He was surrounded. They couldn't have tried something just a little more sophisticated that yell "drop it" and then blow him away?
Hell why risk anything at all? Why not just evacuate the school and call in an airstrike?
But let's drop the pretense of cops having anything other than military training or intent.
“But let’s drop the pretense of cops having anything other than military training or intent.”
Having been an eyewitness to a similar situation (perp with a gun confronted by multiple cops) I can say the “drop the gun” is just a pro forma statement before the cops start blasting away. The kid had about a second to drop it before they started firing.
Only a fool doesn’t shoot to kill the instant someone points a gun at them.
They went to the school, searched the halls and came across this kid with a hand gun.
The reports I have heard say that they instructed him clearly to put the wepaon down, but that he did not and instead, that he pointed the weapon at them.
In that case, the officers did exactly as they should. You do not wait for someone to bring the gun all the way up and squeeze off a round or more at you and your fellow officers.
Deadly intent is presumed when someone begins to raise a firearm and point it at you. To do otherwise means you might be the one who gets shot.
If this is the case, the police acted appropriately and tragically, the young man was killed. But he was the one in the wrong and representing a deadly threat to others. IMHO, it would have been more tragic for a policee officer, perhaps with wife and kids to be killed, or another innocent student to be killed.
Too bad the kid got shot, but cops are trained to shoot to kill. Who is going to take the time to get close enough to tase him? Not me. What if the tase misses, will the kid/suspect take hostages, etc.
Cops will avoid being target practice whenever possible.
The only thing that could have helped here would have been bean bags from a shotgun or whatever. Of course to use that, would require having good cover and be close enough to effectively hit the kid.
Yes and why didn’t they just pump knockout gas into the air vents and then, when this poor child was unconscious, take his gun away from him or get a skilled negotiator to offer this poor child up to a million dollars for his gun or land a helicopter on the roof and send down a cowboy skilled with the lariat to quietly come up behind and rope this poor child thus pinioning his arms and preventing him from pointing his gun or station a sniper with a high powered air rifle to non-lethally hit his hand thus knocking the gun to the floor.. Had they done any of these or anything similar, this poor child could have lived to someday get a real gun, perhaps a .357 magnum or a .45 semi, to brandish and shoot. Who knows what what the poor child might have accomplished if they’d only......????? By the way, that single malt scotch that bears your name is nectar of the Gods, espcially the 25 y.o.