Cops hear self-serving lies all the time. Its a fake gun. Its not me. I didnt do it. I dont know them. I dont know where he is. I just bought this TV.

it's called "suicide by Cop"

Seriously, do you really want the police to tell you 'Don't worry Sir, he said it's not a real bomb"

Yeah, I am pretty sure that they aren't going to take the brothers word for it. I sure the hell wouldn't if I was a cop called to the scene. If it looks real, I'm going to assume it's real. You point that thing at me and I'm going to shoot first buddy.

My heart goes out to the families loss.

Police need more training to deal with people that have mental health problems.

While police deserve the benefit of the doubt in these situations, it doesn't look good for them in this situation.

Where were your tasers? Where was more back up to keep this guy contained?

I'm sure there will be a lot of questions.

Where were your tasers ???...really ???

They just unsealed the indictment in the murder of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry (Fast & Furious).....Turns out he and the other Border Patrol were restricted to firing BEAN BAGS and the Bad Guys returned fire with real deadly bullets....

Taser----gun........bean bags---- real bullets....

I'n curious how exactly you taser a guy that's pointing a gun at you?

Very sorry this guy died, but a plastic gun looks like a real gun. If I was the cops, I would assume the same. No way I am taking a stranger's word for it when I suspect my life is on the line.

I feel bad for both side of the situation. For the family, and for the cops who shot, because they will forever live with the guilt of being forced to shoot and kill a subject that pointed an object that looks a lot like a real firearm at them, only to later find out that it was fake.

As for the people attacking the officers who shot him, just calm down and think about it for a minute. Perps tell lies to officers and dispatch all the time. "Oh, that coke's not mine," "I'm borrowing my cousin's car, but I forget his name," "I didn't rape her," etc. Officers are forced to assume that any and all weapon-like objects are real, loaded, and that the person holding it means to do harm.

Point a gun of any type or any other weapon or anything that might be thought of as a weapon and you deserve to die right there on the spot. I don't want any cop, doing his job, killed because what he thought might be a toy wasn't. If he pointed a toy weapon at an armed officer he obviously wanted to die. He got his wish. Sympathies to the family, but that's the way it goes.

If I were one of their neighbors and saw their boy running down the street with a gun (toy or not) I would be calling 911 screaming that. And if he was causing problems and not controllable and a danger to his family/neighbors, the mother should have had him locked up.

Seems that some think the police should have waited until the guy shot them before deciding what to do. And if had been a real gun? When you point a gun at police, real or not, you deserve to get shot.

I feel for all involved in this situation. Why wasn't his family able to stop him or take his gun away? We all know if the cops are called and they see someone with a gun the situation may not end well.

They're cops, they're paid to be shot at, let them do their jobs. Their first job is to protect the public, not gun them down so they can get back to the donut shop or their speed trap.

And in this case protecting the public would include from someone who, as far as they can tell, is a mentally ill subject roaming the streets armed with a firearm who is willing to aim at and shoot an officer of the law; if you're willing to shoot an officer, who else could be considered to be not a target?

Lisa, you can't have someone "locked up" at your whim if they are over the age of 18. He needed to be a proven danger to himself or others (which this incident would have allowed, had he survived) and even then he could only be committed for a 72-hour watch. You can only lock yourself up after the age of majority (unless you are convicted of a crime).

The brother who initiated the call to 911 was not mentally unstable and should have been taken seriously reporting his unstable brother carrying a plastic weapon.

This should be a lesson for all families dealing with an unstable member...if you want your family member to stay alive, DO NOT call the gun slinging, quick triggered police. Handle it yourself or figure out a different alternative.

The family is waiting for the investigation to be completed,I can tell them the conclusion now,justified,the same cops that did the shooting is likely on the investigation team.

I do not know to many cases,if any,where the cops was called to keep some from commiting suicide wher the cops did not kill the person

Wow, what is with all of the weird, brainwashed-dousing responses on here.

"Grrr...arrrgh...COPS AM NOT BAD!!! COPS AM ALWAYS DO GOOD-JOB!!!"

"Grrrr YOU CITIZEN BAD, YOU CITIZEN BE DUMB FOR GET IN WAY OF COP BULLET!"

I read 17 responses on here, at least 25 of which sided with the cops...and apparently completely ignored the entire point of the article, which was the fact that 911 was told it was a fake gun held by a mentally ill man.

I understand that a lot of you want to give the police the benefit of the doubt, and calling them 'murderers' may be extreme, but 90% of you obviously didn't read the damn story.

Almost every one of you defending the police is acting like the police didn't know it was a fake gun.

Here are some paraphrasing:

"Well, if the gun looks real..." - WHAT THE HELL MAN? That argument doesn't make sense if you start the story with "We told them the gun was fake".

"Well, people lie all the time, if I were a cop I wouldn't believe this guy's brother either." Wait, you wouldn't believe the guy who called 911 to tell you his brother was crazy, having a mentally collapse and wandering around with a pellet-gun? Right, that sounds like someone clearly trying to--no, wait, it doesn't sound like anything in the world except a concerned family member. C'mon people, use your brains.

You all need to accept that, as much as we feel the police to be necessary, they are largely corrupt in our nation. In Canada, no. In Norway, no. In China, Russia and America? Hell yeah, corrupt as they come. These guys will murder ANYONE they feel to be a threat. Why? Because they are out to protect themselves, not you and I. Its a JOB to them, not some noble duty, it's just a paycheck and a pension plan and they will do whatever they feel is necessary to get through the day alive, for better or for worse. We don't give them the resources they need to actually do their jobs, so they improvise with the most convenient tool we give them. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you are uneducated and poorly trained and all you have is a gun, every situation you face is a situation you think can only be solved with a gun. Both conservatives and liberals fail to see that they are BOTH responsible for this problem, from both ends. We can't fix it because we keep trying to polarize the blame, to make one ideology bear the burden -

COPS ARE EVIL!

NO! COPS ARE GOOD, CITIZENS ARE EVIL!

I hear people saying just about the equivalent of this, and it's idiotic when both sides know that the hard-core truth is simple. Some cops are evil, some aren't. Some citizens are evil, some aren't. The problem is evil on both sides, not one or the other., so we need to go after the evil on both sides, not just one or the other. So, you can look at it like a problem or ike a solution:

Better cops will give us better citizens, better citizens will give us better cops

Better cops and better citizens give us a better world.

Kyle Miller was shot after allegedly pointing the Airsoft gun at officers.

Cheryl Miller told the Daily Camera her son was then shot multiple times.

Why did they shoot him several times after the first shot? Sounds more like an "excuse to kill" than "suicide by cop" to me...

Problem with the idiotic "I wouldn't trust him" comments: The dispatcher would have told the officer, not the brother. The officer wouldn't have even known what the brother said. Communication breakdown which will lead to an involuntary manslaughter charge (that's my bet).

There you go Debi. Finally someone who is able to joke about this stuff. Oh wait, never mind... you aren't joking. Ignorant and hates police. That's a dangerous combination. I assume you would listen to the brother and let someone point a gun at you. If you were a cop, you would be either dead or fired from that job.

I, in part, blame the media for the outrage some of these people have. Sensationalizing those who have something to say about how the police have wronged them. Plastering the poor split second decisions a cop has to make towards a society who increasingly hates them, and is willing to harm them. All the while, the media exacerbates the situation in the hunt for some advertising dollars. Great. Just great.

They shot him because that's what cops do. They're a bunch of hotdoggers who all think they are Dirty Harry.

Now, before y'all go off on me. . . . I came to this conclusion very slowly and with much observation and thought. And not just a bit of shock. Gone are the days of Officer Friendly on the beat. Now it's total 'us or them' mentality.

I have been on the receiving end of this. My daughter has been on the receiving end of this. We are uber-ordinary middle class, educated, professional women with no criminal histories. We have learned that auto registrations and DLs get 'flagged' to alert all cops to harass us.

