[Double Naught Spy]

They seem to issue a single verbal command: he has a hoody on.. Do they know if he can hear them?

They seem to issue a single verbal command? What are you basing this on? The video is unclear and you cannot hear the goings on well through the glass with any consistency. You can hear a lot of shouting that does appear to be from the officers. However to answer your question, the did issue multiple commands and he could hear them and responded to the officers. And even if he could not hear them, he most certainly felt the tazer barbs that he pulled out and saw the officers. He had awareness that the cops were there and were directing their attention on him.

I don't know of any such situations where the officers come in and only issue a single command. Usually the opposite is more true. There are too many officers issuing too many commands. Issuing behavior control commands is the first step in such a process and they did it.

They taze him: he visibly has only a bar in his hand, no other weapons in his hands. They have a dog they do not use. They seem to mess up the stun. Did it even work?

Gee, I don't know. Did you see the suspect fall to the ground when the tazer was being used? Was the suspect rendered harmless by the tazer? Did the suspect stop his aggressive actions after being tazed? No, the attempt to taze did not work.

All this in 12-15 seconds on a guy visibly holding only a bar.

The amount of time isn't any issue here. The suspect attempted to strike an officer with the bar. Such a strike may have resulted in significant injury or death. At that point, immediate action is required and that is what was applied.

They did not really try to properly engage verbally with him, get a dialogue going. I heard one shout and then, bam, in with the stun gun. As you could see both his hands, I think the stun was too early

Just what video are you watching where you explicitly can hear what was going on between the officers and the suspect? What dialog was needed? You do realize that to get a dialog going, you have to have input and response from from both parties, right?

I see what you mean about the hands on the bar, but with the 20-20 sight of seperation: That is when the dog should have been let loose.

Had the dog been let loose before the suspect tried to hit the officer with the tool, people would be crying about the use of violent force against a suspect who was not threatening anyone. Once the suspect started his swing, the dog was not an option. The dog probably could not have gotten to the suspect before he completed his swing. Bullets could.

Quote:
There was too great a chance that the dog would be killed.

Are you saying that shooting the suspect is OK, but risking a dog is not?

Given that the suspect was actively using lethal force against a police officer, the dog would have been an inappropriate to use and the result likely would have been an injured or dead officer and then the police dog would have been in the way for using lethal force by the officers and the dog may have been injured as a result as well. So to answer your question, in this case, shooting the suspect was the prudent thing to do and so there was no reason to risk injury to the dog when at that point the dog was not the appropriate response.

I've no wish to see a dog harmed, but if not for locating and disarming assailants, perhaps you can tell me what a K-9 unit is for?

I can't say that I have ever seen a police dog disarm somebody, not as a matter of completing the particular task. I have watch police dogs work on several people, armed and not, and sometimes the armed people did drop their weapons and sometimes not. Once the weapon was dropped, the police dog did not do anything different. They charged in and atttemted to bite, hold, and shake the suspects until the suspects go down where they continue to bite and hold and sometimes shake the suspects. They would bite the arm with the weapon if indeed that was the arm of opportunity. Sometimes they got the weapon arm, sometimes the other arm, sometimes a leg, and in a couple of cases, the butt of the suspect.