[anitil]

This sort of thing doesn't really happen in Aus. I could see someone getting arrested and spending a night in jail unnecessarily or maaaaaaybe tased (and to be clear, whether we consider this a fair price to pay is a different question), but police rarely shoot people here.

[stevenwoo]

In my American government class in high school in Texas in 1984, I was taught to behave in such a way - keep hands on wheel, do exactly what you are told to, don't move suddenly, to minimize the chance police will kill you, because they don't know if you are a criminal with a weapon or not and a police officer has to be prepared for either situation. It helps immensely to not be an ethnic minority - representations in popular culture in America alude to the life or death possibility of every police stop for those communities like the recent episodes of the TV shows Insecure or Dear White People or Bruce Springsteen's song, 41 Shots. The other side of the coin is America extremely rarely prosecutes a police officer for killing someone, no matter what the circumstances, even if there is video.

[andrewstuart]

Yes it does.

Just the other day the trigger happy cops shot a couple of people at a swingers party.

[fphhotchips]

"The other day" = almost two months ago. Also, apparently (this is one of those stories with three sides) he was holding a fake gun without an orange tip or similar. Police say he was brandishing it, others say he didn't even have it on him. Who knows.

[anitil]

This is what I get for not following the news. I also remember a case years ago on Bondi beach where a guy having a psychotic break and brandishing a knife was killed. If I remember correctly this was used a justification for introducing tasers.

I should have said rarely.

[camillomiller]

A knife in the hands of a psycho is much more dangerous than you might think. If he's at close enough range a shooting reaction is correct.

[vincnetas]

You don't need to shoot to kill. You only need to disable a attacker, not kill him. "German Police shoot a knife wielding man in the leg in self defense"

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cfe_1440199540&comments=1

[DrScump]

Shooting is using deadly force. Shooting a suspect to intentionally avoid fatal wounds is a TV myth (most episodes of Quinn Martin's "The FBI" ended in this way, for example).

Every LEO in the country is taught to shoot only when deadly force is necessary and to shoot for the center of mass (and continue shooting until the suspect is down).

Shooting with intent only to inflict an immobilizing but not-life-threatening wound is inherently wrong and has been held actionable by the courts. If the LEO had the luxury and time to even consider such a tactic, then aim and fire, then by definition no innocent life was in imminent danger, and therefore the use of deadly force was excessive.

And if you take another look at your source, you'll see that there is no stated intent to only wound the suspect in that German case.

A good study of such situations is the Massad Ayoob book In the Gravest Extreme.

[jmnicolas]

Anybody that shot a handgun at the range will tell you that hitting a small moving target like a leg is not a guaranteed shot even by an experienced shooter (add stress, low visibility etc and this becomes even trickier).

If you come at cops with a knife I think it's "reasonable" they shoot you. What is not reasonable in the case of US cops is that they seem to shoot even non dangerous people and get away with it.

[DanBC]

And yet UK police don't tend to shoot people with knives.

[camillomiller]

This is also very true, and it makes a difference.