I have sympathy for the 1-2% of cops who are clean and honest but they need to do more to clean up this dangerous disgrace from the inside.

it is extremely sad that someone, a kid, can be shot holding something that looks like this.

If the dispatcher telling them the gun was fake want enough, Airsoft guns have a BRIGHT ORANGE tip, that tip is an indicator across all toy guns that its not real. Its kinda hard to miss.

Legal murder, the fun part of law enforcement.

Schoolyard,

Not all are clear, some are made of all metal parts and other than the tip, could be mistaken for a real firearm. Some even have magazines that are "clear" and look like they have live ammo inside.

Killing a person needlessly is outrageous, especially when you've been advised of the situation. Why shoot to kill? A trained policeman should be able to shoot to disable if shooting's really necessary. We just can't kill the mentally ill and be proud of that or say "oh well."

These incidents need to be fully investigated, not covered up. And cops need to learn how to take someone down without killing him or beating him up.

Conservative - great post. Very good points. I want to give the cops the benefit of the doubt to but I find it hard. Even harder considering the seeming rising number of instances of cops "out of control" for lack of better words, and/or the us and them mentality that others have posted.

This is their job and they were told ahead of time what the situation was therefore they need to respond appropriately. Unless there are missing facts in the article I'd say someone might need to be fired or worse. I know these guys don't want to get shot anymore than the rest of us and many have families to come home to. But like it or not possibility of getting shot is part of the job; don't like it find another profession. And that sometimes means having to wait to be attacked first before attacking back. If the call came in as some nut wondering the street with a gun then they have alot more valid reason here, but since the call came in advising them that the person was having a mental breakdown and the gun was fake, the caller should be the one getting the benefit of the doubt not the officers. From there the job expectations and training should be taking over. If they find out that it was a real gun then the caller can be hauled off for lying to police, ect. Ideally the best thing would've been to try and get a family member down there (why weren't they going after him already, perhaps in the possible missing details?) and have the family member present with the cops when they were confronting the man.

Also, could they not at least to try and disable him when shooting? Every situation is different and split seconds count but really? Multiple shots? Why?

Either way, sad situation and I hope the proper measures are taken with those involved and to help prevent this from happening in the future.

It is time

Hey, if cops are supposedly highly trained to know the difference between an AR-15 and an Airsoft, yet still have major problems in identifying what a suspect is holding, I guess that justifies every regular non-cop citizen who has ever shot an unarmed person in self-defense. Kind of opens the door up wide for all sorts of things.

"Well, your Honor, the dead guy did point that thing at me, and it really did look like a gun to me. No sir, I am not trained to know the difference between a gun and a Bic lighter....."

Have to go with the cops on this one...no guarantee the gun in his hand was the same one he left the house with and if police always followed directions provided on 911 calls, there would be fewer living police officers.

Nobody is saying "oh well" or is feeling "proud" about the shooting.

Often not easy to wear blue !

When my bi-polar step son lived with us, I routinely did a sweep of his room at least once a week for weapons. With his big mouth and weighing a whopping 115#, he always was looking for an equalizer. Feeling sorry or just plain not wanting a confrontation with your kids just so they will love you (spoiling them) is a big parental mistake.

So why do we buy the police those big shields if they are not going to use them? I love how after the first cop shot, all the rest joined in. They couldn't wait until a relative showed up? The kid was registered as being mentally ill, so much for that system.

Killing a person needlessly is outrageous, especially when you've been advised of the situation. Why shoot to kill? A trained policeman should be able to shoot to disable if shooting's really necessary. We just can't kill the mentally ill and be proud of that or say "oh well."

"Shoot to disable" is a myth that's been made popular thanks to TV and the movies. It doesn't happen in real life because frankly, there's too much of a risk of missing and hitting a bystander. Anyone who's taken any kind of gun safety course knows you're taught to aim for the center mass and not point a weapon at anything you don't mean to kill.

I read 17 responses on here, at least 25 of which sided with the cops

That is some interesting math your using...........you must work on the budget for our government.

I'm sorry. I'm pretty liberal, and some police shootings make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but only an idiot waves something that looks like a gun when police are called. Only an idiot makes any sudden moves when police are called. These guys never know when a domestic call will get them killed, or a stop for going 10 over the speed limit.

Either this guy wanted to die, or was just to stupid to live.

"The dispatcher assures him that “officers are trained in this type of thing. They’re not going to go around shooting people, OK?”"

LMAO..guess you have to put it in writing!

Very nice cavalier attitude ya got there concerning kids (and especially mentally ill kids), Cavalier. Hope you NEVER have kids.

There you go Debi. Finally someone who is able to joke about this stuff. Oh wait, never mind... you aren't joking.

No, Joeybagofdonuts, I'm not the "joking" kind; just an observer of those who make jokes of themselves, yourself included.

Legal murder, the fun part of law enforcement.

Who knows what really happened but I find it a bit odd that the guys brother is telling the dispatcher the gun isn't real and also an airsoft gun has a bright orange tip and still the guy gets shot and killed. In my experience most cops are A-holes and yes they don't mind shooting someone if they can do it legally even if it can be avoided.

sounds like that 911 operator...needs to go greet the family at the funeral home...hope it brings it's plastic phone ...or two cans on a string...what a loser...

"Shoot to disable" is a myth that's been made popular thanks to TV and the movies

this is the myth here, that you cant shoot to disable. it not very hard to aim and shoot if you train for it but current cadet training only tells you to kill. the reason why they would tell a citizen to shoot center mass is because the likely scenario in which a citizen would need to use a gun in self defense would be against some type of greater threat and by shooting center mass you have the greatest chance to defeat the threat. police officers are not common citizens, they are (well should be) highly trained professionals who put their lives at risk for the public safety, they can easily shoot to disable from any reasonable distance but because officer put their lives before citizens they shoot to kill without facts to support it. if cops were concerned with friendly fire on bystanders then they would not be engaging in high-speed chases that result in collateral damages, cops do not care what happens to common citizens -some do but their voices are quiet.

this is the myth here, that you cant shoot to disable. it not very hard to aim and shoot if you train for it but current cadet training only tells you to kill.

You sound like someone who's never actually fired a gun in their life. If you're not pointing a gun at someone to kill them you're doing it wrong and have no business using a gun.

police officers are not common citizens, they are (well should be) highly trained professionals who put their lives at risk for the public safety, they can easily shoot to disable from any reasonable distance but because officer put their lives before citizens they shoot to kill without facts to support it.

Every cop I've talked to on the matter says they're trained to shoot the center mass. If you want to be more precise, you get a sniper. Where's your evidence of these so-called "supercops" who can shoot to wound intentionally with a handgun?

Who wants to bet that the family will try and sue the cops. Either way you all are thinking the perp said it's not a real gun. I think his family knew more then anyone else that it was fake. Either way with his mind so far gone death might have been salvation for this man. May his soul find peace in his new life.

ConservativeJoe, nice post.

Maybe Kyle thought the Cops were fake too....he was deemed mentally ill was he not? Guess we will never know.

Surprisingly, real guns are legal here, but fake look-a-like ones are illegal. So using that premise, maybe the cops shoot'n him up was justified.

Can not justify in my mind that they had to shoot him "multiple" times though.

you ever been shot by one of the soft shots...it would kill a lesser man like them cop puss'es...i get a extra troll point for that...

@ all those who want police to shoot to wound - lolfatty is correct. Shooting to wound is bad practice. You shoot to keep them from killing someone else. You shoot center of mass first. You want them incapacitated as quickly as possible and it takes longer than you think. A lot longer than you think when some one's else's life is in danger.

