San Francisco Police shoots man with knife

You've got a point there. I guess any sociopath these days could easily pass a psychological tests.

It doesn't work like that. Bullets are lethal. Shooting at someone is a lethal action. You're only doing it because the situation requires the threat to be eliminated as efficiently as possible. Hitting legs is harder than hitting the torso. Aiming center mass increases the likelihood of hitting the target, and increases the likelihood that a hit will eliminate the threat. Aim for the legs, and you're more likely to miss. This is a problem. For starters, this is a problem because bullets are lethal. Bullets that miss the target have to end up somewhere. By aiming center mass, there's less of a chance that the bullet is going to end up in some innocent bystander. Secondly, bullets are lethal. Firing a gun at someone at all is a potentially lethal action. You don't do it unless there's a clear threat. And if you're doing it, your intent should be to eliminate that threat as efficiently and quickly as possible. If I ever have to shoot at someone, you're goddamn right that I'm gonna try to aim center mass. This ain't Hollywood. If I have the luxury of aiming for someone's legs then I probably shouldn't be shooting that person at all.

of course it doesn't work like that, protocol in this country is to get a kill at all costs apparently, keeping a perimeter around him while continuing to deploying non-lethal tactics wasn't a serious consideration

It's crazy how so many people with 0 experience and 0 training think they know how something should've been handled.

It doesn't matter what other people have done, these guys shouldnt risk their life or body for some nut job with a knife.

I don't understand why police officers in the U.S shoot to kill. For instance, the man in question didn't comply and needed to be incapacitated, but why shoot him dead? Can't you just shoot him in the legs?

I've seen numerous videos of police killings that could've easily been avoided with a shot to the leg instead of the head, without going into the debate of whether firearms should've been used in the first place.

I love that excuse. Anyways, if it's wrong, it's wrong and if it can be done another way, it can be done another way.

Dude, you weren't talking about non-lethal tactics, you were talking about deliberately shooting him in the fucking leg.

@drunk_pi: of course you sarcastically love that excuse, It pertains to you. I know you like to pretend that you would always do the right thing with no mistakes in split second situations, but so does every other KB cop basher.

They did nothing wrong and they tried another way before taking him down. No body has to risk bodily harm or their life for filth.

I think it's an odd attitude that so many think "**** him" or that he deserves to be killed. Would you say the same if it was your relative? Maybe a friend with a mental illness like schizophrenia? The principle that it's ok for the police to be judge, jury and executioner is wrong imo.

That UK police video is old too, officers are routinely deployed with tasers these days especially to a call on an armed individual which makes things a lot swifter. I'm not sure what the officer in the US video is doing, he walks right into the guy's path and makes no effort to move backwards opening fire instead. Imo there's just no doubt the US police have issues, plenty of nations deal with similar situations without killings nor a substantial rise in officer deaths. US police kill more individuals in days than many developed nations do in a year.

You could argue that blacks are not significantly more at risk of being shot by police than other races for a given police encounter though rather than pointing to a few examples:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html?_r=0

While blacks are disproportionately shot by police relative to their makeup in the general population, their rates of being shot tend to fall in line with the number of police encounters and their arrest rates.

Blacks have a disproportionately high number of encounters with police, disproportionately high arrest rate, and therefore disproportionately high killed rate.

I don't always know the right thing but I don't accept what's happening in our country. If you think this is alright, get your head checked. No one is bashing the police but the criticism is on how they handle these types of situations, among other controversies, from Tamir Rice to Eric Garner. The police aren't judge, jury, and executioner.

As others have pointed out, shooting someone in the legs or arms doesn't necessarily work nor is it desirable since you can miss. The point is, imo, that the gun should be used as a last resort unless the person is known to be armed with a gun or has committed a crime with a gun.

theres been some bad calls for sure. But this isn't one of them. This is no way a wrong call. The police aren't judge jury and executioner as you constantly repeat but what they are is the line of protection between crazies like this guy and the public. He had already harmed one other person and couldn't leave that area. He wasn't phased by bean bags and wasn't complying, next step is to shoot. No one should risk their life for him.

I think the problem is your are falling for the hype and believe that these occurrence are way more common than they really are these days. People don't hate cops these days, they hate white cops. People don't care about others lives. They care about black lives. And that's all this boils down to is a black guy got shot.

You have to get close enough to use it, which means you are in knife range.

He had just attempted to kill someone with a knife, he didn't surrender and he got what he deserved by his own actions.

Neutralizing and killing are the same thing.

