Everything in one... message!

Police are trained to shoot to kill. That's the simple fact of it. They guy could have thrown the knife, or whatever. Also, even if they shot to "wound", there's nothing to say the person won't die of the the wound. I read an article recently where a person did bleed to death after being shot in the leg. (shrug).

Shelagh

Is that some kinda justification?

Scary.

Also, even if they shot to

How relevant is that? Is this what happened? You don't fire some 10 bullets at a guy to wound him. For some reason he died on the spot.

This doesn't have anything to do with the guy that got shot in New Orleans, but here, the police have had a number of cases where the suspect had a gun and the police shot them, and they kept going for 20 or more minutes, though one person took 3 bullets in the chest. When they are high on crack or some other drugs, the body keeps going and going.....There are many different circumstances to cross that fine line when you are in genuine fear for your life or someone else's life. I don't know what I would do if I was in those circumstances and had to make a split second decision. Marie and the cats

, Apparently you are not familiar with the drug PCP, street name Angel Dust? If a perp is Dusted, they are impervious to pepper spray, or the use of tasers. As some one else mentioned, there have been perps who were shot several times and because of the effects of PCP, continued to resist. I, for one, am very glad that the officer who made the decision to shoot went home to their family at the end of shift instead of being carried to hospital or the morgue.

DA

I agree with Shelagh here. I think that it would be difficult to "shoot to wound" when you are in fear for your own life. JM2C.

Higs, Katherine

Quite so

Also, what most people who are not used to handing guns, particularly pistols, don't usually realise, is that it is dificult enough to hit a moving target anywhere let alone deliberately in the arm or leg and trying to do so then gives you the extra problems that even if you hit a) the bullet may compeletely penetrate the limb and go on to wound a bystander (much less likely with a hit in the torso) and b) even when wounded the police still have the problem of getting close enough to someone armed with a knife, and therefore still dangerous, to be able to subdue and handcuff them. Remember too, that this incident happened in New Orleans and that the police officers dealing with it are not likely to have been specially trained police marksmen with rifles or sub machine guns at their disposal but only their normal duty hand guns and possibly a shotgun which is even more difficult to wound with. Most ordinary beat officers are moderately trained shots not marksmen and even in USA these incidents are rare enough that is is quite possible the officers involved may never have dealt with something similar before and would therefore be both nervous and excited, which makes acurate shooting even more difficult.

Here in UK the police who respond to a call involving someone armed with a knife are unlikely to be carrying firearms and would have to deal with it using either a spray or a baton, but at much greater risk to themselves and possibly other people before they could subdue the perpetrator. Their training is based around using what they have got as is that of the US police and their mindsets, tactics and responses are totally different because of that.

No - it's a FACT. And I can't change it. That's how they're trained. People just don't seem to understand it.

I was merely making the point that even if a cop didn't shoot to "kill", only to wound, the person who was wounded might die anyway. I have no idea what actually happened in the first instance - I haven't read the article. Most people don't know the circumstances of what happened in ANY shooting, but make all kinds of judgements anyway based on what is written by someone who wasn't there. (shrug)

Shelagh

I don't know either.... I don't envy cops their jobs. They're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Shelagh

A-men to *that*! Noreen