Regarding your question on aiming points: Police are being taught that the old concept of “center mass” as an aiming point, be modified to “center OF mass.” It’s a subtle change, but it means that one shoots at the mass center of whatever is presented to him as a target. Front or back doesn’t really matter; if the shot isn’t taken, the perp’s threat becomes the act.
And, as always, police are not taught to shoot to kill or wound; they are trained to shoot in order to stop the threat. This implies that shooting continues until the threat is stopped. A perp on the ground with gun still in hand may still be a threat, depending on what the hand is doing.
I was thinking more along the lines of “white dot, black dot” theory.
That is, that when you are shooting at a target, you focus on the center, or small “white dot” of the target, and tend to ignore everything else around it, the big “black dot”. However, if in a case like this, you are shooting at a person, you want them to be the small “black dot”, and to pay attention to the big “white dot”, or everything else your bullets *may* hit, if you miss, or the bullets go through the person.
And I will be the first one to say this is hard as heck to do. It is also a police “nightmare scenario”.
An officer is across the street, watching a playground full of children, when a perp walks between the cop and the playground, then pulls a gun and starts shooting at the cop. What does the cop do?
Universally, they want to duck for cover, while drawing their gun and returning fire. Then they remember that playground...