The kid was a frickin' idiot!!! However, the police didn't even use a special gun (pellets, bean bags, anything), tazer gun, gas or something less life-threatening. Lets see here....there was no report of a gunfire, no shooting rampage...blah blah blah. This kid was waving a pellet gun thinking it was such a thrill or a plan to commit suicide by police (literally intentionally, and yes, this term does exist and is quite common). Police officers are trained to determine all situations by combining experiences, common sense, and reports all together including the real possibility that suspects may pull out anything in an attempt to be killed by the police versus the route of being sent to jail/prison.

Yes, like I said, the boy was a frickin' idiot, but so are the police. So, with my official report, the shooting by the police resulting in murder has not been justified. Excessive force were committed by two police officers (three (3) shots fired). Why three? Why not just one safely at his leg to bring him down and quickly capture him in custody? Why the sudden rushing thrill; speed arrival, exit vehicle, enter building, shout at suspect, unload bullets in a race.

One thing we do know for a fact, this is far worse than the Oklahoma's pharmacy shooting saga, which involved an attempted robbery and fatal shooting resulting in the death of a dangerous kid.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/police-kill-armed-8thgrad_n_1183517.html

Hopefully there was cameras inside the building with available recorded videos to capture the moments to be used against the two officers. The Police Chief may be sued for attempting to protect his officers via abuse of authority.

Police made the right move.

If I am a police officer and if someone reaches for ANYTHING, even a sandwich, in a fast move that looks like it could be a gun. I'm shooting first and asking questions later. Even more-so if they wave a gun at me. I don't care if it's a BB gun or a squirt gun, if it looks like it I'm not risking my safety or the safety of those around me. They make toy guns look extremely real from a distance.

Good thing I'm not a police officer, huh?

I agree catch. Thunder is totally off base on this. It's a tragedy but the police did exactly what they should have done under the circumstances.

The kid was a frickin' idiot!!! However, the police didn't even use a special gun (pellets, bean bags, anything), tazer gun, gas or something less life-threatening. Lets see here....there was no report of a gunfire, no shooting rampage...blah blah blah. This kid was waving a pellet gun thinking it was such a thrill or a plan to commit suicide by police (literally intentionally, and yes, this term does exist and is quite common). Police officers are trained to determine all situations by combining experiences, common sense, and reports all together including the real possibility that suspects may pull out anything in an attempt to be killed by the police versus the route of being sent to jail/prison.

Yes, like I said, the boy was a frickin' idiot, but so are the police. So, with my official report, the shooting by the police resulting in murder has not been justified. Excessive force were committed by two police officers (three (3) shots fired). Why three? Why not just one safely at his leg to bring him down and quickly capture him in custody? Why the sudden rushing thrill; speed arrival, exit vehicle, enter building, shout at suspect, unload bullets in a race.

One thing we do know for a fact, this is far worse than the Oklahoma's pharmacy shooting saga, which involved an attempted robbery and fatal shooting resulting in the death of a dangerous kid.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/police-kill-armed-8thgrad_n_1183517.html

Hopefully there was cameras inside the building with available recorded videos to capture the moments to be used against the two officers. The Police Chief may be sued for attempting to protect his officers via abuse of authority.

Suicide by Cop...[Achievement UNLOCKED!!]

While I wasn't there, I can't see anything in the story to make me think that they police were out of line here.

And Thunder...Shooting somebody in the leg is something that only happens in the movies. Contrary to what you see on TV, it's hard to hit a person from 30' away with a pistol under duress, 10 times harder when they're moving, and 100 times harder to hit a specific body part. Besides, shooting somebody in the leg does nothing to mitigate danger to others if that person has a firearm. Plus, you don't mess around with the percentages when there's a dip**** waving a gun inside a school.

When a firearm is involved you can't take chances. Police had no choice in this situation. Eliminate the threat to protect the safety of others. I have to admit three shots tells me those officers arewere well trained and well disciplined with their tactical skills. In the past their have been officer involved shootings where people were killed with 5,10,25 or more shots.

