Police shoot an "armed" middle school student
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1) Kid caused a situation that warranted police response.
2) Kid brandishes a pellet gun that, in some cases, can be indistinguishable from the real counterpart.
3) Police tell the kid to drop what they perceive as a live firearm, multiple times, to which he ignores them.
4) Kid starts aiming perceived weapon at armed officers, police respond to perceived threat by eliminating the threat by three (likely) 9mm rounds to center-mass.
Barring any revelatory evidence, the police took the best course of action that the situation allowed. They followed their training which instructed them to preserve innocent life to the best of their abilities by eliminating a threat, to which they did. I would say they should be proud of themselves for attempting to avert a possible crisis and/or massacre, but the revelation to them that it wasn't a live weapon that the kid had, but a pellet gun will be exceptionally hard on them. Now they have to live with not only the realization that they killed a minor, but that the weapon they thought he had wasn't even a real weapon at all, a self-inflicting punishment I wouldn't wish upon them.
Now, a word regarding other commenter theories...
1) "They should have talked him down / shot to injure him!". Sorry, but Hollywood police tactics don't work in the real world. Negotiating isn't always going to get the suspect to lower their weapon, not everyone is Samuel Jackson (Film: The Negotiator) or Commander Shepard (Game: Mass Effect).
Police are trained to fire center-mass for two main reasons: 1 - the torso is the largest and thickest portion of the human body. Not only does that make aiming at it easier, it also lessens the chance of a bullet passing through the body and striking someone behind him. 2 - There are many arteries and vital places in your arms and legs that, if severed or wounded, can cause an individual to bleed-out in mere moments, all the while they are suffering excruciating pain and might still be capable of discharging their weapon at either the police or innocents.
2) "They should have used tazers or rubber bullets!". Tazers and rubber-rounds are classified as 'Less Than Lethal'. Want to know why? Because they don't have the same effectiveness on impact that a lethal response has. Just because a rubber round knocks you on your butt, at best, doesn't mean that your finger that is on the trigger won't be able to squeeze and injure/kill someone. Tazers also cause muscle contractions by the electrical current, making everything (fingers included) tighten. Thus, if your finger is on the trigger, your weapon will discharge.
2-b) "They should have used rubber rounds on his head to incapacitate / on his arm to disarm him!". Again, sorry, but Hollywood tactics don't work here. The body perceives pain in two different ways generally. 1 - Injuries to the extremities (head included) can cause muscle contractions, resulting in the suspect squeezing the trigger. This is on top of the fact that it isn't nearly as easy to dislodge a weapon from a suspects grasp as movies show it. 2 - Penetrating wounds (such as a knife or gunshot wound) to the torso causes the body to go into a 'crisis mode' where it immediately rushes all control and blood flow to the torso, trying to protect vital organs. This causes muscles and extremities to lose control and go limp, reducing the chance of the suspect discharging his weapon.
3) "Why did they fire more than once?! Overkill!". When police respond to dangerous situation, one where innocents or themselves could be injured or killed by the suspect, they do not mess around. When a situation reaches a point that it warrants an armed response by the police, if they are provoked, they are no longer trying to 'disarm the threat', but to eliminate it by any means necessary to protect innocent lives. One gunshot is not a guaranteed kill, if the bullet even strikes the target. Adrenaline, certain drugs, or a combination of both can make some individuals nearly disregard center-mass 9mm handgun rounds, so one shot sometimes will not cut it. Police are trained to fire until the threat is eliminated, so three rounds isn't overkill at all. There is also the factor that, likely, one officer wasn't the only shooter.
4) "They should have waited until he actually fired before shooting him!". I'm sorry, but if you actually believe this, you're an idiot. So we should wait until he fires at either an officer or an innocent, very likely killing them in the process, before police attempt to diffuse the situation? I'd ask you to imagine a situation where someone you love dearly, be they your wife, closest friend, son or whatever, is taken hostage by your neighbor gone nuts. By that train of thought, even if officers had a clean shot that could diffuse the situation with the subject's death, they should wait until your loved one has a bullet to their brain before they respond. No. The police motto of 'To Protect and Serve' doesn't do the dead any justice, since the innocent person that got shot because they needed justification in order to respond doesn't need any protecting anymore.