There is an old saying I was taught as a kid learning to hunt and it works here fine. Aim small - miss small. When lives are on the line you simply can not afford to miss. Shooting to wound is also dangerous to bystanders since your bullet is more likely to exit your target if you strike an arm or leg. Besides frankly I wouldn't trust most police to be able to hit a moving arm or leg. It's a lot tougher than most people think.

It was a bad situation all around but there was no way they would not have fired, their lives are on the line everyday and because his brother says it a toy gun how could the officers be sure, I hate when I hear people losing their lives but it only takes one bad decision on the officers part to lose their life, so was the officers right to fire I have to say Yes.

My question is; did the airsoft gun have an orange plastic tip like most states require? Orange tips are kind of the give away that it's fake....

If not, I'm going to have to take the side of the cops on this one.

Many years ago, I took a young man who had lost it to the ground and held him there until the authorities got there. When the paramedics got there, we emptied his pockets, and found a pocket knive. The paramedic took control of the knife until the law got there. The first officer on the scene then took it, and it was handed to the young man's family the next day. If I hadn't taken him down, he might have pulled it out in front of the police, and he might be dead, like this young man in the story. I've known other menn to die in the same circumstances. Those who knew the gun was false should have taken it from him before calling the police. Apparently he needed psychiatric help. The police aren't trained to do that. Please file this in your brain, so you can avoid losing a family member, or a friend. Take action yourself, and you might get a bruise, or a bloody nose, but you can save somebody you care about's life.

Ed McT-2404427

I hate to have to say this Ed, but if seriously your opinion is that if anyone is holding anything that even looks like a weapon deserves to be killed when the police are around, then there is no good reason for anyone to have a weapon that can kill people, even the police. What you are saying is that the lives of cops are worth more than the lives of citizens. There was a little kid killed in his own bedroom with a toy gun once here in the US, and you are saying that he deserved to die because he was playing with a toy gun? There were several instances over the last 30 years where citizens were killed by the police because they were holding a tire iron, and another case here in the Denver-area 30 years ago where a young man was killed by one police officer after another police officer instructed him to take his sunglasses off, and a chance reflection of sunlight was all the provocation needed to shoot to kill. In fact the number of accidental police shootings have consistently outnumbered the number of officers shot by more than 20-1 for more than 40 years now, and there are also hundreds of needless deaths caused by the police each year just like this one, where the threat was minimal, and a cooler head and more sensitivity training would have resulted in a life being saved rather than another one being ended for no good reason.

Perhaps it is time that the lives of our citizens become worth more than some cop's fear factor, and one way to do that would be to force the first use of a non-lethal weapon. There is no possible reason that either of these cops involved couldn't have manhandled this kid into submission rather than killing him as a first course of action. The officers and the department involved knew well who they were dealing with, and they also knew of his long-term mental-health issues too. The kid got let-go from a job of only a few weeks after being unemployed for some time and he was distraught, which is no good reason to shoot to kill anyone, even if they are holding a toy gun. Most cops would have pulled-out their Tazer first, and every Broomfield officer is equipped with a Tazer too.

If I was the director of the Broomfield PD, my reasoning would be that the city, an upscale suburb of Denver, didn't need trigger-happy people on the force, and my finding would let my other officers know that the kind of behavior that happened in this situation can not be allowed, period.

How many of these responding cops were recent war vets with exactly the wrong kind of trained reflexes? We need to instill a ban on anyone becoming a cop who has been in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan where 'shoot first and check later' is the de facto policy and their reflexes are trained under high stress making them almost impossible to change. We are seeing this kind of murder all over the United States lately and it will not be long before 'shoot first' will start meaning 'in self-defense as soon as any police arrive'. We recently had a homeless lady here shot for holding a hair brush. This is just NOT WORKING.

lolfatty, you are funny. All law enforcers federal to local are trained in disable shot tactics as are military personal. You sound like one of those people who watch self defense videos. Those videos are geared towards the 3foot distance quick shot and has nothign to do with any formal law training. In your world of shoot to kill ask questions later you sound like a bad dirty harry advertisement. Thigh, hip and shoulder placement shots are part of the required training or else all witnesses and criminals would be dead instead of testifieng for the enforcement agencies. To wit, just to add, trained snipers are often used to shoot a real pistol from a crazy person's hand. Your whole arguement is moot and based on stupidity from gun lover's magazine.

William ... your idea of modern military training is also quite moot. All mjilitary personal are trained in policing tactics, as their new role is social driven and thus shooting everythign that flickers past is not acceptable. Your ignorance is showing. Military personal tend to make some of the best policing agents in the world having spent years being attacked by real killers they also can tell the difference between a plastic toy with it's obvious, "don't sue me" orange cap tip and a real weapon meant (regardles sof it's design or materials) to kill.

Old timer you need to get in that split second of being in a cops shoes always primed and expecting something (so u can stay alive) and a weapon is pointed at you. In that split second you react you either respond accordingly or you DIE I agree it is a split second but you are not trained to react so you may not respond fast enough to save your life but a police officer is trained to respond to save his/her own life and in so doing accidents do happen. Police training is very hard and brutal as is military training but when you have to pull that weapon and a split second does not warrant is that GUN he just pulled real or do i wait and see if i am still alive. As every police officer is traine when you shoot it is repetitive to center mass. I am very sorry for the family and maybe dispatch did not get info out fast enough. We are not JUDGE AND JURY.

Kyle Miller was shot after allegedly pointing the Airsoft gun at officers.

Cheryl Miller told the Daily Camera her son was then shot multiple times.

My mind keeps flashing back to when the NYPD shot that man from Africa on his own front porch 57 times as he tried to fumble out his wallet to show his i.d. It was shown that several of the officers had completely emptied their clips and reloaded to continue the barrage of bullets.

Every sick, sad cliche you have ever seen about corrupt cops, bully cops and apathetic cops is true, and it's only the tip of the iceberg. Just because big-city police forces are being overrun with gangs, drugs and other crimes, all cops, even the ones in Mayberry or Podunk, think they are at war. The concept of community policing is dead. Every cop I've ever known thinks he is Judge Dredd and that the law is whatever he says it is.

We used to police ourselves. One of the many acronyms for the letters C-O-P is Citizen On Patrol. We looked out for each other. When we saw someone breaking into a neighbor's ______(fill in the blank), we stopped it, or went and got help. You don't generally need a law degree or six months of police academy training to know when someone is doing something wrong. We have been steadily giving away more and more of the responsibility for maintaining society to a small group of people, and with it, our freedom. We have become a nation of lazy cowards, ruled over by a militant police force, the most dangerous street gang of them all.

lolfatty, you are funny. All law enforcers federal to local are trained in disable shot tactics as are military personal. You sound like one of those people who watch self defense videos. Those videos are geared towards the 3foot distance quick shot and has nothign to do with any formal law training. In your world of shoot to kill ask questions later you sound like a bad dirty harry advertisement. Thigh, hip and shoulder placement shots are part of the required training or else all witnesses and criminals would be dead instead of testifieng for the enforcement agencies. To wit, just to add, trained snipers are often used to shoot a real pistol from a crazy person's hand. Your whole arguement is moot and based on stupidity from gun lover's magazine.

So do you have any evidence? Or should I just conclude you're an idiot that doesn't know what he's talking about? Because you sound like a moron who's watched too much Jack Bauer.

911... whats your emergency?..Well our son has a fake gun and a mental illness..no problem..they are not going to shoot him.

Hello are you still there..this is the 911 dispatcher..you never told me what color skin he has!

lolfatty ... evidence of what? I study quick shot (not as a shooter) and have trained under tactical police if that is what you mean. As to evidence of what you actually mean a full statement might help you some. If you need proof of the sniper there is a great catch video of such an incident in california some years ago. If you need evidence of the doors on police vehicles being designed to help deflect bullet paths just ask a local officer, yes get off your lazy arse and go outside. You seem to come unglued when someone questions your accuracy in words and your response so short and quick and without educated fullness shows you are a quick shot, probably with everything.

