traffic. As they got close to the attacker, who was standing there non-threatening in the crowd, he lunged at them with a weapon that was likely difficult to see from their perspective or was hidden. The man attacked one officer repeatedly spilling out into the street. The other officer shot him. That's about as clean a shoot you can get. There was no way that situation was going to be deescalated by talking him down. He attacked them before anything had escalated in the first place. What would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do was for the second officer to engage the attacker by physical means instead of drawing his weapon and shooting him. An incredibly stupid thing that you seem to suggest should have been done. Or maybe you mean the second officer should have deescalated the situation before falling back on drawing his weapon even though the situation was the attacker beating his partner to death in the street right in front of him.