So you think that every officer hired is a good officer? And because an officer has gone through training does not mean he's well-trained, just as every student who goes through school is not a good student. Based on my personal experience I'm basing it on six shots with one hit. I'm basing it on the fact that he fired his gun in the middle of campus, which goes against training. I'm basing it on the fact that the subject was already pinned. I'm basing it on the fact that other officers on site were already approaching the vehicle and training dictates that you don't discharge your weapon in this situation.
1) I didn't say good. Good was never part of the question or the answer. You don't get to say you don't believe he was well trained, than turn that into people disagreeing with you saying he was a good officer.
2) Making it through five years of school to become an engineer and learning nothing but what's on the test and then sucking as an engineer when you're out of school is a completely different kettle of fish than going through a Law Enforcement Academy. When every single job opening in the city of Ames results in between 200-500 applicants, and only 60-70 make it past the first battery of tests, which include knowledge of the law and police and emergency tactics, there's plenty of reason to believe that a dude who made it not just past that round of tests, but beat out every other applicant for his spot on the force, demonstrated the extent and his mastery of that training fairly well. Is it possible that a poorly trained officer did fake his way through the tests? Sure. Is there more sound reason to assume that he is well trained rather than poorly trained? Yes.
3) It was two hits, not one. Quit ignoring the repeated times you've been corrected on this.
4) Two hits: one in the head, one in the chest. A shoulder hit, on an M.E. report, is recorded as a hit to the chest, so long as it is on the front portion of the torso. A hit to the neck is recorded as a head hit, so long as it is above the collar bone. It is possible for two bullets, less than two inches apart, to be recorded as a hit to the head and chest. A six foot male behind the seat of a 3/4 ton pickup truck, viewed from a six foot officer standing on the ground presents less than a foot of area to hit. Putting two of those six shots onto target, especially if he was approaching from the front or side and viewing the perpetrator through a broken window, could have been a pretty astounding shot.
5) If the choice was either shoot the man in the truck or let the man continue to endanger officers and bystanders, I don't believe that asking the perpetrator if they could relocate to a more secure location was an option. Training does not state "don't fire around people." It's a lot more complicated than that. Again, looking at the above example, it is entirely possible that the other four bullets ended up in the seat of that truck.
6) Subject was penned, but not immobile, and non-compliant. Subject had shown a willingness to destroy property, run over pedestrians, and endanger officers with the vehicle that he was refusing to turn off. The subject was rocking the vehicle in order to dislodge it.
7) Other officers on the scene not firing does not mean that they didn't think it was appropriate for the officer who took the shot to shoot. A hundred variables could have kept them from shooting. The shooting officer could have been the only one with a clear shot. He could have been the closest. He was the one engaging the driver to tell him to turn off the car. Training does not dictate anything of what you're implying. His training would have been for him to make a risk assessment, taking the health and safety of not just himself and the other officers, but the pedestrians on campus into account. He made that assessment.
8) Just because you can monday morning quarterback the shooting two days later, and have, with a completely incomplete base of knowledge, declare it a bad shooting, does not mean it was. We will see in the days and weeks to come whether it was a bad shooting or not. But just because you, two days later, don't think you would have made the call to take the shots doesn't mean that he shouldn't have, and it certainly doesn't mean that there is or was some sort of lack in his training.
