Police officers, please read?

Question

Please read this article and give me your feedback.
Was this officer in the wrong? Was he justified? What would you have done?
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061103/A_NEWS02/611030315/-1/A_NEWS

Answer 1

I am not a police officer, but I had to read this and I think that in that situation it is hard to say.......Yeah she was small and her age, but that does not mean that she is not capable of doing any harm.....And the police I dont think had to handle it they way that they did.I dont belive that it is ok to kill anyone unless you really feel that your life is in danger~! I think that they could have took the knife from her and dealt with her the right way if they really wanted to~! I sit here sometimes and think how corrupt cops have become theese days and how much they get away with~!Some of them get a job as police officer just so they can "kill" and they think then it will be justicfiable~!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Sad...without a doubt. However she was unbalanced and despite her size a person with a knife can cover 22 feet of ground at a run in mere seconds. That leaves little time for a gun to clear a holster if its to be drawn.
She was tased and it had little effect. She threw one knife at the police and was still armed with another. I'm afraid I see little choice here and deadly force was applied to meet the same.
Its too bad. A goddamn shame in fact. But from my point of view I look at it thusly. I have a family. I want to come home at the end of shift and don't think that when i was on the streets I didn't pray every night that nothing would happen that would cause me to have to kill someone if the situation had deteriorated to that point where there was no alternative left.
Sometimes things came close and mercifully events changed...like the suspect dropping a weapon and giving up.
So...no one can say it's justified until the IA is done. By all appearences it appears to be but again, not being there leaves no alternative but to wait for the final outcome.
There are those who will still say that the cops should have shot her in the leg, wrestled her down because she was slight of build, etc. The reality of the situation is...you and I weren't there. It's easy to second guess and no cop...and I mean no cop likes to have a shooting under their belt. Especially if it leads to a death. You're charged with keeping the peace and a myriad of other laws. Many people comply. Others don't. Most cops haven't ever had to use their sidearm their entire career. It doesn't pay to second guess unless you know all the details.

Answer 4

First off I think that was a very biased article, and I'm not in any form a police officer. I wonder if it was possible to get a negotiator for the situation, because I doubt every officer is trained enough to handle that situation as effectively as a negotiator.

I think the officers were justified in protecting themselves, but I wonder if its standard to respond to this situation the way they did. They seemed to have entered and confronted the distressed woman rather quickly. I think they should have called for a negotiator that is fully qualified to communicate with the woman.

On a personal note, I think they acted too quickly because they are becoming a little to dependent on tazers. The tool is good if used properly, and I believe it was justifiable in this case. However, it is not reliable enough to take the risk of sending the woman over the deep end if it fails. That is why I still support professional negotiations before physical force is taken.

Answer 5

I was a prison guard. You are trained to take all weapon threats seriously regardless of who is weilding it. The officers were justified in their actions. They used the minimum amount of force necessary to control the situation. If the tazer didn't do the job once she became violent, then the next option was to fire their weapons. It's a sad thing to take a life, but officers have to protect themselves as well as the people around them. I'm not certain what I would have done in that situation. People who are mentally ill and/or on drugs or medications can be very unpredictable. And their bodies' responses to stimuli are abnormal as well. I don't know that I could have done anything differently.

Answer 6

I'm not a cop but it sounds like the officers were justified. Cops have seconds to make life-or-death decisions that affect both the public and themsevles. The woman was mentally/psychological distressed, had barricaded herself in a room armed with knives and refused to comply with the officers.

It's a sad outcome but when faced with a person attacking them with deadly weapons, the officers had no choice but to fire.

Officers are trained to fire their weapons at the largest body mass/target, the torso. They can't take the chance of missing and cops shooting weapons out of the hands of bad guys or "winging" them in the leg only happens in the movies. Besides, you can die just as quickly from getting shot in the leg if an artery is severed as getting hit just about anywhere else.

Answer 7

I examine in general technology fiction. Why the huge emphasis on getting some form of degree? What does yet another piece of paper on the wall practice? If a guy or woman can do their activity devoid of it, why get it? no longer definitely everyone seems to be academically prone. maximum folk can not spend limitless hours listening to (listening to) some coaching assistant examine a lecture in a droning voice. i think of school and its tiers are puffed up and pointless for fairly much each and every place. A commerce college can coach what's critical to do a activity. in case you opt to income what some author a hundred years in the past actual meant or pointers on a thank you to bounce, take an English Lit or dance classification. do no longer make ineffective training a compulsory portion of gaining awareness of what's basically a commerce.

Answer 8

she verbalized threats against the authorities, she acted upon those threats by throwing a knife at responding officers ... just what is the question here? The officers were responding to an immediate threat! You "monday morning quarterbacks" can slant it any way you want.

But the bottom line is that the officers have a responsibility to themselves FIRST! That responsibility is to finish the shift with exactly the same number of working parts they started it with, and have no more holes in their skin at the end of theior shift than they had at the beginning of it.

Seems like old knife throwing granny was a threat after all! HEY GRANNY! "HERE'S YOUR SIGN!"

Answer 9

a few things:
1 I wouldn't worry about her hurting me I would worry about the knife hurting me.
and 2 families always say something else could have been done it's a normal reaction I guess.
3 I would have shot. If you don't drop the knife when told I'm not waiting for you to decide. My life first.
and the newspapers aren't always accurate. I know both sides of some stories and then read the newspaper and they can twist it for sensationalism or just inaccurate information. This story doesn't sound off base. Simple she didn't drop the knife.

Answer 10

Unfortunately for the elderly woman, it reads justified even with the paper's slant on it. To bad to end like that but she charged officer's with a knife and then threw one at them. They reacted exactly as they are trained to. I can't say if I'd have done the same thing because I wasn't there but probably.