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thanks for your informed reply

"But far be it from me to criticize the actions of either the plain clothed undercover or the uniformed officer that shot him, as I was not there and have no personal knowledge of the situation.

Until you have walked in the shoes of someone else...etc.

I will say that my work in plain clothed situations convinced me that any and all confrontations with citizens should be done by clearly identifiable, uniformed officers with a polite but firm demeanor."

Especially in a crowd situation, barring truly exceptional circumstances it is hard to imagine a lone plainsclothes campus officer being well advised to pursue a violent confrontation as apparently happened here.

"If a round goes off, particularly if fired by a POSTed LEO, it better lodge itself in a thug and without none of that "shoot him in the hand and make him drop his weapon" crap, either."

The warning shot thing implies to me the guy might have been in over his head and in panic to establish control where he had little. Just a thought, obviously none of us were there, etc., however from a viewpoint of a lifelong owner of arms, the warning shot thing, particularly in the south, is asking for trouble if you aren't CLEARLY in uniform.

"I spent a number of years working plain cloths in a revenue enforcement capacity and at no time did I confront a subject on my own, even when there was a risk of "losing" the subject.:"

Just curious, but was this as customs or as atf, or other agency? I have had a number of dealings with US customs and with 1 exception have found them to be VERY professional. A majority are apparently ex-military and in general have been very reasonable. I think it is the only government-entity I actually get any pleasure out of dealing with.