> A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed.

A knife is a deadly weapon. I think that's downplayed quite a bit when everyone is worried about guns. 15 yards may be a bit a a distance to start shooting, but there's a lot of information left out that to assume is negligible would be a mistake. For example:

Did the suspect advance from behind cover or were they in plain view for a period before advancing?

How far was the suspect from other bystanders? Were others in possible danger?

In this case, what does "charged" mean? Running full-tilt, or advancing at a quick pace?

Were the bystanders looking at the situation from the beginning, or talking among themselves until someone noted something was happening and they all redirected their attention?

These are all just some of the details that may or may not be noticed by individual bystanders, and may or may not have affected their view of the situation. Eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable for other reasons as well (discussion can make people believe they saw things they didn't).

That's not to say the police accounting is infallible, just to suggest that all testimony needs to be examined closely.