State Senator Gloria Romero must be totally ignorant of the law, and the factors affecting marksmanship and just plain common sense notions to have spoken about a need for LAPD to change their "shoot to kill" policy. First off, there is no policy in place. Sen. Romero made her comments in reference to the recent shooting and death of a man with a knife by LAPD bike patrol officers. She referred to the need to use alternatives to shooting in disarming the suspect.
Well, there appears to have been an immediate threat to the officers by this man but she would have had the officers put their own lives at risk by using non-lethal force as a response to the man. That could have resulted in some cut up or dead officers but Romero is not looking at the whole picture.
In trying to preserve life, you don't just throw out long established principles regarding the use of lethal force and then put the officers' lives on the line as some sort of sacrifice of a trade.
No, none of it makes sense. Maybe to Romero. Let's see, is she up for election again? Maybe she should put some time in a simulator or on the range to see it's easier to make charges than to actually perform as she expects. Those who know all this can see she hopelessly ignorant on this- or maybe not. She could be enlightened by trying my suggestions and then re-think her proposals.
BELOW: NEW YORK P.D FROM WABC TV Ch. 7 . in May charged with a shoot to kill policy that they should change.
The idea was to have the police use their guns to "not kill" really. The NYPD doesn't have a shoot-to-kill policy. Here, they DO want some feats of consistently amazing marksmanship to replace some established and rational, as well as legal, principles that have been taught.
The story is about having cops shoot in the arm or leg- you know, like in the movies. More sheer ignorance on marksmanship and the law. The training for officers has them aim for the largest part of the target, or "center mass" where there are vital organs to ensure a "stop"- remembering that shooting a gun is an act of "deadly force" that is to be used as a response to a an immediate deadly force threat.
I will examine this a little more, only because a "colleague" at a meeting over the weekend was vehemently denying that "shoot to kill" is a forbidden policy and I have to examine this for myself to see that the world is not upside down on this.
So the idea is to save lives by the cop responding to the situation that, by definition, means the officer or another innocent person in in immediate danger of loss of life or crippling injury. That now puts the officer likely to "take one for the team" to carry that idea out if the non-lethal response does not stop the perpetrator.
And as for choosing the spot to hit, it's insane. Most shooting done by police results in more shots missing than hitting. But these are cops TRYING to hit the subject and they miss entirely most of the time. So expecting a leg wound or some precision result is lunacy. Further, you are treating the situation dangerously from a liability standpoint: "He killed the suspect instead of hitting him in the leg." Now cop says "I tried that but missed that part of the body. I meant to hit his leg." OK, sounds like a lawsuit coming up for NOT doing what he was "intending" to do and causing the greater harm to the subject.
All that is a crazy scenario. For anyone to support that is to ignore legal principal of justifiable use of lethal force and when it is proper and when it is not.
Shooting or any infliction of other deadly force AFTER the suspect has stopped his threat is NOT justified, otherwise you'd have the police as the executioner. Some think that already is the case but there's a legal basis to determine all that.
SEN. ROMERO'S COMMENTS SET OFF SERIOUS RESPONSES FROM POLICE
You can check a story on the LAPD response in Earth Times, "LAPD Officers Furious About Senator Romero's Inflammatory 'Shoot to Kill' Remarks," LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) .
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/inflammatory-shoot-kill-remarks,1467868.html
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