Quote:I do not consider an individual landing a punch on a police officer to be justifiable use of deadly force if that's what you're getting at. I would also expect that a police officer is able to win a fistfight, or at least stalemate one long enough for the backup he'd already called to arrive.

 

Knocking the aggressor to the ground and holding him at gunpoint is stopping the action. Shooting a man who's thrown a punch at you is murder.

 

I've left tasers and pepper spray out of this conversation because there's no reason to assume that an undercover officer would carry those, but perhaps they should. A couple of taser darts would have dropped this perp quickly and excruciatingly painfully (speaking as someone who has been tased as part of a college project) and ended the situation without injury to the officer, without the officer's gun falling into the wrong hands, and certainly without anyone being murdered. Yes, tasers can kill if used improperly, but they now have safeguards built in to minimize those occurrences. I am all in favor of nonlethal/"less lethal" means of subduing criminals, but there is absolutely no excuse for a trained police officer pulling a gun and murdering someone who has no weapon and has no represented themselves at any point as being armed. If a cop can't take a few punches one on one and subdue the aggressor until backup arrives or stalemate the fight until then, they need to go back to the academy or find a new job.

 

You have a very shallow view of the training and/or ability of a police officer, especially when it comes to physical confrontation.  Do you actually believe that a police officer is going to win a "fist fight" against anyone that they encounter?  I will tell you right now that the answer is absolutely not.  Just because they go through some training doesn't make them "expert fighters" or "super tough".

 

The training that goes on (at least when I went though it) is more defensive rather than offensive.

 

Again, as I stated earlier, a police officer should NEVER have to sustain an assault under any circumstances (in your case, take a few punches).  If someone wants to go down that road, then they should suffer the consequences for their actions.  If that means that the officer felt threatened enough to use deadly force, then so be it.  Perhaps the person killed should have not been beating up on a police officer.

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