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Alric wrote:

txinvestigator wrote:
Also, please point out the "lot of shootings you would consider excessive force" and explain.

Are you suggesting the shooting s were not justified, or that it was a justified shooting and the person was "over killed"?

The one that comes immediately to mind happened in California, but I don't have the link right now. 3 officers shot between 3 and 5 rounds a piece into a suspect. It was a justified shooting, per the article, and the officers received a few days off, whatever the term is for that.

Gunfights happen quickly and the bad guy often does not do what he is supposed to do or what you expect them to do. You are justified to continue to fire until the BG stops being a threat. That does NOT mean shoot 2 rounds and stop and evaluate. Ask the FBI how many rounds a BG can take and continue to kill LEO's. Ask the LEO's in LA back in the early '80's how many rounds it takes to stop a guy who has already killed 2 of your fellow officers in the same encounter and has you in a bear hug, raised up off of the ground and slamming you repeatedly into a wall. (it was 33, and the shot that stopped him was one down thru the top of his head.)

BTW, any officer involved in a deadly encounter gets days off. Usually with pay and the officer is usually required to see a psychologist before returning to work.

I am suggesting that if we, as civilians, used as many rounds in shootings as some LEOs have in some incidents, that we would be treated a lot different than they are.

Perhaps...but LEO's have a legal duty to apprehend and insure the safety of others.

No, I am not saying that I should not be looked at strange if *I* fired 110 rounds into a BG. But I probably would if I fired the same amount as one of those officers involved in this incident. And isn't the justification for deadly force a justification to use deadly force to /stop/ a BG, not to use such force as to assure his trip to the morgue?

You are right, the justification of DF is to stop, not to kill. However, only if a bad guy stops, drops his weapon or surrenders and THEN officers continue to fire is there a legal problem.

Alric wrote:My point is, I've seen a lot of shootings I'd consider excessive force. The guy being shot at simply didn't have a chance in hell. If I empty a mag into a BG, or two mags that I'd usually carry, you know the LEOs that come to investigate the situation would raise eyebrows, and rightly so. It doesn't take 110 bullets to "stop" a threat. 110 bullets annihilates it.

And I'm not even saying that from the LEO perspective, I wouldn't have done the same thing. But thats also one of the reasons I'm not a LEO. We have a judge and jury system to determine and deal with guilt.

You can't "over kill" someone. Deadly force is deadly force. The argument you could have is if one of the first shots made him stop or drop the weapon, and then the officers kept firing.

Also, please point out the "lot of shootings you would consider excessive force" and explain.

Are you suggesting the shooting s were not justified, or that it was a justified shooting and the person was "over killed"?