when guns are outlawed, only lawmen will have guns
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"All nine people injured in Friday's shooting in front of the Empire State Building were wounded by police gunfire, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters Saturday."
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http://www.latimes.com/la-empire-state-building-shooting-victims-hit-by-police-gunfire-nypd-says-20120825,0,7650743.story
August 25, 2012, 11:09 a.m.
NEW YORK — All nine people wounded during a dramatic confrontation between police and a gunman outside the Empire State Building were struck by bullets fired by the two officers, police said Saturday, citing ballistics evidence.
The veteran patrolmen who opened fire on the suit-wearing gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, had only an instant to react when he whirled and pointed a .45-caliber pistol as they approached him from behind on a busy sidewalk.
Officer Craig Matthews shot seven times. Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times, police said. Neither had ever fired their weapons before on a patrol.
The volley of gunfire felled Johnson in just a few seconds and left nine other people bleeding on the sidewalk.
In the initial chaos Friday, it wasn't clear whether Johnson or the officers were responsible for the trail of wounded, but based on ballistic and other evidence, "it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters on Saturday at a community event in Harlem.
He reiterated that the officers appeared to have no choice but to shoot Johnson, whose body had 10 bullets wounds in the chest, arms and legs.
"I believe it was handled well," Kelly said.
Johnson had 10 bullet wounds., nine bystanders wounded. 6 shots missed their intended target, so at least three of the wounded must have been injured by spent or fragmented rounds.
Personally, I find it hard to second-guess the Officers. Who among us, even the best trained marksmen, knows how they would have reacted if, on a crowded street, you were faced with the instantaneous decision to defend yourself, or to take cover. My sense is that all the training would be to instinctively defend yourself, and that's what the Officers did.
But it really is like a scene out of an old cowboy movie.
All officers should undergo rigorous psych evaluations before carrying anything more lethal than stun guns.
My opinion only, but when does it stop?
Ordinarily, an officer would not take a shot with bystanders behind the target, but when the target is continuing to fire, you can only do what you can to stop that gunfire. Yes, we would all like to be crack shots, and many of us are on the range, but the price of poker goes up when someone is shooting at you at close range.
We would all like to be perfect, but we hire from the human race. As long as we continue to do that and not hire robots, cops will continue to be human and make the occasional mistake. Yes, sometimes those mistakes are costly. If those officers held thier fire, how many more, including themselves might have been killed?