Do you believe Police Officers should have a shoot to kill policy ?

Answer 1

Well I don't know about you but I don't know any Officers that "Shoot to wound".

As a firearms instructor, I teach all Officers/Students to shoot until the threat is stopped. And they are not taught to avoid using their firearm. If their life or the life of another is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, deadly force is applied.

It is called deadly force simply because the act of shooting a human being has a high probability of causing death to the subject confronting a Police Officer.

Tasers are not a deadly force weapon, they are intermediate force. What has changed since the introduction of the Taser is that some deadly force situations have been avoided by successfully using a Taser as an alternative.

Answer 2

No. A shoot to kill gives police officers in general too much power. Police power is a double edged sword working against you because its intimidating, nerve wracking, and sometimes deadly, but sometimes it can work for you. The problem is that it's a gamble whether or not the protector will transform into a predator. Too may times I've heard someone was killed by a police officer. The officer becomes judge and jury in a split second and condemns another human life to execution.

Too many people are dying from not only shoot to kill defenses with guns but by tasers used for instant behavior modification. It's an atrocious abuse of power when they resort to murdering an elderly woman in a wheelchair to death with a taser.

If it's self-defense, it better be provable self-defense. If it's murder, the murderer(s) should have to stand trial.

Answer 3

Police officers are trained to shoot for center mass. Shooting a handgun accuratley is much harder then they potray in the movies. Attempting to shoot someone directly in the head or heart in the heat of the moment can be very difficult. Pretty much they shoot until the subject is no longer of a threat to the officer or public in the immediate area. If this means death, so be it. So a "shoot to kill policy" may be a bit far fetched unless you mean loading an entire clip into someone.

Answer 4

You're probably hate this answer.....

Pow, pow, pow, yes.

I don't care who they are, if a police officer's life is in danger, down they should go.

I actually miss the days when they simply yelled, Stop or, I'll shoot.

I had an acquaintance in high school who died as the result of a stop or, I'll shoot episode in the 70's. A police officer shot him once leaving a robbery. He would have lived except that he made it to the car and his friends, scared, drove around with him in the car all night, allowing him to bleed to death.

Yes, it was very sad and he was a nice guy overall, but he should have stopped.

I'm sorry, but that is how I feel about it and that is how I felt about it even then. We cannot allow anarchy. Police officers have a right to have their orders respected and if you choose not to obey, you should be taking your life in your hands.

Answer 5

There is no such thing and to consider such a policy shows how little you people know about real combat and use of deadly force. We shoot to stop and are trained to shoot center mass of the target available to us at the time. That is a more reasonable policy that I have been using for 14 years. If that means you die as a result of us trying to stop the immediate threat then so be it. Also we shoot as many times as we feel is needed to "stop the threat" it may be one round it may be thirty rounds whatever it takes to stop the threat. People who think there is some magic number of times we should be allowed to shoot or think we need to aim at specific parts of the body know nothing about what is realistic in our world or in any combat required job task.

Answer 6

All joking aside, the answer is yes. Let us say that an officer shoots to wound someone who is attempting harm on another person. The bad guy then kills the victim and maybe others are killed or injured. How would you defend that action in a wrongful death or personal injury suit when it is filed against you?

Not only that but if you are trained to injure and you kill the suspect, his family then has recourse to sue you.

Answer 7

Yes and no. Personally i think it should be like the "old days" where we all get to carry a gun. This way all the automatics would be banned and we would be limited to certain "weapons" only for one thing. For another i don't see anything wrong with a good ol' fashioned hanging instead of the electric chair and right in the town square. I think this way these idiots would know WE are serious about CRIMES committed against ourselves and our neighbors.

The cops should no longer be put in this position of "shoot to kill". They need back up from the community since our tax dollars obviously aren't getting there and too many cops anymore are getting mentally crazed on the job for obvious reasons and are trigger happy, not to mention tazer happy!

This way all it would take for them is the ol' " put em up". You know where the sherriff puts the gun to them and the idiots would know there is no "process" except they better just pop lock and drop it!!

Further the townspeople, (us), if we are unhappy could come rushing to the then small jail houses with our pitchforks when we believe there is a "predator" in there that needs to go DOWN!

Answer 8

Only in situations that offer no reasonable alternative in order to preserve the life of a potential victim.

Addition: Or, of course, the Police Officer.

Answer 9

yes and some thing to jam any electronics that might be close enough to record them.
its has become a sad day when we think that the officers have to be more than human, and the bad guys can do what ever they want with out worry that a police officer will do his job. seems that when they do their job these days they get fired or worse they are the ones sent to jail it is a sad day indeed.

Answer 10

I'm not a cop, but it's my understanding that Police Officers are trained to try and avoid using their guns; but, when they have to they always shoot to kill.