Soldato
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Its America, cops will not take the risk, better to shoot than be killed.
Dumb kid was dumb, he failed to listen to cops, he got shot dead.
Justified or gun happy?
- Thread starter Kronos
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Its America, cops will not take the risk, better to shoot than be killed.
Dumb kid was dumb, he failed to listen to cops, he got shot dead.
a) and when told to put his hands up he reached for the weapon.
b) should they have waited until he was pointing it at someone, putting their life at risk, and basically gambling that they could incapacitate him before he pulled the trigger?
How long exactly do you think it takes to take a gun from your waistband, point it at someone and pull the trigger?
Totally justified, he made a hostile move of reaching for his gun, and seriously what 12 year old does not put their hands up when being faced by armed police?
Scraping off the orange markings to make it look real and pointing it at people to terrify them is a crime that any 12 year old knows not to do, this was not some totally innocent kid.
Scraping off the orange markings to make it look real and pointing it at people to terrify them is a crime that any 12 year old knows not to do, this was not some totally innocent kid.
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While I can see how this was the end result, as tragic as it was I do wonder...in that situation where the police are uncertain and it IS a child after all, why shoot to kill? Surely a leg shot would be sufficient. Put him out of action so to speak, a child is not going to carry on 'threatening' after that.
He was also a kid who at that moment realised he wasn't a big tough guy and went back to being a 12 year old, who was scared witless.
Like I've and others have said could very well have been attempting to put the gun down.
We could say he was either going to put it down or point it at someone, so the police officers killed him on a 50/50 chance. I'd rather the odds have been shortened to he was raising the firearm to point it at someone 1st.
a) is irrelevant. It was reported he had been. It was reported that there was a gun. They did not know that it was real or fake. With the ease with which children can get their hands on weapons in the US, it is best to assume every single one is real. That way you go home to your family instead of being shot by some little gang banger or someone that's decided to kill a few cops before going suicide by cop.
b) he reached for it. That is enough. It would be exactly the same here. Life is not a movie. Nobody goes in bullet time. Nobody shoots pistols out of peoples hands. You do as you're told when you have guns pointed at you. If you're told to put your hands up, you reach for the sky. If you're told to jump you say how high. "He was 12, how would he know that". Because he lives in America. Damn it I knew that **** when I was 12. If the cops or a squady here pointed a weapon at you, you stopped dead in your tracks like Simon said.
The only people who would think this wasn't justified have not grown up in a society with a gun culture, or a gun culture as extreme as the US, where the youngest school shooter in history is just six damn years old.
This argument is always used. You know how hard it is to accurately shoot someone in a limb? Miss and the bullet ricochets off something, or carries on going...
50/50 chance. Definately worthy shooting someone on those odds regardless of age.
Police are trained to aim for the centre of mass, as it is the largest target.
Your leg is a few inches wide, it's a tiny target, and if you're walking/running, is constantly moving, as opposed to the torso which is far bigger, and more stable.
Smaller, harder to hit target = more chance to miss, meaning stray shots/ricochets (not what you want with bystanders) and less chance to incapacitate the target, allowing them the opportunity to fire back.
People watching too many Hollywood movies and too much COD. My time spent with a browning I was lucky if I could even hit the target at any considerable distance. Especially when you're emptying a clip in one go.
You're right, there is probably a good 0.5 seconds in between those two things?
Edited... *** How about you keep calm and play nice ***
What's more likely, a child who isn't acting agressively when the police officers arrive suddenly point and shoot or put the gun down.
No it isn't.
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Can we stop calling replica firearms 'toy guns'? They are NOT toys.
He wasn't stood there with a plastic M16 from an action-man dressup outfit.
It's not really 50/50 though, he'd already proven that he wasn't going to listen to instructions/cooperate. It's then a split second judgement call on whether he's not listening because he's scared, or because he wants to shoot you.
Then you are stupid.
Break it down to its most simple form.
You as an officer attend a scene where someone has a gun.
There is a 50/50 chance this person will shoot at you, a colleague or a bystander.
What do you do then?
Question that I don't think has been raised here yet:
Did the Police arrive with sirens on? (my guess is they did) If so, that'd have given him ample time and warning that the Police were present, before he even heard any instructions to put his hands up.
Baffling why he reached for his replica firearm, perhaps he had been reading a bit too much about 50 cent and thought the odd bullet or 2 wouldn't cause much damage?
Stupid kid.
Did the Police arrive with sirens on? (my guess is they did) If so, that'd have given him ample time and warning that the Police were present, before he even heard any instructions to put his hands up.
Baffling why he reached for his replica firearm, perhaps he had been reading a bit too much about 50 cent and thought the odd bullet or 2 wouldn't cause much damage?
Stupid kid.
Are you unable to think properly.
The kid has a gun. In a school. A member of public has rung up and said he is waving a gun around, concerned for her saftey as well as others. So must be some indication of aggression.
Then. THEN...
He reaches for his gun when asked to put his hands in the air.
To the police that is aggression. The action of reaching for a gun is aggression...
HE panicked and wanted to toss it before he got shot. He was planning suicide by cop. The first is the most likely. However the simple act of reaching for a weapon is an aggressive action as balky says. And I've said. If you're getting weapons pointed at you, the only thing that should be moving is your balloon knot until you're specifically told to move.
Mak3R said:
Police are not trained to shoot to wound. They are trained to apply deadly force - so in every instance when an officer draws his weapon, he is shooting to kill.
This generally means centre of mass with hollow point ammunition* where it will cause the maximum amount of soft tissue damage resulting in rapid blood loss and death, removing the threat.
It's sad when you think that this methodology was applied to a 12 year old child.
* fun fact of the day - hollow point ammunition, expanding rounds, dumdum bullets etc are banned under the hague convention for use in conventional warfare as the wounds they produce are so horrific and damaging and deemed to be 'inhumane'. For some reason frangible ammunition does not come into this category. I find it amusing that the military cannot use this type of bullet and yet it is pretty much standard issue for police (I know about the over-penetration arguments).