All the Airsoft guns I've ever seen have an orange barrel section on the very front. Unless he had altered the gun by cutting that identifying section off anyone who knows anything about guns should know that that is NOT a real gun! That was done specifically to keep down shootings of kids playing and police officers coming up on them and thinking they were real guns.

Lore&Wisdom you really have no idea what you are talking about here. When A LEO uses Deadly Force it is just that Deadly. What happened here is TRAGIC. But it from the few details here it is a good use of force and a good shoot.

You are entitled to your opinions tiki as well as your affiliations however you nor I sit in judgement over this event and thus neither myself and certainly not you willing to base your judgement only on what is printed here have any authority to claim it a good or bad shoot. Good shoot, as if he shot a turkey. Your comment would have been better addressed to the general group rather then a single person seeing as it is a highly generalized and factless judgement on your part. I will not weigh in on the legality of the shooting not knowing the exact laws of the location or the over-all fact table. My comment was not on whether the cop is a murderer or not, if you had actually read, it was on whetehr or not disabling shots are part of training and whether or not they could have been used in this scenerio (which by all that is presented here very well could have been). Fail well in the future as you have now and you will lead well a failing few.

In 2011, 64 police officers were shot to death in the line of duty. I am quite sure that if officers had to wait until someone shoots at them before they can shoot back, that number would be much higher.

Just because someone told the dispatcher the gun was a toy doesn't mean they were telling the truth. What if they're mistaken? What if the individual who ran out managed to find a real gun? Cops have a right to be able to go home to their families after their shift is over. If they change the laws so that officers must wait until they are fired on before they can protect themselves, a lot are going to quit.

For those of y'all who think the officer should have used a taser, in order for a taser to work the electrodes must hit skin. That doesn't always happen. A thick jacket, belt, something in a pocket, etc. can take one of the electrodes so the taser would have on effect. When someone is pointing a gun at you, there isn't time to see if a taser will work. If it doesn't, the officer would be dead.

The officer who shot this guy will live with this the rest of his life. He will try to convince himself, as will his fellow officers, that he had no choice but, he will never completely believe it. There will always be a "what if." Anyone who has ever shot someone to death, face to face, even in war, knows what I am talking about. You can justify it all you want but....

Lore&Wisdom: "All law enforcers federal to local are trained in disable shot tactics as are military personal."

No we're not. Center of mass always. I don't know where you got that, but it's wrong. I've been in the military over 20 years, and in all the countless times with the various weapons I've trained on at all the shooting ranges, it's ALWAYS been center of mass. You need to stop commmenting on things you know nothing about.

There are alternatives, such as a crisis intervention program developed in, I believe Memphis in an effort to reduce the likelihood of mentally ill/unstable being shot and killed by police. I spoke to an officer who had undergone training in a similar program in Mpls and also heard a presentation, when I served on a state council, by officers who helped develop a similar program in Minot, ND. Essentially, the "take control" approach to a situation conflicts with the best practices in situations involving a person who is in a mental health crisis. The Mpls program was started after a university professor, who also suffered from schizophrenia, was playing music loud to drown out voices in her head. Cops responded to a noise complaint. In the grips of her crisis, she answered the door carrying a knife and was shot dead. Cops who have had this training are profoundly affected by it--and one of the cops pointed out that they, themselves, are traumatized by killing people. She regarded specialized programs for police in mental health crisis situations as positive not just because they help save lives of both officers and the subjects, but because they protect officers from the emotional upheaval after such an incident. It may not work in all cases, but can make a big difference. Especially when families have called 911 because they are trying to protect their mentally ill loved one. . . .

I was shot by a bb gun using steel pellets, by a drunk guy at an outside party in my neighborhood. He pumped the gun hard, I got shot in the backside. I did not call the cops at the time, I was too freaked out. A week later, I was having some pain and went to the doctor. Shocked to learn there were 2 bb's in me--and one had traveled to my front and lodged near my bladder. The doctor was concerned but there was no permanent damage (he said infection is more likely from these than from a real bullet due to lower velocity thus less heat to cauterize/sterilize the path). The doctor's office had to report. I was told it was my choice whether to file charges because it would only be a misdemeanor. Interesting that something that was regarded as fairly innocuous by the cops would warrant shooting the guy with the bb gun if there had been cops around.

Sounds like the dispatcher f-ed up. I doubt that she relayed the info about the gun to the field officers. I'm sure they would have been on the look out for the bright orange tip, if they had known. No one wants to kill a mentally ill person if it can be avoided. The investigation will tell.

20years, if that is so I thank-you for your service 20years ago. Sounds about right for in war tactics and not the modern social aware tactics. If you prefer, fire-fight tactics which I really doubt was the case in this scenerio. I do have to apologize to william however as you are a shinning example of the wrong kind of hero to police us here at home. Try keeping me from commenting based on what you call wrong information if it pleases you. Bumped out is bumped out even if you retire friend.

Tougher entrance standards and higher pay to attract non-morons in the police force. The officers should be charged with murder if they were told the gun was fake. Any other explinatoin is BS, especially the "what if's these idiots come up with. A normal citizen can not go to court and use "what if's", a cop should be held to an even higher standard. If you dont want to risk your life to serve and protect dont become a cop, bitch. What more can a family do except tattoo Mentally Ill in large letters on someones forehead? The police are nothing but a bunch of trigger happy nazis.

Lore&Wisdom, your information is incorrect. I've been a police officer for 13 years, I still am a police officer, I train and qualify with firearms multiple times a year, and police are NOT trained for the "disabling" shots you talk about. We aim center mass. Hitting center mass is the surest way to stop the actions of a person considered to be a deadly force threat. Biology also tells us that, because of massive releases of adrenalin, fine motor skills (like those used to shoot a handgun) are severely impacted in high stress situations, meaning that precision shooting is generally a joke in such scenarios.

Now, let's deal with a couple other incorrect assumptions posted here...

Airsoft guns were first made and sold as training tools for police and military. For that reason, many of them are highly accurate in construction when compared to a real firearm. Many manufacturers actually use the schematics for real firearms to fashion their airsoft replicas, meaning that they have almost identical outside dimensions to the real thing. There are airsoft guns out there that, if I were to put it next to the real thing on a table, an person knowledgable in firearms would have trouble telling the difference. As for the orange tips, it's not uncommon for people to remove them from airsoft guns. Criminals have also painted the tips of their REAL guns orange in the hopes that an officer will hesitate just long enough for them to get off the first shot. Not to mention that the orange tip could easily be missed in low light situations or just in the heat of the moment. In short, the orange tip argument is moot.

That the family told the dispatcher that the gun wasn't real does not mean the officers should automatically assume it's the truth. If someone is pointing what appears to be a real firearm at you, is behaving in a way that makes you think it's a real firearm, but is yelling "it's not real!," would you take his word for it? Only a fool waits for the bullets to come your way before deciding maybe he wasn't telling the truth. The officers had to respond to his actions within the circumstances of the moment. It's tragic that the gun wasn't real, but his actions precipitated the outcome. That's not the fault of the officers or their training.

The call may have been dispatched as an airsoft gun, but who is to say that when leaving the residence, a real gun was not picked up?

If you're out in the dark with someone, regardless of if the call came out as an airsoft gun (which from a distance the "tip" if it was on, would be hard to see) or a real firearm, officer safety is number one. Officers will order a person to drop the weapon. If said weapon is raised towards an officer in an action that is threatening to that officer then what do you think is going to happen? The officer hopefully will go home to his family at the end of his shift. Will he live with what he HAD to do? Yes. Will it be hard? Yes.

A taser had no reason to have been brought out. If someone has a gun pulled on you, will you react with less lethal force? Heck no. So tasers are out of the question. And as far as "oh it was air soft, its clear, you can tell the difference". Next time you go to a sporting goods store such as DICKS or Dunhams or even your local Wal-Mart, take a stroll over to sporting goods. Take a look at air soft guns and tell me how in the dark faced with one of them, especially at a distance that you will laugh and say "oh, its an airsoft. Let's casually walk over to this guy and take it away from him".

