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Originally Posted by TXAZ
It was 1 year ago that NYC cops shot 9 bystanders with 16 shots near the Empire State building. Now it looks like they hit 2 bystanders in 3 shots this weekend. Reports seem to indicate that both times they failed to hit the intended target.
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I'm pretty certain that in the first incident they killed the guy -- who had just murdered a former boss or co-worker ... if we're thinking of the same incident.
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Originally Posted by TXAZ
Serious question: There has to be a reason for this, is it the heavy NYPD trigger, a lack of training or range time, or anything else some of you closer may have an idea on?
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It's panic. IMHO it's a function of recruiting too many marginal candidates without good screening to weed out those who won't react well in a crisis situation (and I admit that I don't know if there is anything that adequately screens for this). Then they don't provide force-on-force training so the officers can learn to control the panic and the adrenalin dump that occurs when faced with a gun pointed at them.
In this case, they shot at an unarmed man. He was lucky -- they missed. But it sounds like he was trying to commit either suicide by vehicle or (subsequently) suicide by cop. The reaching into his pocket and simulating a gun could have come straight from Clint Eastwood in
Grand Torino. Who knows if the officers thought they saw a gun ...
someone yelled "He's got a gun," and that's enough to set off a big percentage of cops.
It certainly seems that, if they ultimately brought him down with a taser, the taser should have been the first weapon deployed. But ... I wasn't there.