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Originally Posted by roachboy
so what you are saying is that in the above scenario, lebell, it is tragic but understandable that the police would have shot this guy 7 times in the head and once in the shoulder?
i would agree with you if the outcome had been, say, that menezes been wounded--the cops were looking to stop him, he was fleeing, there was doubt. etc....
i would agree with you had the cops been in uniform and menez had been wounded.
but 7 times in the head?
that seems well beyond excessive, perhaps tipping into the pathological--that many shots in the head? for wearing the wrong jacket, jumping a turnstyle and not stopping when guys in regular clothes identifying as/claiming to be cops said stop? there is something really quite creepy about this.
i know that it is reassuring to imagine that the police etc. are somehow above the political fray, that they are not swayed in the performance of their duties by waves of hysteria that impact on others...but that is naieve. they are human beings and memebrs of the same communities as they folk they are to protect. they are affected by the same climate. i have to say i have a really difficult time not seeing in the excessive character of this killing a reflection of the wider environment. and that is really not good.
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Please, let me be clear: This has nothing to do with feeling "reassured" that the cops are "protecting" me, nor does it have anything to do with hysteria.
It has
everything to do with the situation the cops were in.
I would hazard a guess that you have never shot a handgun in a life and death situation (Fortunately, neither have I). But I do know from my own experience that I can pop off five shots in one to two seconds (certainly the time it would take a suicide bomber to trigger his load). And I also know that cops are trained to take out threats until they are not threats any longer. This frequently means emptying their guns into suspects that they feel are imminent threats to their lives. One or two shots to the chest frequently do not instantly kill or even incapacitate. A determined attacker will still have seconds (which are a long time in combat) to do what they want to do. The only thing that instantly stops all determined action are shots to the central nervous system, which for all practical purposes, means the head. And then, there are times when even a head shot isn't fatal.
The cops actually showed some restraint because frequently the adrenaline
does make them empty their guns. In the case of a SIG-SAUR P226 9mm or a Berretta, that would mean roughly 15 bullets per magazine.
No, they acted
exactly as their training told them to.
STOP the threat, no ifs ands ors or buts.
The only question left is was the the decision that this person
was a threat reasonable, and I've already given my view on that above.
Edit to add:
I want to be clear that I am addressing the idea that "hysteria" somehow affected the police in this situation.
If there had been NO bombings, then I might agree that they had been unreasonable.
But the fact of the matter is that there
were subway bombings and that there
were additional attacks.
This is not hysteria speaking, these are the facts of the matter.
And as I've said above, there was sufficient reasonably believe that this person might be engaged in another attack. He was not a random individual in a big coat on a street who was just shot out of the blue. If he were, now THAT would be hysteria.