5) "Stupid pigs, always lovin the chance to cap off people. Thugs in uniform!". In response to this, I'd ask you to read this article below.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/05/justice/utah-officers-shot/index.html?hpt=ju_c2
Yes, some cops are bad apples and give the rest of them bad names. There are also a lot of other officers out there who firmly believe in 'To Protect and Serve' and will try as hard as they can to do their duties. Unfortunately, society has decided that the instant we see a news story about a single bad cop at the entire other end of the country, we need to paint every cop as a crook. Many of them are just doing their jobs, while some others truly take the duties and motif of their office as their life code. It is only tragic that a few bad seeds can destroy the public image that the better of them deserve.
2) Kid brandishes a pellet gun that, in some cases, can be indistinguishable from the real counterpart.
3) Police tell the kid to drop what they perceive as a live firearm, multiple times, to which he ignores them.
4) Kid starts aiming perceived weapon at armed officers, police respond to perceived threat by eliminating the threat by three (likely) 9mm rounds to center-mass.
Barring any revelatory evidence, the police took the best course of action that the situation allowed. They followed their training which instructed them to preserve innocent life to the best of their abilities by eliminating a threat, to which they did. I would say they should be proud of themselves for attempting to avert a possible crisis and/or massacre, but the revelation to them that it wasn't a live weapon that the kid had, but a pellet gun will be exceptionally hard on them. Now they have to live with not only the realization that they killed a minor, but that the weapon they thought he had wasn't even a real weapon at all, a self-inflicting punishment I wouldn't wish upon them.
Now, a word regarding other commenter theories...
1) "They should have talked him down / shot to injure him!". Sorry, but Hollywood police tactics don't work in the real world. Negotiating isn't always going to get the suspect to lower their weapon, not everyone is Samuel Jackson (Film: The Negotiator) or Commander Shepard (Game: Mass Effect).
Police are trained to fire center-mass for two main reasons: 1 - the torso is the largest and thickest portion of the human body. Not only does that make aiming at it easier, it also lessens the chance of a bullet passing through the body and striking someone behind him. 2 - There are many arteries and vital places in your arms and legs that, if severed or wounded, can cause an individual to bleed-out in mere moments, all the while they are suffering excruciating pain and might still be capable of discharging their weapon at either the police or innocents.
2) "They should have used tazers or rubber bullets!". Tazers and rubber-rounds are classified as 'Less Than Lethal'. Want to know why? Because they don't have the same effectiveness on impact that a lethal response has. Just because a rubber round knocks you on your butt, at best, doesn't mean that your finger that is on the trigger won't be able to squeeze and injure/kill someone. Tazers also cause muscle contractions by the electrical current, making everything (fingers included) tighten. Thus, if your finger is on the trigger, your weapon will discharge.
2-b) "They should have used rubber rounds on his head to incapacitate / on his arm to disarm him!". Again, sorry, but Hollywood tactics don't work here. The body perceives pain in two different ways generally. 1 - Injuries to the extremities (head included) can cause muscle contractions, resulting in the suspect squeezing the trigger. This is on top of the fact that it isn't nearly as easy to dislodge a weapon from a suspects grasp as movies show it. 2 - Penetrating wounds (such as a knife or gunshot wound) to the torso causes the body to go into a 'crisis mode' where it immediately rushes all control and blood flow to the torso, trying to protect vital organs. This causes muscles and extremities to lose control and go limp, reducing the chance of the suspect discharging his weapon.