Prayers go out to the family and officers all involved. But seriously, for one minute put yourself in a Police Officers shoes and try to live with the things they handle and see on a daily basis. You'd be surprised.

Swaganaut.... are you for real??? Most cops can't shoot.. I know.. I shoot with them all the time when I run pistol / plate matches at my sportsman's club. I can tell you that there are 7 bullet holes in various places in the locker room in a local police station. I've seen a 68 year old lady shooting a .41 cal outshoot seasoned cops... it's hilarious.

John Nettles Take it from me the officer that shot this man IS NOT on the investigative team. He has been placed on suspension, with pay, and must sit at home or sit in an interrogation roompending the outcome of the investigation. I was a police officer in the 70's and was involved in an officer/suspect shooting and for 3 weeks I had no badge, no gun and my nads hanging from a flagpole the entire time. Shooting was justified as I was being fired on but makes no difference. A commity of civilians and outside police investigators were involved in the entire investigation. No, that officer is sweating right now and will for the remainder of his life. It's no laughing matter killing someone!

Like nwrogue, I spent most of my life in the military, and I have never been taught to shoot any way other than center mass and nothing else. Also, all of the people who defend the police and say how tough they have it and it's the suspects fault that they shoot people, if these cops can't do the job because they are stressed or whatever, then they need to find new employment. That's what happens to the rest of us. You can't do the job properly, then you go away. These losers are no different.

"I read 17 responses on here, at least 25 of which sided with the cops

That is some interesting math your using...........you must work on the budget for our government."

Gtouch never insults. He only exposes you for what you are. It's embarrassing I know.

This underscores why people need access to mental health services. Unfortunately, however, states have decided to cut back on this 'necessary evil' to the tune of over $2.1 billion in the last 3 years, limiting services available to the public. And we wonder why things like this happen? It takes mental health professionals to deliver tried & trued techniques to help people overcome a range of identifiable mental disorders- families & friends do not count because they have no training nor know how to be objective and apply clinical principles to help someone on the verge of a meltdown. Throwing them in jail or taking themto the ER isn't going to cut it: We need more funding for state/city/county mental health facilities.

concord nh police responded to a mentally ill man. narrow hallway comes out with an axe after many hours of trying to end it peacefully. he gets shot. of course all the people who werent there said they could have done somthing differnt. one dumbazz city councilman said they should have tazzed him. they did about 5 times and didnt stop him. so the next time people have a better idea put on a uni and handle it yourselves, until shut up. godbless and stay safe

Lisa, Jessamyn-2712492 is right. If the person presents a danger to themselves and others and that person is an adult, you can have them commited to an institution but in these times if that person can convince a state-run facility they are much better within 72 hours, they are released. I went through it several times with my ex-wife for substance abuse. Didn't do any good, she ended up taking her own life 7 years ago.

@Conservative Joe your comment was just too stupid NOT to point out.

"I read 17 responses on here, at least 25 of which sided with the cops..."

There is no need to go further into your comment because that first line says it all.

For the rest of you, Cops are not trained to tell the difference between a real weapon and a fake one. Cops are trained to shoot a perceived threat in an effort to stop the threat. The family telling them that the gun was fake may have contributed to about half a second of extended life for the suspect and that's about it. There are even bad guys that are painting orange tips on the barrels of real guns so the police will hesitate to shoot. If you hesitate, you're dead. Police are not "paid to be shot at". That's like saying pilots are paid to crash airplanes or firemen get paid to burn to death. There is a big difference between whipping someone's butt and shooting them. There ARE some officers out there that feel it necessary to deliver their own form of occasional "street justice" considering our justice system lets baby rapers go after 2 years but gives a guy life in prison for having a pain pill in his pocket that a buddy gave him cause he hurt his back at work. But "street justice" is whippin' your a$s, not killing you. If you are shot by a police officer, it is because he feared that you would kill him or someone else.

People don't want laws against making realistic fake guns because that is taking away our civil liberties.

People don't want police to shoot people with realist fake guns.

People don't want suspects to shoot standersby while police try to ascertain whether gun is real or fake.

F. Hill,

Nobody was in a narrow hallway with an axe in this story. Dont be a brown shirt. They will turn on you eventually also.

I realize that with MSN any part of the story that has any similarities to the supposed incident is strictly coincidental. But where in the article does it say that the dispatch relayed the fake gun message to the responding police? And if the family was tagged with a mentally ill person, what details were included in the information? Hopefully the investigation will go into more depth than MSN

Bing ... thank-you for finally refuting my statements with accurate and properly conveyed details. I accept your post and am even willing to relook my research, good point on fine motor skills, instinct reaction pressure overcome and actually telling people exactly why no one should be running around with airsoft weapons just to 'seem' tough and coplike.

If I paint the tip of my glock orange do I get a free pass from the cops?

Perhaps if you paint the tip of your Glock orange and the cops find you with it, they should have the right to empty its magazine into you too???

Somebody commented that I didn't know anything about making split-second life-or-death decisions, and since I have more than 30 years of experience driving heavily-loaded semis often in heavy urban traffic, I probably have far more experience making such decisions than the average suburban cop has, and probably more than most senior big-city cops have too.

All that it takes is for some dummy in a 4-wheeler, on a motorcycle, a bicycle, or even in smaller or larger truck to make a dangerous or unthinking move and I'm driving something that weighs more than 20 times as much as your vehicle on average, and takes several times as long to stop as your vehicle on average too, and all that I get to "protect" myself and save your life too is the option to swerve left or right on a second's notice, otherwise my vehicle runs right over yours and crushes it as flat as an empty beer can in the parking lot!!!

And you thought that being a suburban cop was a tough job because once in a while you might have to make a life or death decision??? How about having to make those kinds of decisions every few minutes on average every 12-hour work day?

In 30 years of driving semis I never hurt or killed anyone either, though I probably had close to a half-million split-second chances to do so too. So I don't want to hear it as to how tough you think that your job is, as just imagine if all that you were armed with was a nightstick and some rigorous physical training, and any need for any more firepower would have to be called-in and approved first by your superiors too?

news flash: we pay police to carry guns; it's part of their job.

and if you are deranged or stupid enough to point a weapon at a cop - be it real or fake- be prepared to get shot

the choice is entirely up to you...

Lore&Wisdom:

Oh really? Military is trained on shoot to disable? And when did you serve? I've had several infantry platoons in Iraq and can assure you this is not the case.

Thanks for talking about policies you have no idea about!

The kid got what he deserved, bottom line. Police and military are NOT TRAINED on shoot to disable. Anyone who says different: have you even shot a gun? Go into a scenario where someone is pointing a possibly loaded, very real weapon at you. Do you take the chance of dying for his/her stupid action, or do you ensure your survival and that of those around you by pulling the trigger?

THANK YOU POLICE! YOU DID THE RIGHT THING! KEEP PROTECTING US! HOOAH!

Lore&Wisdom

My husband is currently in the Army. As I type this he is actually at work on base.

Soldiers are trained to shoot center mass, not to disable. Disable still gives the shot person time to shoot you.

That is the training given even to the ones deploying to win Hearts and Minds over in Afghanistan.

Yes. Even for a non-police-officer it would be an automatic reflex even if only 99% sure it was a fake gun.

Except when they know in advance. Otherwise, I would agree with you. The officers knew before finding the person. Certainly sounds like criminal negligence at the least.

In any event, another town soon to go bankrupt due the police action (inaction).

I couldn't agree more. If you point a gun at me i'm going to shoot you first. It wouldn't matter to me what the family said. They could have been mistaken,or lying to protect their brother.

