In the US, police shoot dead about 1000 civilians every year, and 40 or so police officers are shot in the line of duty. Consider that there are 325 million people living in the US, and 1 million are police officers. It's completely out of control.

Of those 1000 civilians who were shot dead, how many of them were in immediate risk of harming others? Just saying "1000 civilians every year" as if policemen had simply assassinated them is dishonest to say the least.

Where are the adjudicated results of these incidents available where there are reasonable and transparent investigatory and evidentiary standards in place? Otherwise we’re relying on a biased parties description of events alone.

What would be an acceptable figure of those that aren’t immediately at risk of harming others being killed? What about injured? The media rightly tends to focus on killings, but what about unnecessary shootings or use of force that don’t result in death.

Currently that’s a non-zero number and we know that the man killed in this case was not a threat as well.

We should strive to make it zero* now I can't edit :P

The police will tell you that 100% of the killed were about to harm others.

Like those two women doing the newspaper delivery during the Dorner manhunt: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd-...

And here we see the famous "we didn't know they weren't dangerous" excuse:

"There is no evidence to suggest that the officers did not honestly believe that Dorner was in the vehicle, nor is there evidence to suggest that the officers did not honestly believe they were being fired upon."

Criminals have guns in the UK just the same.

Unless the US police is worried about being shot by innoscent civilians that is no justification. And if they are then why on earth aren’t they doing a better job of verifying credible threat in these situations before they enter?