3) "Why did they fire more than once?! Overkill!". When police respond to dangerous situation, one where innocents or themselves could be injured or killed by the suspect, they do not mess around. When a situation reaches a point that it warrants an armed response by the police, if they are provoked, they are no longer trying to 'disarm the threat', but to eliminate it by any means necessary to protect innocent lives. One gunshot is not a guaranteed kill, if the bullet even strikes the target. Adrenaline, certain drugs, or a combination of both can make some individuals nearly disregard center-mass 9mm handgun rounds, so one shot sometimes will not cut it. Police are trained to fire until the threat is eliminated, so three rounds isn't overkill at all. There is also the factor that, likely, one officer wasn't the only shooter.
4) "They should have waited until he actually fired before shooting him!". I'm sorry, but if you actually believe this, you're an idiot. So we should wait until he fires at either an officer or an innocent, very likely killing them in the process, before police attempt to diffuse the situation? I'd ask you to imagine a situation where someone you love dearly, be they your wife, closest friend, son or whatever, is taken hostage by your neighbor gone nuts. By that train of thought, even if officers had a clean shot that could diffuse the situation with the subject's death, they should wait until your loved one has a bullet to their brain before they respond. No. The police motto of 'To Protect and Serve' doesn't do the dead any justice, since the innocent person that got shot because they needed justification in order to respond doesn't need any protecting anymore.
5) "Stupid pigs, always lovin the chance to cap off people. Thugs in uniform!". In response to this, I'd ask you to read this article below.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/05/justice/utah-officers-shot/index.html?hpt=ju_c2
Yes, some cops are bad apples and give the rest of them bad names. There are also a lot of other officers out there who firmly believe in 'To Protect and Serve' and will try as hard as they can to do their duties. Unfortunately, society has decided that the instant we see a news story about a single bad cop at the entire other end of the country, we need to paint every cop as a crook. Many of them are just doing their jobs, while some others truly take the duties and motif of their office as their life code. It is only tragic that a few bad seeds can destroy the public image that the better of them deserve.
I just dont have sympathy for these incidents, mostly cause it seems to me to be common sense that you dont point anything that can be suspected of being a weapon (particularly a ranged weapon) at a police officer.
Kids, dont be stupid, or you're just gonna be thinned from the herd.
Kids, dont be stupid, or you're just gonna be thinned from the herd.
I'm not a huge taser/pepper spray fan, but this is the perfect example of their purpose. Things like tasers are ment to give the police an alternative to shooting people (not to be used as an alternative to more passive forms of crowd control, but that's another arguement for a different time).Redlin5 said:
I've seen allegded pictures of the pellet gun and it looks pretty real. Not sure if it was a real picture, though.
I remember earlier this year, I was sitting in homeroom (advo) when the principal was going around and giving a speech to every class. Part of his speech was how if the police are called because you have what looks like a weapon, then they'll give you a warning then shoot to kill. This is what happens with the "No Tolerance" Policy, which was put in place after Columbine.
Am I failing to detect sarcasm here? Or do you really think that it's her "fault"?ThreeWords said:
I wouldn't want to live in a world where girls have to start a relationship with anybody who shows interest, just in case they do something as stupid as this when rejected.
If you are being sarcastic, then that's okay.
I missed you....Pimppeter2 said:
OT He had something that resembled a gun, it is his own fault. I?m just waiting for when they blame this on video games.
I don't think a taser or pepper spray would have helped here. I am of course no expert, but isn't it possible that either of those methods could have agitated and enraged the guy, leading to him firing his weapon? (Let's not forget that the police officers had no reason to believe the gun wasn't real).
Their job was to ensure the safety of the public and the only way to really do that was with lethal force. A single bullet may not be instantly incapacitating, hence multiple shots being fired. From the article, I gather that the police officers gave fair warning.
Their job was to ensure the safety of the public and the only way to really do that was with lethal force. A single bullet may not be instantly incapacitating, hence multiple shots being fired. From the article, I gather that the police officers gave fair warning.
Arnt cops only supposed to return fire if they themselves are fired on?
