Shooting to kill a 16yr old instead of getting beaten up is justified??

Not where I'm from

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The only way to end such confrontation is simplistically to love your enemy; or at least stop being quite so mean ;)

Edit: I've never been shot or faced those injuries, but I've certainly been in worse situations than that police officer. So just on that basis that I'm judging his actions

> instead if getting beaten up

To be fair, the comment you’re responding to is implying worse outcome than getting beaten up, claiming that the kid & his weapon posed lethal danger to an officer who was defenseless on the ground at the moment.

I do agree with the sentiment though

It takes one blow from a bat to the head to die. Yours is asking someone to risk death death, not a beating.

Were it simple fists I’d wonder what lack of training these officers have. Weapons are another matter.

Thanks @goblin89, you are right

Sorry @mieseratte, what you say is true. I exaggerated. Looking at the videos now though the boy was armed with a swimming float as a shield and a relatively thin white (plastic??) pole. It's true that that could still cause a lot of damage

But I wasn't there, and if someone is facing a baseball bat (and others in the crowd had hammers) to the head then you are right, that is a different ball game to what I was hoping for

What about aiming not in the chest at least? Would a bullet in a foot have enough stopping power, without being so short of lethal outcome?

> Would a bullet in a foot have enough stopping power, without being so short of lethal outcome?

Not reliably, which is why every organization that carries and trains with guns trains center of mass shots except for specialized marksmen training for specialized circumstances, who tend to train harder but even more lethal shots.

When you are using a gun, the choices for reliable stopping are nearly identical to those for maximum fatality. If you aren't justified in killing someone, you have no business firing a gun at them, and if you are justified in firing a gun at someone, aiming anywhere in the limbs doesn't make it nonlethal, it just raises the risk to yourself and bystanders by making the outcome less certain.

> remained fighting

Without interruption? Then I stand corrected.

I imagine the point would be to confound, give the time to extract the officer from immediate danger, not to immobilize the attacker entirely with a rubber bullet.

(And you’re right, I should not have phrased that as an assertion not being an expert in the field.)