The police are not to blame in this. The family chose to let the nut have a gun, even if it was a play gun, when they knew he had mental problems. They had no way to be sure the play gun was the only gun the guy had gotten his hands on. If police hesitate even for a second or two, they can and have in the past, been shot. In Rapid City SD last year 3 officers approached a group of men who were drinking and loud in a driveway. They said hello and one of the men pulled out a gun and pointed it at them. The offices hesitated for a moment thinking the gun was a toy and the man shot and killed 2 of them, the third was shot in the face with a 357 but survived. Before he went down he managed to get a shot off and killed the attacker. If there had been no hesitation the 2 dead officers would probably be alive today. Some of the play guns look so real its hard to tell exactly what they are. The police are not mind readers, and don't know if the 911 caller was telling them the truth or not. They were reacting to what the nut was doing, he provoked this entire incident. It almost sounds like suicide by cop.

The problem with "knowing in advance" that the gun wasn't real, is that the police are taking someone's word for it. My husband has extensive military experience, and he has an airsoft gun for training purposes (as do most police officers). They are made with quality materials to simulate the exact look, feel and heft of their standard issue service pistols. If you pointed one of those at someone, they would assume that it was a real gun. These officers put their lives on the line everyday, and when someone points a gun at them they are trained to shoot. It's not like it was a pink, plastic water gun where you could just look at it and say, "Oh, it's fake." Even if someone says, "oh the gun is fake", if it looks real they have to assume that it is real. The family might lie so that the police would talk instead of shooting, or there is the possibility that he had a real gun and his family didn't know. This is not the fault of the officers, but that in no way lessens the tragedy. Mental illness casts a wide net of destruction, and I think that is where this incident falls.

Jon, He isnt on a Soap box, as a Retired Police Officer I can tell you it is a tragic situation anytime an Officer has to shoot a person, The real World is that these Officers face Weapons daily and dont know if they are BB Guns or real Guns, Having a mentally Unstable Person in a house and knowing he has :Episodes " should be a warning not to have toys that look like real weapons, pocket knives, guns etc, Dont blame the Officer , dont blame the family and you cant blame the Mentally Challenged Person, so who do you blame? I could have pulled the trigger more than once on people like this that went over the deep end because they werent taking their meds or they were violent and needed to be in a controlled Environment, i almost lost my life to a mental patient with a knife, I fought him for 15 minutes and I could have klled him , if it had not been for a neighbor helping me i would have had to kill him, So dont pretend you know what it is like to face a man with a gun or knife, you dont ! Sad for You !

Jon-1106636: There was nothing in Marty's post that even resembled him being on a soap box. He relayed a very real and tragic story that relates to the story being told.

In the "real world" you point a gun at an officer you will be shot. You can't expect the officers to take the word of a stranger on the phone that a gun is fake. They have a duty to protect the public as well as themselves and they did nothing wrong.

You, on the other hand, were very rude without cause to Marty. I hope you will rethink your comment to him and apologize. You were way out of line.

Jon, If someone I loved had severe mental problems I wouldn't let them have a gun of any sort, real or toy. I wouldn't have let him go running down the street waving a gun around and then called police on him.

Let's see, metal shields, body armor, tasers, etc.

I think there were more choices, but the police deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Body armor does not do too much if you get shot in the face. Even with body armor there is the risk of going into shock. Totally justified.

Why are people attacking the police for not using their TASERs? The way that a TASER works is that the electrical impulses that surge through the subjects body contract the muscles, which, in the case of the hands, causes the fist to clench; so if a finger was on the trigger, the gun would fire, completely opposite of what officers would want!!!

FuzzyBearSlippers, I wish I could give you the thumbs up more than once! You covered all the bases -- it is a sad situation all around. As a retired police officer, I would not be able to take a stranger's word about the gun when my life and my partners' lives are at stake. Who knows if he had gotten a real gun somewhere. You don't bring a taser, or a baton, or pepper spray to a gunfight.

If you point a gun at me i'm going to shoot you first.

So an 8-year old points a toy gun at you that's missing the orange cap, you're going to blow her away?

A little common sense goes a long way. I'd rather die myself than kill a little 8-year old girl with a toy (or real) gun.

Apples and Oranges? No.

You know the girl is 8 years old so chances are, that M16 in her hands isn't real. You know this guy is mentally challenged and he has a toy gun. You have MORE reason to believe, when dispatch is telling you it's fake, that IT'S F*%ING FAKE. That little girl would be more of a threat. But again, I'd rather die myself than to take the life of an innocent.

Did they not see the big orange tip at the end of the airsoft gun????

I don't think they're required (for some reason) on Airsoft guns - are they?

Apparently it is required by federal mandate. Also read what some of this people are saying in this police world forum:

http://www.policeworld.net/vb/showthread.php?8020-Airsoft-Orange-Tip

Marty-3578909The police are not to blame in this. The family chose to let the nut have a gun, even if it was a play gun, when they knew he had mental problems.

And you must have some very special super-secret powers to "know" how the guy actually got hold of that AIRSOFT pellet gun........ Tell us all, Marty, do you happen to have any mentally ill children -- and if you do, do you keep all of your KITCHEN KNIVES locked up at all times? Kitchen knives are every bit as deadly as any gun, and cops like to shoot people who refuse to put down a knife, too. It would be a shame if your mentally ill child were to ever get hold of a kitchen knife while also going through a meltdown.

De Tocqueville

Apparently it is required by federal mandate. Also read what some of this people are saying in this police world forum:

http://www.policeworld.net/vb/showthread.php?8020-Airsoft-Orange-Tip

Hey, if that's their justification, that "I don't know it's not a real gun so I'm going to just shoot", then MY justification should I ever shoot a cop will be "Hey, how was I supposed to know he/she was a real cop? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of documented cases of people impersonating a police officer, complete with fake badge and fake police ID. How the hell am I supposed to know at a mere glance whether someone REALLY IS a cop? ALL I SAW WAS SOMEONE POINTING A GUN AT ME, SO I SHOT THEM BEFORE THEY COULD SHOOT ME."

That defense works for cops all the time. It should work for everyone else, too.

Eric,

If they used a tazer on a person holding a gun, it causes your muscles to contract. If they had there finger on the trigger, they would have fired the gun.

If an innocent person was killed, you would be the first one saying that the police should have shot the criminal then.

Simple solution, never point a gun an a police officer, whether its fake or not. Police officers have family to go home to at the end of the day too.............

so if a person dressed like a cop points a gun at me can i now shoot him? police officers lives are not more important that a citizens life, officers choose to become a cop and as such should be held to higher moral and ethical standards (and be rewarded for it) and always should seek the truth. currently the training that cadets go through is no anywhere near adequate for public safety and protection, they put their lives before citizens and are trained to fish for crimes and shoot to kill, never seeking truth. the public unions and the "brotherhood mentality" has got to go if we are ever to have an accountable police force.

these cops were in the wrong to kill this mentally handicapped citizen after being told by dispatch (presumably) that this citizen was mentally unstable going through a breakdown carrying a air-soft gun. they could have very easily disabled him without killing, i use to train in the military on firearms in blizzard conditions and still get marksman and sharpshooter -depending on how frozen the targets were. shooting to maim is pretty easy if you train for it, just plain shooting a target is easy enough.

police officers should always give the benefit of doubt to the citizen unless facts say otherwise, their job is to serve and protect the CITIZEN, not themselves.

@ Agnon

If I had a severely mentally disturbed child who was violent, absolutely I would lock up the knives, and I wouldn't give the child a gun either. As far as the orange tip, about 5 minutes with a black magic marker and the tip isn't orange anymore. But this guy wasn't a child, he was an out of control ADULT with a firearm pointing it at the officers. Believe it or not, self defense is allowed for officers, too.

"So an 8-year old points a toy gun at you that's missing the orange cap, you're going to blow her away?