He wasn't in the midst of attacking anybody the moment he was shot, and considering that he was likely mentally ill I find it hard to declare they were deserving of anything. We have a serious problem in this country of proactively putting the mentally ill under the right custody and instead let them wonder the streets to be dealt with by police.

True. I suppose a better word to use is incapacitate. The first 2 shots put Laquan on the ground, removing him from really being any threat. But the officer kept piling on more shots which pretty much turned it into an execution or assassination, which ever word you fancy...

Of course it matters what other people have done when they've done things that work better than what we're doing now. Think for a second about the differences between the San Fran police and the UK police. The guy in San Fran had a kitchen knife, walking away from the police and was shot dead. The guy in the UK had a machete and was swinging at police and was apprehended alive. The mentality of the police force in the States needs to change because other countries have shown that yes, you can apprehend a more dangerous suspect alive, but that's the problem with this country in general. We are VERY stubborn and we don't want to learn how to do things differently when other countries show their ways work better.

Maybe that works in Hollywood but not in reality.

Well, that's the thing...the police aren't deciding who "deserves" to die. The guy got shot because he was dangerous. If he was acting that way because he was mentally ill, that sucks. But him being mentally ill doesn't mean he's less dangerous. If it's an injustice that he was left on the street to get dealt with by the cops, that's not the cops' fault. That's the fault of a system that doesn't provide enough opportunities for treatment of the mentally ill. But it's not the cops' fault that the guy's mental illness wasn't properly addressed. They're just the guys who have to keep a dangerous man from hurting anyone. And he was dangerous and the tried non lethal means.

Of course they COULD have apprehended him alive. No one's suggesting that that would have been literally impossible. The point is that doing so would have put the officers at risk, and that's a risk not worth taking.

If they could, they should. Two major problems here with this scenario:

1) No tasers were used
2) Officer put himself in the path of the guy as he was walking away forcing the deadly shooting

The police did not exhaust every non-lethal option, and they put THEMSELVES at risk more so than they needed. He wasn't swinging that knife at anyone even when the cop got in his path. And well, if he's mentally ill, even more important to take him down alive to get him some help. Also, every officer did not need to shoot that man. That was overkill. They were also close enough to take out his legs. Now, if he lunged towards a cop, sure, fire away in self-defense, or if he had a gun out, shoot him before he aims at a cop and fires. But again, the suspect posed NO IMMEDIATE THREAT to any of the cops at that time that warranted him being fatally shot.

I normally defend cops when these videos come up, but I'm not finding much of a good case with this one.

And for god's sake, people, stop saying that cops should have shot for the legs. Seriously, DON'T SAY THAT. That doesn't fucking work out well, it's a fucking stupid thing to do, and even suggesting that as a viable option shows that you have zero grasp of how reality works. And that disconnect between your thinking and how reality works makes it way too easy to dismiss every other possibly valid point you make as just the rantings of someone who watches way too many movies and plays way too many video games.

You don't fucking shoot for the legs, dude. Firstly, that increases the chances of missing the target entirely. Secondly, that increases the chance that even if you do successfully shoot the guy, that he's still gonna be able to **** you up. Thirdly, shooting a person in the leg is not a non-lethal tactic, as the movies would portray. Shooting a dude in the leg can absolutely kill the shit out of a dude, which makes it a lethal response. Once you're already resorting to taking a lethal response, you goddamn better shoot center mass because that's the most effective way to reduce the threat.

Everyone, please get this out of your heads. Deliberately shooting for the legs is pure Hollywood bullshit that makes absolutely no fucking sense and has zero relevance to how actual human beings should behave when they're putting their goddamn lives at risk. Stop saying that cops should aim for the legs, because the second you say that you make yourself look ignorant as hell and that makes people far less likely to take any good ideas you have seriously.

Except that it's worked before. Had a friend who stopped a bank robber by shooting him in the leg. You know what happened? He dropped the gun because his reaction was "Holy shit, I got shot in the leg!" The thing is, by not saying we shouldn't try to aim for appendages means two things: 1) We remove yet another non-lethal approach to incapacitate someone and 2) We aren't doing enough training to make sure officers are capable of aiming at their targets. And like I said, they were close enough to shoot his legs. They were like, what, six, seven feet from him? If you can't hit someone's legs from that distance, then you shouldn't be using a gun at all.

And I hope you never have a bad day to the point where someone calls the cops on you and they'd rather kill than you try to get you help. Better yet, I hope you never have a loved one who has a bad day and the cops decide to kill them, meaning you'd live the rest of your life wondering if the police did all they could to take them down alive.

