No one has claimed it looked like a gun. He was running towards the police with a gardening hoe with a clear intention to hit him. There's video of it in this thread. This is not an example of a police shooting an innocent person. They shot someone that was attacking them with a lethal weapon.
Billy club, taser, or just a good old Sparta kick to the chest. If lethal force is your first instinct when a child comes at you with a stick, you should in no way be allowed to carry a weapon.
The point is that it's quite easy here to observe the video comfortably from your couch at home and with the power of hindsight ponder what they should've done instead. The officer being attacked here had no such luxury. This is in no way me saying that there's zero issues on how policing is done in the US. There's nuance to these things.
US cops really have stored up an incredible amount of badwill, haven't they? Now, I can't help but see Nolan's Batman film (whichever the one is with cops in tunnels), Brooklyn 99 and others as straight up copaganda. Just zero sympathy. The balance will shift at some point, it has to.
Lacy said the family also reported that after the shooting, the family was forced out of the home while officers “rummaged through their house looking for any justification for shooting and killing Ryan”.
Edit: Ok, I read the article. Yeah, him charging at the cop with that tool was a really bad move. I still think the situation could have been handled differently. Could have.
Tasers, batons, or just run away. Diffuse the situation. Imagine a judge saying "You charged against a cop with a gardening tool? Sentence to DEATH!"
The boy didn't get a fair trial. He was murdered with no justification.
Officer was backing away from the kid, and turned to run away from him. The officer was actively retreating from the attack at the time the shots were fired.
Two officers were present. It is not clear from the video who fired the shots. It is very clear, however, that the kid was actively attacking the officer.
To safely employ a tazer in this situation, the cop would have needed body armor completely covering his head, neck, torso, arms, groin, and legs. Wearing anything less than full riot gear, that attack posed an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. Striking the officer's head or neck with a bladed weapon could destroy an eye, sever the carotid artery, or cause a wide variety of maiming or permanently disfiguring injuries.
Employment of a pain compliance method is only feasible once that threat has been stopped, delayed, or mitigated.
Neither of the officers present appeared to have had any opportunity to use a tazer or less-lethal device to stop the attack.
I see. And what training, instruction, or other expertise do you have to support your assertion that this was a "non lethal situation"?
I believe that I could cause a permanently disfiguring, debilitating, or lethal injury with any of the long-handled tools in my shed. I believe if a racist teenager swung one of these tools at a black man, you, too, would consider it to have been a use of lethal force.
I think a reasonable person facing a 15-year-old attempting to strike them with any of my gardening equipment would reasonably fear a threat of death or grievous bodily harm.
I reject your characterization of this as a "non lethal situation".
He was 15. You're saying that two trained and experienced police officers couldn't deal with a 15 year old boy. Don't make me laugh. "Bladed weapon"? Was the kid a samurai?
They deal with hardened criminals and meth labs in San Bernardino. But a confused 15 year old was their arch nemesis? No one is going to believe that and they better not try to convince a jury with that story. Like the acorn guy, these cops are going to be laughed off the force.
Tazers fail. A lot. You have one shot and if one of the two barbs don't both go in for a good connection it doesn't work. It's not something anyone would want to count on in a situation where you or someone else is being attacked.
If you have multiple cops at the scene though, you can easily have one go through the tool kit using tazer, pepper spray, etc, while the other one covers them with a gun.
That's not as simple as it sounds. Even if they somehow knew exactly what has happening and had pre-arranged a plan of action, by the time they knew the taser has failed, the partner is as likely to shoot the other officer as the assailant.
Tasers simply aren't effective in these situations.
Pre-arranged plans... Hmmm like Standard Operating Procedures? Or Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures?
They didn't need a football pre game huddle. It's as simple as one guy saying "cover me" while they choose a less lethal option. This is literally why they train. Why we give them so much money.
And just because you deploy a Taser does not mean you stop creating space. Likewise, there is no rule that the partner needs to take a shot from 10 meters away. Standard infantry practice for an engaged buddy is to get right up in there and shoot where you can be sure of it. Just make sure you call the shot so your buddy knows to turn away. Which is all also training.
These guys ran straight into an unknown situation and someone died because of it.
Wasn't there a case some year back where a police officer was attacked and they mistakenly grabbed their gun instead of their tazer due to panic? The details are murky.