And how did they get into this position anyway? Just run out in the open and yell "Put your gun down"? I can see a dozen ways they could have avoided this. Just waiting behind a wall telling him to put the gun down for an hour would have been a better solution.
But no, "Lets shoot him 3 times in the chest when his gun may not be real, may not be loaded, and he hasn't done anything with it yet."
Dont get me wrong, im all for police protecting themselves. But if they purposely put themselves in front of a person with a gun, they need to be berated.
And how did they get into this position anyway? Just run out in the open and yell "Put your gun down"? I can see a dozen ways they could have avoided this. Just waiting behind a wall telling him to put the gun down for an hour would have been a better solution.
But no, "Lets shoot him 3 times in the chest when his gun may not be real, may not be loaded, and he hasn't done anything with it yet."
Dont get me wrong, im all for police protecting themselves. But if they purposely put themselves in front of a person with a gun, they need to be berated.
"Police shot and killed an eighth-grader in the hallway of his middle school Wednesday after the boy brandished what looked like a handgun and pointed it at officers. It turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing."Kenbo Slice said:
First paragraph clears that up.
"Three shots."
Extraordinary restraint considering the calibre of guns they use the 'one-shot-stop' probability is quite low, litely three shots was precisely what was needed to stop him. Remember pistol bullets are not like being hit with a freight train, they cut a narrow hole that may or may not stop them, standard military and police training with pistol defensive shooting is with a pistol to shoot and keep shooting into the centre mass till they go down.
How can the police possible tell in the LITERAL SPLIT SECOND that it is just a pellet gun which is unlikely to kill (though it certainly could rupture your eyeball).
Pellet gun calibre is commonly 0.177-inch barrel. A common pistol calibre is 0.22 inch wide barrel (.22LR is most common calibre used in criminal (non military) shootings). Can you tell the difference between a 0.22-inch and 0.177 inch wide black steel hole? Can ANYONE? When literally milliseconds count?
I'll tell you what this is, this is "suicide by cop". Seen a thousands times before, people deliberately threaten the police because they have death wish but don't actually want to directly inflict harm to themselves. Either that or this lad is a monumental idiot who thought pulling (what is indistinguishable from) a pistol would lead to anything other than getting shot or arrested.
"but Jesus there had to have been another way."
Nope. Hesitation is not something you can ask cops to do when they are literally microseconds away from instant death from being shot through the head.
Case closed.
It's not excessive the suspect is brandishing a firearm and refuses to put it down or tell the police its a pellet gun. I've heard people argue that the police should have used a taser or pepper spray. The problem is that pepper spray would not have been practical because it would require a police officer to walk up in the kid's face to spray him. Obviously, trying to walk up and spray a guy with a gun is a bad idea. Also, with a taser, you have only one shot and its does not instantly take down the target. Muscle contractions from the taser could cause the suspect to discharge his weapon and potentially kill the officers and/or innocent bystanders.Kenbo Slice said:
Ultimately it was unfortunate and very stupid of the kid to have done what he did.
Do you know how insane that sounds? Wait for the guy to shoot you before you can shoot back? Yeah, that's what my wife and kids want to hear as they put me in the ground. No, an officer will open fire if he is reasonably certain that he (or another person) is in immediate mortal peril. Meaning that just because someone has a weapon doesn't mean they shoot, but if you point a weapon at an officer (and you ALWAYS assume it's loaded); it's lights out.kouriichi said:
Yeh, and I live in an area where the average resident has 3 different kinds of guns, police carry high-caliber revolvers and shotguns, we have "Castle Doctrine" and "Stand your Ground", and did I mention that violent crime is extremely low. Whats your point.Risingblade said:
OT:I am standing by the cops with this one, just like I usually do. That kid sounded like he had every chance to put it down and stop being a threat. And just because he was carrying a BB gun doesnt mean squat. Just ask the cop in the nearby town about how she got hit in the head with a BB from an airgun and knocked out. It saddens me that this kid was shot by cops because he was carrying what looked like a weapon, and my heart goes out to the family, but really, what was he even DOING with a BB gun. Seems fishy that he would bring it to school if he didnt have evil intent for it.