When the guys holding the guns tell you to drop the knife or they'll shoot, you better fucking drop the knife.

Seriously.

You are being incredibly unrealistic just because of one situation doesn't mean it will work for all of them ESPECIALLY if that suspect is on drugs.... Come on now

Anecdotal evidence. I can only tell you this.....you are taught to shoot center mass. Once the option to use your gun is the option you need to use....you go center mass. Period. Otherwise don't pull out a gun.

Yep, I'm being unrealistic, because a SECURITY GUARD apparently can shoot better than a POLICE OFFICER. The reality is we live in a society where our police force deems it easier to shoot and kill someone instead of keep shooting them with bean bags until they go down. It's easier to shoot and kill someone than it is to use a taser. It's smarter to put yourself IN THE WAY of a man with a knife, and it's easier to kill him instead of waiting for him to ACTUALLY FUCKING TRY TO ATTACK YOU WITH THAT KNIFE. Yeah, that reality is horrible, which I guess is why I'm unrealistic.

I understand that, but when a suspect ISN'T FUCKING ATTACKING YOU, you should be calm enough to NOT SHOOT FOR CENTER OF MASS. If that isn't the case then BETTER TRAINING IS NEEDED.

Dude, if you have the luxury of deliberately aiming for the guy's leg, then you shouldn't be shooting him AT ALL. Shooting someone in the leg is not a non-lethal action. That can easily kill a person. Once you've deemed it necessary to go that far, then you'd better fucking aim center mass. This is ESPECIALLY true when the target is only six feet away from you. Do you have any idea how close six feet is? And "it worked before" doesn't mean shit. If you caught me trying to drive drunk and I said, "I did it before and it worked out okay", you'd call me an idiot. Just because something happened to work before doesn't mean it isn't a really fucking stupid thing to be doing.

No one should be arguing against this.

@Justplainlucas Using profanity really helps your case and nice way to miss the entire point. He is not far away from the officer and just because he gets shot in the leg doesn't mean he is instantly going down. Congrats that your friend managed to get a bank robber but not every situation is the same as that one and the fact that you seem to think it is....

People who say shoot to wound are hilarious.

Also it's disgusting that these police put people in danger by shooting beanbags at him.

Here's how it should go...

"Put the knife down"

Person does not put the knife down.

Police shoot multiple rounds center mass.

End of conflict

What the Christ?

No, no it's not.

Know how you can tell it's not? There's life all around you. It's not like this was the last person on earth, he was another criminal who needed to be put in his place.

Five feet away and still missing? You need more range time.

The people saying to shoot the alleged criminal in the leg or appendage don't shoot much, don't know how the police are trained, etc.., This isn't Lethal Weapon, Die hard or The Good, the Bad and The Ugly. Maybe John Wayne and Martin Riggs can do it but Hollywood can do anything.

Yeah, it can kill a person if it hits the artery and the cops don't get him medical attention. Much less lethal than say 14 (or however many times he got shot) shots to the chest. So really, even if you were that close to someone that you COULD shoot them in the legs, you should still shoot to kill...

There's a reason why people are arguing this. There is a better way to handle these situations and considering other people have handled them better suggests that police need to be trained better. They have options to apprehend people alive, yet most of the time they choose the last resort of shoot to kill before they exhaust all their other options when they clearly didn't here. Using the last resort before options are exhausted means that isn't the last resort...

Sorry if profanity bothers you, but don't kid yourself trying to discredit someone's argument because they drop an f-bomb or two. As for the point, if he's that close to the officers, he's that close for the officers to be able to shoot him in the legs. Trust me, all those bullets he got center mass would have taken him down if they went into his legs. And I know every situation isn't the same, but I know this guy was less of a threat than the one in the UK who wielded a larger weapon and actually swung at the cops, yet this particular situation ended up with a worse outcome.

Let me just clarify something. Again, I usually side with the cops in most of these kinds of threads, but I can't with this particular one. There are somethings that prevent me from doing so. 1) He wasn't running at any cops. 2) He wasn't attacking any cops. 3) He didn't even have the knife raised in the air. He was shot because he simply didn't listen. And that isn't reason enough to fire that many times into one person. Mass shooters have been taken into custody when all they had to do was raise the gun and start shooting. They had guns trained on the shooter and waited for them to surrender. Far dangerous people were apprehended in far deadlier situations.