What if they had fired one shot and the shooter fired at them. This could have been worse this could have been another Columbine. Instead of burying one they could have been burying a dozen. There are too many variables here that could have made this situation worse. Sometimes we need to look at situation and say it had to be done. I am sure the officers are grief stricken over the fact they had to kill a teenager. Police officers are just like rest of us sometimes they have to make tough decisions sometimes that means deciding rather or not to take a life. Being that only three shots were fired I can pretty much guarantee they processed through all the options available at that moment.

This is just one situation you cannot armchair quarterback. I don't care how many episodes of CSI Miami or Cops you have seen.

Sorry, you wave anything designed to look like a real gun and you're going to be shot in most situations. Its expected that family members will question the actions of police because they simply are trying to assign blame to the death.

I didn't read anything that would cause these police one second of missed sleep (from a policy/law perspective), but I do know officers who would be torn apart knowing they killed a young kid.

Bad all around, but certainly not improper or illegal or even excessive.

Sorry Thunder, I have to totally agree with everyone else. If you wave something that looks like a gun at a police officer you are going to get shot. And the shot will be intended to put an immediate end to the situation. That is what police are trained to do.

Christ, Thunder. Is your entire life an exclamation point? You point a gun at somebody, you best have your accounts squared with Jesus because you're as likely to get shot as you are to shoot someone.

I have zero love for cops, but this wasn't murder, it was Darwin.

Sorry Thunder, I have to totally agree with everyone else. If you wave something that looks like a gun at a police officer you are going to get shot. And the shot will be intended to put an immediate end to the situation. That is what police are trained to do.

I agree and if you wave what looks like a gun at me you'll probably get the same results.

Sad story, but there's got to be more to it than what is being reported. A kids just doesn't randomly do what he did for the fun of it.

The police were justified in their actions, IMO.

...this wasn't murder, it was Darwin.

+1

I agree and if you wave what looks like a gun at me you'll probably get the same results.That would be true of me also.

What if I wave a twinkie?

"Oklahoma Celebrity Dies: Police says Thunder waved a twinkie!"

"Oklahoma Celebrity Waved a Twinkie, Dies!"

When Twinkies are Outlawed,
Only Outlaws Will Have Twinkies.

What if I wave a twinkie?

"Oklahoma Celebrity Dies: Police says Thunder waved a twinkie!"

"Oklahoma Celebrity Waved a Twinkie, Dies!"

you're a celebrity?

What if I wave a twinkie?
"Oklahoma Celebrity Dies: Police says Thunder waved a twinkie!"
"Oklahoma Celebrity Waved a Twinkie, Dies!"

It honestly depends. If it is dark and the officer can't see what it is put and object is being pulled out and pointed at them, yes they are justified for firing. If you hold something up at a police officer that has a strong resemblance to a gun, you are forfeiting your life. It is like the people that do "suicide by cop" by raising an object out of their pocket after being told not to.

I feel sorry for his family and for the cops who were involved. What a shame. I am glad no one else got hurt.

What if I wave a twinkie?

"Oklahoma Celebrity Dies: Police says Thunder waved a twinkie!"

"Oklahoma Celebrity Waved a Twinkie, Dies!"

Well if it's Sergeant Al Powell, you're in big BIG trouble.

Yeah, if someone brings a gun onto a school, then waves it at police, police are right if they shoot him. They yelled to him to put the gun down, and he refused. Police have no clue if he was going to start firing into a classroom, they had one goal at that point and that was neutralize the thread.

You're trained to aim for center of mass, not the leg. Shooting the leg is not only highly difficult and impractical, it's no guarantee that you'll non-lethally bring them down. Heard of the femoral artery? Nick that and you're bleeding out. As for number of shots, it really doesn't matter. One shot might have been lethal, and as long as they were fired consecutively, one shot is as good as three.

Unless you're related to the kid or have some serious anti-police bias, I don't see how anyone can argue that the police were wrong. Life isn't a comic book, when you do what the kid did, police are going to use force to take you down. They're not going to wait to go get rubber bullets or bean bag shots, they have an entire school full of children and someone with a gun inside that they don't know is a pellet gun. When you have a gun, force = firearms. They aren't responsible for his death, he is.

The kid was a frickin' idiot!!! However, the police didn't even use a special gun (pellets, bean bags, anything), tazer gun, gas or something less life-threatening.

Why do you assume they had 'special guns' on/near them at the time, the police are not walking arsenals. The weight of the gear most police are already carrying is enough to cause back problems over time.

I feel sorry for his family and for the cops who were involved. What a shame. I am glad no one else got hurt.


I agree

Why do you assume they had 'special guns' on/near them at the time, the police are not walking arsenals. The weight of the gear most police are already carrying is enough to cause back problems over time.

Not only that, Many of those things are pretty terrible solutions to this situation. Even the best wireless shock guns have range of only 100 feet (minuscule compared to a handgun), and Tazers have shorter ranges than that. You'd have to get a lot closer to the kid to actually use it, and when someone has a gun, the last thing you want to do is make it an easier shot.

Bean Bag rounds have even less of a range, because they're used for crowd control, not for precision take downs, which is exactly what you want in this situation.

Tear gas is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea in this situation. Tear gas is used to flush people out or disperse crowds, not incapacitate individuals. Neither of those situations work here, in fact, it makes it worse because you give the kid opportunity to flee (under the cover of gas now) to another area of the school or fire back. I also have to question the mental faculties of anyone suggesting that flooding the halls of a school with tear gas while students are in the building is a good idea.

These suggestions just reek of someone who knows little as to how any of these weapons are actually used, and just wants an excuse to complain about police brutality.

Here's another local law enforcement shooting from this morning, Friday, January 6, 2012:

http://newsok.com/cleveland-county-sheriffs-deputy-involved-in-early-friday-morning-shooting/article/3637996

"One of those individuals pulled a gun and pointed it at the deputies, McCormick said. The individual was then shot."

some folk jest ain't worth a bullet ... and some folk are.

Like I said, the boy was an idiot. The video may give us an insight and possibly change some people's opinion. Remember how everyone was calling our beloved Pharmacist a hero? Then videos came out resulting in people turning heads. Every situation is different. I was once approached and tackled down by police officers a few years ago and I waved around a knife. Its a bit blurry, cuz I was on overdose, too. Lucky they didn't do the Hail Mary unloading all those bullets on me. lol They just wanted to stop me from slashing myself. :-/

Thunder = wrong, like normal. Plus, go learn some grammar. Even the title is incorrect man.

Thunder = wrong, like normal. Plus, go learn some grammar. Even the title is incorrect man.

Nope, not wrong, just my opinion. Nothing wrong with grammar, that's your opinion. The title is author's preference. Have a good day.

Waving a knife is completely different than a gun if police are a safe distance away. Sure, video could sway people either way, but in absence of video this looks open and shut.

yeah, a knife doesn't fire, a gun does. You can get close enough to taze someone with a knife. There's really no way to deal with a handgun in a way that wouldn't endanger the police or other students, and a witness said that the police yelled at him to put the gun down before the shots were fired.

The only way a video, if it ever came out, would make the police look bad would be if it showed the kid putting the gun down when he was shot. Otherwise, I don't see any way how the police were in the wrong.

Nope, not wrong, just my opinion. Nothing wrong with grammar, that's your opinion. The title is author's preference. Have a good day.

If it's the opinion of the person that doesn't have good grammar does that make it good grammar? Hmmmmmm

Nothing wrong with grammar, that's your opinion.
Proper grammar isn't really subjective. Bad grammar is bad grammar, even if your opinion is that it's good grammar.