A little common sense goes a long way. I'd rather die myself than kill a little 8-year old girl with a toy (or real) gun."

You must be insane. Some little girl points a gun at me,and guess what??? She will be shot to the point that i'm no longer in fear for my life. It's not my fault some parent was irresponsible and let her get a gun. I have my own children to raise,and my life to live. Neither you or an 8yo child will be given the right to take that away from me!

You take your common sense to the grave,and I will go home.

if you are going to be afraid of an 8 year old with what you think is a gun then i feel sorry for you that you are that scared and that incompetent as to not outwit an 8 year old. for you to be so quick to want to kill a child is very telling of the type of person you are and i would never want to be associated with people like you, you are scared of life and you are scared of death, a coward.

i have had a gun to my head on christmas day as a child and i was not the least bit scared and handled the situation calmly because i am neither scared of life nor death and no man or inanimate object will ever shake my boots and force me to beg for life. ive seen my life flash before my eyes several times and in each case i survive to live another day because i dont believe in defeat and there is never a reason to be afraid.

I didn't claim to be afraid of anyone. My point was that if I feel that someone could harm me or my children i'm going to get them first. If I thought I could remove the gun from whoever it was I would try that first,but if not i'm not going to be the one to die.

It's quite simple really. I'm going to look out for my family before anyone else. I was robbed @ the age of 14,some girl stuck a box cutter in my face. I told her to go and kick rocks,and I would have kicked her butt if she wouldn't have ran off after I wouldn't comply with her demands for my pager.

I will admit that i'm very upset that you no longer with to be friends or associated with me.

not what you wrote so dont try to back-step now. your response was to some other hypothetical of an 8 year old, not just "someone." you might have added your views based on a some other measures but the hypothetical story was still about an 8 year old and you admitted to being quick to kill that hypothetical 8 year old. honestly both you and the poster you responded to have no point to make and my post was just about the mindset of that type of thought. fear of life is being afraid, what is there to fear? you either win or lose and fear will keep you from winning.

i respect your desire to protect you and your family from harm but being quick to kill is not a respectable trait. there are many ways to diffuse a situation, being able to do more than kill will go along way to solve problems before they appear but dont take that as a excuse not to kill if it is warranted and necessary.

killing a child is never even a thought

The point of my last post was not to backtrack,but to provide a more elaborate explanation of my comment.

I think bringing the 8yo into the mix was a stupid thing to begin with. The point is this man pointed a gun at police. Now while some people believe the cops should have taken this crazy mans family at their word and gone to give the crazy a hug until he felt better all while hoping the family was telling the truth is insane.

Cops have a job to do. That job is to protect the citizens to include themselves. They are people just like everyone else. Their job is not to fix the crazy,mean or disturbed people. It's to protect the other people from those types.

Why didn't the family take him down to get the gun away,since they are the only ones that knew for sure the gun was not real?? Why? because people expect everyone else to handle their @!$%# problems. It's the same as sending your bad ass kids to school thinking it's the teachers job to fix them.

Oh,and kids can be monsters too!

Only a millisecond to respond? The police are trained to ignore that ignorant reaction. You seem to watch alot of shoot'em up television. Law enforcement agencies have spent the last decade or more training that initial stupid reaction from police so I don't know where you ghet milliseconds from. To wit, it takes roughly two seconds to fully aim pull and fully discharge a weapon so your milliseconds must be a video game concept. The facts are simple here, the police disobeyed training, stepped away from the vehicles door (which they are trained to stand behind for bullet deflection) and engaged a person they knew was having a breakdown. Poor decisions made in those so called milliseconds cost a human life. If you sleep better at night thinking this officer and his quick trigger cohorts did right just keep that in mind when one of your familiy goes loop and gets a half a dozen slugs as a reward.

Swagganaut, a loaded gun in the hands of an innocent little 8 year old girl is just as deadly as if it were in the hands of a murderer. To pretend otherwise is foolish and naive. It is impossible to use reason and logic with someone that young, so trying to "outsmart an 8-year old", as you so glibly put it, won't work.

I would die to protect the life of an 8 year old who was in danger, but if that 8 year old was pointing a gun at me, I would do whatever it took to protect myself, even if it meant ending a young life.

Bing ... thank-you for finally refuting my statements with accurate and properly conveyed details. I accept your post and am even willing to relook my research, good point on fine motor skills, instinct reaction pressure overcome and actually telling people exactly why no one should be running around with airsoft weapons just to 'seem' tough and coplike.

Except when they know in advance. Otherwise, I would agree with you. The officers knew before finding the person. Certainly sounds like criminal negligence at the least.

Except they didn't know. They may have had a report that the family said it wasn't a real gun but that's no where near the same as knowing it's not real when your life may be in danger.

Would you believe someone you don't know telling you someone else's gun pointed at you is a fake? I'm sorry but I wouldn't. It's just to easy to find yourself dead doing stuff like that.

Don't call the cops. Let the family handle it. The police are not roving medics.

Just as SWAT cops love the adrenaline rush of busting down peoples doors and act like military paratroopers some cops look at shooting people like they are hunting, its fun for them.

Devildog, thats just not true, I retired as an Officer , It isnt something any of us wish to do , that is a stupid statement , Semper Fi 1971 Parris Island

More mental health training for police officers please.............................

Impression with a whole bunch of bias thrown in for good measure...So you have this view of cops where they all are scared and empty their whole clips in unison at the drop of a pin huh? Seems that is fitting, in that in your posts you are quick to judge and spew a bunch of crud like it is fact.

Eric:

While I agree that officers do need more training on how to deal with Mental Health issues (coming from one getting his bachelor's in Criminal Justice for a career in LE), it is completely unreasonable to expect officers to not act in defense of themselves, which in this case would include shooting someone that points a gun-like object at them.

Most toy guns & weapons are marked with a bright Orange or red colors. Maybe it is time to start institutional the so call mental ill that can't control their actions or refuse to take their meds, if nothing else for their own safety & the safety of soiciety. Sorry, the police officers made a good call & clean shooting.

Don't call the cops. Let the family handle it. The police are not roving medics.

Unfortunately, someone else would have called them and we'd be reading about the same outcome. Only it would be perfectly justified. AND - that may have been the case. If someone else called the police, got a different dispatcher, they would not have known the gun was fake. This, in my mind, would be the only reason to not call this officer an imbecile.

Mike 44,you can say that about yourself but you cannot say that about other cops because I have known cops brag about the fact that they could shoot people and get away with it,and also about how much money that they could make per year in shake downs and bribes,cops are just any other people some are good and some are bad.

A few years ago in the bay area of Cal. a cop that had on the job for many years was fire because he refused to carry a gun ,that is a cop that I would say that does not want to shoot someone for the fun of it.

DKJ-4, you know.....the Nazis did the same thing......before they killed all those people. And this isn't the first instance where cops have not paid attention to the orange tip and shoot regardless. And multiple times none the less.

DKJ-4

Most toy guns & weapons are marked with a bright Orange or red colors. Maybe it is time to start institutional the so call mental ill that can't control their actions or refuse to take their meds, if nothing else for their own safety & the safety of soiciety. Sorry, the police officers made a good call & clean shooting.

And who will be paying for this "institutional the so call mental ill that can't control their actions or refuse to take their meds"? You? Here's a news flash for you, DK: One reason so many of these uber-dangerous people are not already institutionalized is that their families are not able to afford it to begin with. Another reason, one which I am somehow sure you just will choose to ignore, is that YOUR idea of institutionalization is what those families DO NOT want their children to go through.

But hey, maybe the next "good call & clean shooting" will end with the death of one of YOUR children, and all because the cops will not care whether the "perp" is holding an AK-47 -- or a toy.

fed-up with stupid people

Eric:

While I agree that officers do need more training on how to deal with Mental Health issues (coming from one getting his bachelor's in Criminal Justice for a career in LE), it is completely unreasonable to expect officers to not act in defense of themselves, which in this case would include shooting someone that points a gun-like object at them.