To be honest, you don't know what you would do when you snap. That's what happens when you go crazy. You lose control. You don't even know 100 percent what your boyfriend would do either. I hope it never happens, but let me tell you, if it ever did, you'd pray to God (provided you are religious) that the cops did everything they could to bring him in alive, and you resent them if you found out there was a way they could, but didn't. And if I was a police officer, probably nothing would change since I'd be trained to shoot to kill and would possibly lose my job if I went against that training.

The lack of empathy is what I find disgusting. Here's how it should go down.

"Put the knife down."
Person does not put the knife down.
Person gets shot with taser.
If person drops knife, arrest. If taser doesn't work and suspect advances, then shoot.

Honestly, somebody in this thread give me a valid excuse as to why tasers weren't even attempted.

The reason why people are arguing this is because some faction doesn't understand that once you decide a gun is needed it's center mass. Period.

That's the correct way to aim your weapon if that is the way you have to go. And someone a few feet away with a knife...which they've already used against another that doesn't want to drop the weapon leaves the police with no other option.

And I'm sorry but those arguing against center mass are naive. That is how law enforcement and the military are taught. And it's the best option for the safety of others.

@fueled-system said:

@Justplainlucas Using profanity really helps your case and nice way to miss the entire point. He is not far away from the officer and just because he gets shot in the leg doesn't mean he is instantly going down. Congrats that your friend managed to get a bank robber but not every situation is the same as that one and the fact that you seem to think it is....

Sorry if profanity bothers you, but don't kid yourself trying to discredit someone's argument because they drop an f-bomb or two. As for the point, if he's that close to the officers, he's that close for the officers to be able to shoot him in the legs. Trust me, all those bullets he got center mass would have taken him down if they went into his legs. And I know every situation isn't the same, but I know this guy was less of a threat than the one in the UK who wielded a larger weapon and actually swung at the cops, yet this particular situation ended up with a worse outcome.

Let me just clarify something. Again, I usually side with the cops in most of these kinds of threads, but I can't with this particular one. There are somethings that prevent me from doing so. 1) He wasn't running at any cops. 2) He wasn't attacking any cops. 3) He didn't even have the knife raised in the air. He was shot because he simply didn't listen. And that isn't reason enough to fire that many times into one person. Mass shooters have been taken into custody when all they had to do was raise the gun and start shooting. They had guns trained on the shooter and waited for them to surrender. Far dangerous people were apprehended in far deadlier situations.

And all it takes is a second for the distance the man is at to lunge at the officers. And no I do NOT trust you that shooting at his leg will just make him go down and instantly end the conflict. This man was a threat he refused to obey orders given to him multiple times and had a weapon that put those officers and civilians lives at risk.

If you want to blame the police here you should direct it at the higher ups who teach how to handle this situation though maybe they can teach you why your point of view puts their lives in more danger.

Also much less effective at stopping the target than 14 rounds to the chest. Also much more likely to miss the target and have stray bullets flying around than 14 rounds to the chest.

Again, for the way-too-many-eth time, regardless of how close you are, you still have MORE of a chance of hitting the target and reducing the threat by shooting center mass.

And again, do you have any idea how close six feet actually is? Do you really have any idea how quickly and easily someone who's six feet away can close that distance and **** you up? That is practically right on top of you, dude. Which means you'd be stupid as shit to aim for the legs at that range, because that's less than a second away from you getting fucked up. If you're that close, you'd goddamned better take the son of a bitch down as fast as possible, and that means aiming center mass.

And no, the reason that people are arguing this is because they're ignorant. Even if there are viable options to apprehend people alive, shooting them in the leg is not fucking one of them. Abandon this idea, because it's a really stupid one. And again, even if there is something wrong with police rules of engagement, even if you have a good idea for how these situations should be handled, stop saying that cops should shoot people in the leg. That is SO ridiculous that it literally makes you look like you don't have the slightest clue wtf you're talking about. And once you've made yourself out to look like you have no idea wtf you're talking about, you're making it way too fucking easy for people to disregard any good ideas you make as just the loony fantasies of someone who already established himself as not knowing wtf he's talking about

You don't aim for the legs. I mean, shit...this is a videogame site, yes? Well experience says that you don't even aim for the legs in fucking video games. Not unless you want some kind of "non-lethal" achievement, and even in that case the only reason it's a special achievement is because it's a lot fucking harder to do legshots without either missing the target or taking damage.

You can thank the Left and the ACLU for putting the mental patients on the street.

Do the left have a history of not caring about the mentally ill?