And on the note of tasers, you guys know those only have a range of like 20 yards right. Although, the Taser Corp is working on a new model small enough to fit inside a shotgun shell with a range of 250+ yards, so heres hoping they can get those to cops soon.
It's a tragedy that a kid died, but from what it sounds like, he had himself to blame.
If you point a gun at a police officer and don't drop it when they give you the chance, well, they're going to do what they have to do.
Three shots is excessive, especially for a minor. As it was mentioned above, I'm not sure one shot would leave much hope for a kid's survival, but it would probably leave a better chance than three, but I don't know much about standard police procedure so, take my opinion for what it is.
The cops were acting appropriately in that situation, as tragic as the whole incident is.
If you point a gun at a police officer and don't drop it when they give you the chance, well, they're going to do what they have to do.
Three shots is excessive, especially for a minor. As it was mentioned above, I'm not sure one shot would leave much hope for a kid's survival, but it would probably leave a better chance than three, but I don't know much about standard police procedure so, take my opinion for what it is.
The cops were acting appropriately in that situation, as tragic as the whole incident is.
Nope, they are trained to fire whenever they or someone else is in mortal peril, it'd be crazy if someone is waving a gun around to only take them down when they kill someone. And no, its important that they lock him down so he cant run around the school, into classrooms potentially filled with children and kill everyone (which he was threatening to do).kouriichi said:
They warned him to put the gun down, he refused. One of the first rules of gun safety is always assume a gun is loaded and dangerous.
But they put themselves in a position to be shot right? Isnt that their own fault? Arnt they taught to always be behind cover? And im sure the concrete/brick walls of a school are perfectly fine cover from a small caliber handgun.senordesol said:
As i said, dont get me wrong, but putting yourself in a dangerous situation, and then shooting first when the weapon may be no threat isnt good practice. They couldnt have waited behind the walls for a while for backup to arrive? Or aim for non-lethal locations on the body? He was 15, i doubt he could take a shot to the arm, leg or stomach and still have the will to shoot back.
as i said, the police have the right to protect themselves. But there were a dozen BETTER options in this situation xD
Proof of Poe's Law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law], if ever I saw one.jirenicus said:
The school was filled with people still. He might have wandered into a classroom and killed someone. They couldnt just huddle behind a wall (thats assuming they would even have time to fins cover)kouriichi said:
You're using movie logic, people can still be perfectly capable of shooting back if you hit them in the arm or leg (that is, if you dont miss the small and often moving limbs, causing the bullet to richochet and kill someone else.) Basically all gun training teaches you to aim for the centre of mass (i.e. the only place you can near guarantee you can hit) and not stop til the target is neutralised, because you dont draw your gun if you arent willing to do that.
Yes, i understand they need to lock him down, but theres a dozen other ways to do it. Not every shot has to be the the chest. Putting one in the stomach is much less likely to kill, and would easily put down a 15 year old. 3 shots probably wernt necessary either. Im sure most people would be down for the count from the first round to the chest.The Bucket said:
I understand why they did it, but they had quite a few options that was better then just "Tell him to put the weapon down and open fire". Sure, its a step up from just "Open fire" but its not the only option they had available.
They are not necessarily trained to be behind cover when the guns are out. The school was not empty so if they didn't confront him, it was possible (if it was a real weapon, which was the assumption at the time) that he could just walk into a classroom and kill everybody so waiting wasn't an option. He wasn't barricaded with hostages, he was out and exposed RIGHT THEN. Also, they are not trained to shoot to wound, the police ALWAYS shoot for the center of mass (and a gut shot can kill, make no mistake). His age was irrelevant, a 15 year old with a gun can kill you just as dead as a 20 year old or a 115 year old.kouriichi said: