Georgia Tech Student Activist shot dead by campus police

[Virginiá]

Please become a police officer. Just please do it. You'll be singing a different tune quickly.

Oh puhhh-lease. Are you seriously saying they can't be expected to aim for the legs first? For as unrealistically anti-cop as you may think some lefties are, there are tons of righties that are just as obscenely and unrealistically pro-cop. I dunno if you're one of them, but your comment may suggest it.

If that is what cops were trained to do, they would get along just fine. Just because someone has a knife doesn't mean your only option is to kill. Some of us just don't buy this "it's the only way" pro-cop propaganda.

[Virginiá]

Well shooting people in the legs can also be deadly.. Would you be raging at these cops if they shot someone in the arm or leg to try to "immobilize" them and they ended up dying?

Do you think I'm that unreasonable? I mean this doesn't really make sense. There is a difference between wanting cops to take on a different approach to dealing with people then faulting them at every turn no matter what.

No, I wouldn't be raging at them if they tried and failed. The risks of a gunshot wound are obvious. A lot of people are just calling for police officers to be retrained in numerous aspects, and for them to actually be held responsible in the worst abuses of authority. That isn't too much to ask. I don't really expect you to agree, though. I don't think you've ever had experiences with nor see police the same way the communities in question do. Although, interestingly enough, I probably haven't either, but I can see what they are talking about. It doesn't take rocket science to see what has been going on for decades generations now.

[Virginiá]

This wasn't an abuse of authority though.  And for the most part, the LGBT community isn't violently harassed by police all that often, so I don't think you can really say they've had the sort of dynamic with the police that many African-American and Hispanic communities do.  All due respect, I do think expecting the officer to risk getting stabbed by aiming for this person's legs is unreasonable in this case given the circumstances. 

Sure, but I was speaking generically about issues with police. Not about the LGBT community's experiences with police. I should have been more clear about that.

As for this particular, we'll just have to agree to disagree then. I watched the video. He was close, but not so close he could stab. There was plenty of times to fire off a few rounds in hope of hitting his leg. There are a number of instances where there is simply no time to try to demobilize them, but this was not one of them. This might just be a classic example of a situation where demobilizing should have been the priority.

Kill shots can't be the default all the time. I'm sorry, it just can't be that way. That was what I was trying to argue with him. It seems like even in situations that permit it, a non-lethal approach is simply a luxury only afforded to people when the cop is in a charitable mood.