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I don't know anything about this woman other than to suggest to you she is very visibly not even attempting to aim center mass throughout the whole event. It is just possible this woman did that deliberately and will accept any upbraiding by her superiors for that, BUT, at the end of the day, I'll bet all of you armchair quarterbacks combined could not convince her she did the wrong thing. Everyone is still breathing after a shooting involving a crazed attacker with a knife.
How often is that better result lacking elsewhere.
She may be just that type of person who has the ability to think rationally under extreme stress and decided this azzclown wasn't going to get by her to threaten others and she did not have to use deadly force to stop him. She may even have decided to shoot his nuts off and pulled slightly left because of an abusive brother or someone in her past. YOU DON'T KNOW SQUAT about her, her capabilities or her intent.
What we do know are the facts ; she was suddenly confronted by a knife wielding and crazed individual running at her while no more than fifteen to twenty feet away from him and managed to drop him before he got to within ten feet of her. That is impressive, especially when compared to the norm elsewhere.
All you can, and by implication are saying is; you would have done soooo much better.....bullcrap!
I didn't imply in any way that I could have done better. In fact, it's impressive that she managed to hit him with a single shot.
Now, pay attention. She was trained to shoot at the torso. In extremely exigent circumstances, she missed and hit him in the leg. I do not fault her for this. However, you seem to think she intentionally shot him in the leg, which means she disregarded her training and could very possibly have been seriously injured or killed as a result. Until she comes out and states she intentionally aimed for the leg, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she reacted as she was trained to do. A professional police officer will not ignore their training. Ironically, you are accusing me of vilifying this officer when, in fact, you are impugning her reputation by claiming she ignored her training.
Your conclusion that she was aiming for his leg based on a single frame capture is ridiculous. It's people like you who are precisely when the civilian public should not be allowed to sit in judgement of police officers. You don't understand the job, you don't understand the training, and you think all police officers should be super human robots incapable making mistakes.
LOL, off-topic but I wasn't expecting to read this:
Quote:
More than 20 officers were at the scene, including one who was forced to chase down a crow that picked up a knife with its claws and flew a short distance before dropping back in the parking lot. The crow, which had a red band attached to its left leg, also tried to make off with a pair of eyeglasses in the lot and steal gear belonging to a television camera operator. Locals identified him as "Canuck," a crow that has become an online sensation.
That crow "Canuck" is so funny. Some TV news camera people had the cameras running on the crow and showed this on the news on TV later that day. When the crow absconded with the bagged knife he actually had to be bribed to give the package back by offering him other things in exchange. Finally a policeman offered the crow a fancy shiny gold coloured pen that met with the crow's satisfaction and the crow dropped the knife in front of the policeman's hand and politely took the pen out of his hand and hopped away with it.
LOL, off-topic but I wasn't expecting to read this:
I know it! Canuck the Crow is the real hero here, and perhaps the real story, taking the knife away...of course he did this after the perp was shot, but I am sure he meant well. Lucky the police didn't shoot him as well.
Back on topic: This was captured in youtube at the point the shooting had concluded, cynically titled "Vancouver PD at their Best". In contradiction of the OP's spinning this event as an example of police constraint, the poster of the video and the person filming the video ("oh, they are beating on him...why does it take so many officers") came the exact opposite conclusion:
"Vancouver Police just shot a homeless disabled dude and tasered and beat him. Not sure why and a car on fire on hastings close to PNE McDonald's. Shot him beat on him and than dragged him off."
This could have been an entirely different OP and framed it as another example of police abuse. Anyways it's somewhat amusing how one can view an event and frame it to fit an agenda. Most of us here fortunetly share the more rational opinion: it was a justified shooting but with elements of bad police training (failing to aim center mass). The guy was clearly resisting still after being shot. Not sure that kick to the head by the one police officer was needed however.
Now, pay attention. She was trained to shoot at the torso. In extremely exigent circumstances, she missed and hit him in the leg.
It's actually worse than that, she apparently fired at least 3 times, including once when the bad guy was down. And apparently hit only once. One person studying one of the pictures said he saw 8 shell casings on the ground - however I cannot verify the accuracy of that.
It always amazes me how easily people want to kill someone, and what paranoia, or what narcissism it it would take to believe one has to kill to defend one's self.
Never assume..........I served for 30 years, as a Canadian Forces military Police investigator.
Do you now think that I just might have had some firearms training ?
JiM B.
You are backing yourself into a corner, regardless of any police training you have had or not. From what we know she made an instant decision to do only one thing - USE LETHAL FORCE. We know that all officers everywhere are trained to fire center mass, that should not be debated.
She was not aiming at the leg, since the photo we see does not really show her aiming at all except at a downward angle, she doesn't have her sights lined up with her eyes, the eyewitness also assumed she was aiming at the center mass and simply missed, and once again no trained police officer would attempt that. Perhaps she didn't have time to bring the barrel up. She simply let go a barrage of bullets, at least more than one, in his general direction and ended the threat. And that's OK. If she was better trained perhaps she would have had time to draw her weapon and bring the barrel up to center mass, but that's all speculation. It's a stressful situation she was in regardless.
But let's not fool ourselves in thinking that she was purposely aiming at the legs, and that makes the premise of your original posting 100% incorrect.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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Now he's going to sue her for disability. Not only that, but since she was good enough to shoot him in the knee why didn't she just shoot the knife outta his hand? Sounds like police brutality to me.
Or a very good one, unlike what you're used to perhaps?
No. A very good cop will fire center mass and keep firing until the threat has been stopped. There is good reason for that. Your odds of hitting the mark anywhere else are greatly reduced. If you miss, it is entirely unpredictable where that round will go or what it might hit. If you miss, the target now potentially has fully closed ground on you and potentially your life or someone elses is in danger. Even if you hit, the odds that they will continue to move forwards are greatly increased.
Police arent taught to shoot center mass because the people who train them are sadistic bastards, they are taught that way because it is the safest, most efficient and effective way of stopping a threat. It gives you the best chance of hitting the target and the lowest chance of hitting a bystander with a stray bullet. Also when youre out in the real world and someone is firing back or looking to hurt you, precision shooting becomes even more difficult so you aim for the biggest block of mass and fire and keep firing, assessing to see that the threat has been halted as youre firing.
In the military I qualified expert on basically every gun or rifle I tested out on. Ive been shooting since I was 14 and go to ranges often. I am pretty skilled when it comes to it but I still would never shoot anywhere but center mass. You just dont do it. You'd flunk out of any credible firearms safety, CCL program or police academy doing so.
Last edited by Juram; 05-29-2016 at 03:05 PM..
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