Rube I agree with you on that, but given the fact that he had already attacked a person with the weapon he was refusing to drop, it would have been irresponsible for the police not to cut off his escape route...rubato wrote:The officer moved into his direction of travel, he was trying to get away with limited routes open to him.
Also, this was not a case of the cops showing up, and then suddenly moving to the use of lethal force:
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Stu ... 687494.phpWoods was fatally shot in the Bayview neighborhood Dec. 2 after at least five officers surrounded him in connection with an earlier nonfatal stabbing. Police said that he was armed with a kitchen knife used in the stabbing and that officers had no choice but to shoot him when he refused to drop the weapon despite attempts to disarm him with beanbag rounds [those two shots you hear earlier in the video were the bean bag rounds; the first one had a little affect; the second none at all...perhaps if they'd been equiped with 5 or 6 bean bag rounds that would have brought him down, but they weren't] and pepper spray.
I also wondered why they didn't try tasing him; the reason is because SF police are not equipped with tasers; not because of budgetary constraints, but for PC reasons:
So, the cops had exhausted all the non-potentially lethal options available to them, and clearly they couldn't just let this guy go on his merry way...Stun-gun debate heats up as S.F. Police Chief Suhr renews request
Even in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Mario Woods, little has changed in the heated debate over equipping San Francisco officers with electric stun guns since the last proposal was shelved more than two years ago.
In a meeting that went late into the night Wednesday, the Police Commission set a date to have a draft for improving the department’s use-of-force policy, which will include discussion of Chief Greg Suhr’s push to arm officers with stun guns, following the public outcry over Woods’ death.
Suhr and the police union counter that officers need every possible tool available to resolve an incident like the one that led to Woods’ death — and that the community deserves a police force with more options than lethal force.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Stu ... 687494.php
But all of that having been said, let me make very clear:
That all justifies, (as BSG suggested) maybe one or two shots to be fired...
But it does NOT justify five cops going Melvin Purvis versus John Dillinger on the guy, firing 20 rounds in what looks like the police equivalent of a "feeding frenzy"....
) at the time:
