The Other Side

Has anyone else been following the officer involved shooting in Brownsville, Texas?  If you haven't heard about it you can check out the story here before you read on.  This is a tragedy.  It is tragic because an 8th grade boy had to die for unknown reasons.  It is a tragedy that he felt the need to bring a pellet gun to school that looks like the real thing.  It is a tragedy that he chose not to listen to the officers telling the boy to put the gun down, forcing their hand.

There are many questions that as the story unfolds will remain unanswered.  Why did the police have to kill him will not be one of those questions.

One of my biggest pet peeves when I read or hear quotes from family members of the deceased, or even just regular citizens , is the questioning of why the police shoot to kill.  With out going into great detail, police are trained to stop action.  The reason police aim at the torso is because it is the biggest part of the body.

There are a lot of considerations that go into a shoot/don't shoot situation.

First you have to assess the threat level.  This boy had a gun.  He was in a school.  He had already assaulted a student.  If you see the pictures of the gun there is no way you can tell it is a pellet gun unless you are holding it in your hand.  The police on scene gave the command to drop the weapon.  Most likely it was given numerous times.  The boy, for whatever reason, didn't comply and the unthinkable had to happen.

Second, you have to think about what your background is in case you miss.  The last thing you want is someone in the background who has nothing to do with the situation getting hit.  This is why the police don't shoot at hands, or try to shoot weapons out of peoples hands.  I'm not saying that it can't be done, but there is an incredible amount of stress that comes along with pulling that trigger.  Even the most seasoned veteran police officer is going to have trouble focusing at that moment.  Which brings me to my next point...

Police Officers do not want to shoot people.  It is a byproduct of the profession but it is not something most cops look to do.  I can't imagine what those officers are going through right now knowing that they had to kill a kid, and there was nothing else they could do about it.  Those officers believed that was a real gun and they couldn't take the chance that the boy might begin shooting at them.  Now that they know that it was a pellet gun they will begin to second guess themselves.

Fact is that they made the right decision.  Unfortunately, it is something that could very well haunt them for the rest of their lives.

That family lost their son and that is a tragedy.

Those officers are now faced with the image of the shooting tattooed on their brains and the knowledge that they killed a child for the rest of their lives, and that is a tragedy as well.