[immiketoo]

Ok, I've finished my doughnut and the renegade skateboard calls, so here goes. In a vaccuum (have not read any articles) it looks like a fully justified use of force. The guy looks to be carrying conduit bender and has already exhibited violent tendencies before police arrival.

Lethal force is justified to protect yourself or another from great bodily harm (GBH) or death. It is allowed BEFORE GBH, so the officer does not have the requirement to wait until the offender decides.

Also, in most TASER situations, there is a TASER officer and a lethal cover. Department policies and national best practices prevent having a TASER and a firearm out at the same time, so when the offender turned toward the TASER officer and shouldered the weapon, the lethal cover officer saw the threat and did his job.

The offender did not obey officer commands despite the display of a variety of weapon systems and then turned on an officer. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Justified by all outward appearances.

To address those complaining about the number of shots: Once deadly force is justified, it is irrelevant how force is applied, whether it be gun, back hoe, or tire iron. While it is objectionable to many civilians, the number of rounds do not matter. We are trained to stop shooting once the threat is stopped. Apply the reasonable officer standard here. Was the 1.5 seconds from start to finish a reasonable amont of time to decide to make the biggest decision of your career, act on that thought, be concerned for stray rounds considering the number of civillian personnel standing around and then realize that the threat was over before emptying his weapon?

That's for the courts to decide, but based on my training and experience, that's how the trial will go down.

Now, could there have been a viable alternative to handling this? Perhaps, but its easy to pick it apart from behind our computers with varying degrees of bias and life experience.