Dark, I'm guessing you know few people who are (A) cops, or (B) confined to wheelchairs but active.
Mind if I play?
I'm not Dark, but I'll jump in and answer those two questions:
(A) I have some friends who are police officers, correctional officers, and border patrol officers. None of them would fire only one bullet into what is perceived as a "threat." They are trained to fire three bullets per target, per assailant. They are also trained to fire center-mass, not perform head shots
(let alone a single shot). As well, none of them would have fired at a mental health patient, within a mental health facility, who was in a wheelchair, had only one leg and one arm, and was wielding a felt tip pen
(or even a pen knife if you want to argue presumption), when either one of them could easily have just pushed the wheelchair away or pushed it over.
(B) I know quite a few people in wheelchairs. In fact, I was in a wheelchair for a time while undergoing a series of surgeries to my legs/ankles. This particular patient had only ONE arm and ONE leg. In no uncertain terms, he could not maneuver his wheelchair to "trap" an able-bodied police officer whilst wielding a FELT TIP PEN with HIS ONLY HAND/ARM. It would be a breach of sanity to consider such a person as a threat.
Think about what you are saying...do you think that police officers routinely lie in their reports?
Irrelevant. It doesn't matter if some, most, or all officers never lie in their reports. All that matters is whether THIS PARTICULAR police officer lied in his report. And, even then, the facts in this case are indisputable. Double amputee, one arm, one leg, wheelchair, in a mental health facility, wielding something tiny in his only hand, one bullet, in the head.
Do you actually know anyone confined to a wheelchair who is still active (doing basketball, for example)...you might be surprised at how fast those wheelchairs can be maneuvered.
You might be surprised how one arm and one leg intrudes on your ability to maneuver in a wheelchair. I really don't want to present any more examples, personal, family, or otherwise to intrude upon your conjectures and inferences.
SOP for police officers is to assume the worst case if you don't know...if someone won't show you his/her hands, assume it is holding a weapon...BTW this might save your life if you're ever in a situation where the cops can't see YOUR hands.
SOP for police officers is to utilize a degree of common sense. Clearly that is not what happened here.
I'm curious about how you all would respond to the following question: we give police officers handguns, so presumably there are situations in which we would expect them to be useds. Under what circumstances should an officer engage his/her handgun?
Hypothetical derailment. Speculating on what circumstances they
should engage their handgun is irrelevant because we have a circumstance presented here, in this thread. In
this particular circumstance, the officer SHOULD NOT have engaged his/her handgun.
