Idaho police shoot and critically wound knife wielding teen

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I'm familiar with the 21 foot rule, I've read two of the main books that have contributed to police becoming so trigger happy in some places (Dave Grossman's On Killing and On Combat).

That said, police seem to both be overly willing to place themselves in poor situations and then escalate based on the danger they've placed themselves in, rather than because they were forced to escalate.

When you're dealing with an armed suspect who's no longer a threat to civilians, the goal should be deescalation, not just shooting them. Especially when they're dealing with someone with ASD, mental illness, intellectual impairments or extreme distress.

If you have enough space to maintain a distance of more than 20 feet, you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to use of force simply because the op can't close that distance in time to actually use their weapon. If you can get them to drop the weapon, you're no longer dealing with an armed suspect. The goal shouldn't be to kill the suspect, it should be to get them to surrender. I understand deadly force is sometimes required, but it seems like they chose violence before they even understood the entire situation or made any attempt to deescalate.

zapping him and handcuffing him would of solved the problem

The caller minding his own $#%&@ing business would have solved the problem

Clearly the goal shouldn't be to kill the suspect, that's really never an optimal outcome, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. I've seen enough cases over the years being covered where more information led to different conclusions.

It's a shame that tasers and pepper spray aren't as reliable as people tend to think. I do hope that in the coming years that we can start to see some of those Boston Dynamics robots fitted up with non-lethal options for subduing people in situations like this. I'm sure that eventually somebody will be able to work out how to fit one with a net gun or a bolawrap that would neutralize the threat in a way that wasn't likely to hurt anybody.

I don't think a situation like this requires more gadgets, just a change of doctrine.

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zapping him and handcuffing him would of solved the problem

I do, as a practical matter cops are limited in their ability to back down the way that a private citizen would normally be expected to. Changes to doctrine really only go so far, at some point, people who are wielding weapons need to be confronted or contained so they can't get to other people long enough to calm things down. There's really only so much you can do in terms of that in terms of changes to training or doctrine.

Where did I say anything about them backing down. A change to doctrine might reinforce containing and deescalating in order to take the person into custody in situations like this, as opposed to just murking them on-sight.

Yes, it will involve more time, but that's an acceptable cost.

Where did I say anything about them backing down. A change to doctrine might reinforce containing and deescalating in order to take the person into custody in situations like this, as opposed to just murking them on-sight.

Yes, it will involve more time, but that's an acceptable cost.

Education wont do anything if someone is a sociopath