Woman with Aspergers shot by Police

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Looks like the US police are not the only ones to shoot first and ask questions later
Lots of unanswered questions with this one...
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 3638763367

I read about this the other day and assumed this woman must of had some sort of psychotic break or was on PCP or something since she walked thru pepper spray and taser, sad story all around.

I recall that she moved towards the officers with a knife (and this is after being sprayed and tazed).

That's pretty much the definition of a perfect self-defense shooting.

Seems she was either attempting suicide by cop or high/psychotic.

Why did she have a knife? Was she worried about someone attacking her so she felt the need to carry one? I found the whole thing odd and didn't know what to think of it.

I'm confused by what the media are trying to convey with the headline: WOMAN SHOT DEAD BY POLICE HAD ASPERGER'S SYNDROME
Is it:
1) Shocking that the police shot a woman with a neurological disorder dead?
2) Shocking that the police shot a woman with Asperger's syndrome dead, as opposed to shooting her in the leg etc?
3) Shocking that a person with Asperger's syndrome was allowed out in public in the first place because everyone knows people with Asperger's can turn into complete, raving psychos at any moment and you should be very afraid?

Whatever the media is trying to convey on this one, watch the video of the girl outside Hungry Jacks. She is sipping on a drink cup in one hand and has a carving knife dangling out of the other hand. She doesn't look threatening to me. The next photo of her, you see five cops with their weapons drawn over a dead body lying on the ground. This is just ridiculous. It doesn't take much imagination to see that the girl is out of it. So why do the police just focus on the weapon rather than the person holding the weapon, before they draw their guns and shoot the poor girl dead. Now I hear the cop who shot the girl dead is receiving counselling. Well, if the cop hadn't shot the girl dead, he wouldn't now be receiving counselling and the dead girls family wouldn't now be suffering.
So is it too much to ask that the police get proper training to deal with situations like this. It seems the first resort is to taser the culprit. When that doesn't work the police resort to pepper spray. When that doesn't work they appear to have an open licence to shoot the culprit dead. Why not talk to the culprit in a non-threatening manner in the first instance. If that doesn't work and the culprit lunges at them use all their physical training to fend off the lunge and then attempt to disarm the person. After all the police have batons don't they? Isn't it worth the risk of injury to the police officer to attempt to disarm the girl with the knife, rather than have her death on his conscience for the rest of his life?

Did you even read the article. It's clearly states she was had a knife. They'd tried to pepper spray her but her glasses were in the way, they had tasered here but it didn't stop her. She was ignoring them telling her to stop. Then she advanced on officers whilst waving the knife around. I think it's pretty clear why she was shot.

Seems like the training worked well here.

Shoot and stop a potentially lethal threat after exhausting non-lethal means.

You never get into fisticuffs range of someone with a knife. A single stab will end your life as quick as anything out there.

The only blame is on the individual with the knife.

Yeah. A 22 year old girl with a Hungry Jacks drink in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other hand. Her intentions are clear. Take down as many police as she can before she gets shot. Lovely world we live in.

Well, if you don't obey commands, fail to yield after being sprayed, and what have you:

Your intentions are clearly murky and unreasonable.

That's what I was thinking too. It's still sad it had to come to that but I don't blame the cop for exercising a judgement call.

Seems to me the title is designed to draw attention away from the obvious fact this has nothing to do with being female or having Aspergers. If I was that police officer as much as I would not want to I probably would have done the same thing.

I'm very puzzled about the knife. Why would she need to carry a knife that big? A pocketknife would have been just as good or no knife at all.

Yes it's not only US cops that shoot first and ask questions later. NSW Constabulary is well known for this. We had them shoot a bloke here that was armed with a bread knife - with the full knowledge that he was a mental health patient at the hospital that had gone for a wander.

I don't know why their so scared of knives - 5 against one - a good whack with their whacking stick and the knife would be dropped - they wear body armour - and have good kicking boots. Just power hungry morons and bullies, that are totally unprepared and unequipped to handle anybody that is out of the ordinary.

CockneyRebel. I'm assuming the girl was attempting self harm with the knife and was probably the first thing she grabbed from the kitchen. She was also alleged to be running in and out of traffic hoping to be struck by a car.