With how easy it is to get a fake badge that looks to every un-trained person like the real thing, as well as how easy it is to rent/buy a completely real police uniform, how is the average citizen supposed to know the cop that stops them really is a cop?

Hey, since all a cop sees is a gun, maybe everyone who kills a cop can get off by swearing that they really did think the person they killed was just another impersonator out to kill innocent people.............

The American fetish for guns has led to toy replicas being put in the hands of children to indoctrinate them into acceptance that deadly violence is a normal and good way of dealing with problems. Children play at killing things and most of the time those things are people. What kid plays with his replica gun and pretends to hunt deer or rabbits? Think about that.

One of the first things a LEO should be trained in is not reacting to adrenaline...ie, being able to stay cool and focused even under fire. The fact that the first shot caused the other LEO's to open up with a fusillade of fire demonstrates they were acting on a high level of adrenaline and were basically out of control and acting in a completely inappropriate manner to the actual reality and situation at hand.

We allow police to act as surrogates of the public and to be heavily armed, we should also expect a high degree of training that would mitigate the danger those armed people represent. Because of our cultural acceptance of gun violence as a norm we are not doing that and are spending energy otherwise rationalizing for the police action...the man's death is almost incidental.

But most of all our whole culture is to blame in some degree for this shooting death in the way we celebrate and accept violence as a normal way to solve problems.

Next time you give a kid a toy gun, teach him to hunt for food with it and not other people.

"Bang bang your dead." could've been the headline for this article.

CULHEATH

now lets not be so quick to judge those in real time making a decision that one bullet could change there life.

there is never a training scenario where DUCKING bullets allows for you to shoot back. And thats because Officers have a right to be able to go home and also a right to survive a potentially deadly encounter.

To act as though a gun pointed at you doesn't make your life flash in front of you-- is very unrealistic.

In the end, the need for guns of any kind to be pointed at people who have guns too, should not be something one should have to guess about the outcome.

I comment to you because on the other board i would think you would see this for what it is, A CHOICE by that man.

Hey,

I wasn't trying to judge the cops other than to say that I thought they were reacting to the situation under the influence of adrenaline which made them subject to being "trigger happy". But beyond that is criticism of a cultural acceptance, including the policemen involved, that "split second decision making" is an acceptable mode for people we allowed to be lethally armed.

To act as though a gun pointed at you doesn't make your life flash in front of you-- is very unrealistic.

In the end, the need for guns of any kind to be pointed at people who have guns too, should not be something one should have to guess about the outcome.

There is training for that.

Soldiers are clearing a building in a war zone and have just experienced heavy fire As they move through the building one them suddenly comes around the corner and confronts a team mate. Does either one of them instantly react to a split second decision based on training or adrenaline? If it is training, they live. Adrenaline would probably have one or both of them killed. I think you understand what I mean.

I comment to you because on the other board i would think you would see this for what it is, A CHOICE by that man.

I missed which man you were referring to. Sorry.

To me the rationale which says a LEO has the absolute right to first protect himself at all costs even at the expense of an individual who in reality posed only an imagined threat flies in the face of what the role is.

Emergency workers of all types are placed in life threatening situations and are frequently called on to risk their lives to save others. It's heroic. That component has been removed from the role of police and now we allow that it is reasonable that police can shoot first at a minimal threshold of perceived danger. That being the case, what I am calling for is the same high degree of training that allows those soldiers I mentioned earlier to not shoot one another out of overreaction.

Does this case at hand not implicate overreaction? To me it does.

CULHEATH

i think you need to read a statute so you will see that, our laws dont have anything to do with adrenaline it has to do with the right of officers to survive a critical incident when imminent harms comes there way.(not to say that line of thinking doesn't have truth to it)

there is no doubt that emergency workers put there lives on the line daily but many of those folks are charged with stopping a threats or dealing with weapons that need to be met with equal force.

There are enough stories where cops DO ACT BADLY or do use excessive force, this is not one because AT ANY TIME the choice to disengage fell on the man and his family.

not on the responding officers to a use of force situation.

and soliders and cops are not in the same page for WHEN force is used. soldiers have orders based on INTEL, cops deal with things in real time on the fly.

To try to equal that out is weak to say the least and a cheap shot to both groups.

Over reaction is a reach when we both arent there with a weapon that can move a object 25 feet in 2 seconds and one little hole can end our lives.

this family had options to get physical with this guy and didnt, they should have had this guy pinned down to the ground when the officers arrived. Much less the fact that where the hell did he get a supposed look a like weapon out of all the things he could have grabbed.

In the end, the UNDER REACTION is to not be upset that an officer has to make a choice between his life and going to his family vs a goof ball whose family didn't take him out on there own terms.

We disagree.

I believe there have been too many incidences of police over reaction that has ended in death of a individual posing a non-lethal threat. And the incidences seem to be increasing.

The mention of the soldier situation was merely to indicate that training can overcome the flight/fight adrenaline reaction the untrained person is subject to. Lack of such training indicated by the multiple shots fired is obvious to me. The object is to stop the threat, not make hamburger out of it.

this family had options to get physical with this guy and didnt, they should have had this guy pinned down to the ground when the officers arrived.

Again we are talking about lack of training on the part of the family. They are amateurs, the police are supposed to be professionals. I am not saying police do not have a right to protect themselves, of course they do. But as far as I am concerned I see far too many instances of under trained police overreacting as well as far too much acceptance of it by the public. The public should not have to be afraid of the police killing them for making a wrong move that gets misinterpreted out of uncontrolled fear.

I am not trying to second guess most police work. I'm just saying the lethally armed people should be highly trained to control their fear. I don't see that in many of these instances.

Much less the fact that where the hell did he get a supposed look a like weapon out of all the things he could have grabbed

It's a toy. Many households have such things lying around. Who knows why he grabbed that and not a spatula or wooden spoon. He was acting out...maybe a toy gun represented how he felt. I don't see how that's relevant considering he was mentally ill.

CUL

this is not every incident and your not at every incident, so i choose not to BRING garbage from one story to another.

Nobody wants to be judge in there real life for an experience from another experience that didn't go so well.

This sit at the computer and judge what happens in real time, is fine but i only commented because after reading some of your "z" comments you seem on the level, and then i noticed you comment about this story and i thought, wow, he cant have it both ways.

The idea that professional have to provide a standard that MAKES YOU THINK you would be able to handle a situation from you computer desk is not real and unfair. No different then someone who trys to suggest you do A JOB you do at work a certain way just because they are commenting on it.

Fight or flight is not at issue, whats at issue is the legal right for officers to be free from IMMENENT HARM OR DEATH.

The family can only do so much, but they also could have done more then force an officer to figure out what TYPE of gun this was by REMOVING IT THEMSELVES.

The statutes that come down to use of force for almost all states read the same mn 609.066 is a very clear one

609.066 AUTHORIZED USE OF DEADLY FORCE BY PEACE OFFICERS.

Subdivision 1.Deadly force defined.

For the purposes of this section, "deadly force" means force which the actor uses with the purpose of causing, or which the actor should reasonably know creates a substantial risk of causing, death or great bodily harm. The intentional discharge of a firearm, other than a firearm loaded with less lethal munitions and used by a peace officer within the scope of official duties, in the direction of another person, or at a vehicle in which another person is believed to be, constitutes deadly force. "Less lethal munitions" means projectiles which are designed to stun, temporarily incapacitate, or cause temporary discomfort to a person. "Peace officer" has the meaning given in section 626.84, subdivision 1.

Subd. 2.Use of deadly force.

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 609.06 or 609.065, the use of deadly force by a peace officer in the line of duty is justified only when necessary:

(1) to protect the peace officer or another from apparent death or great bodily harm;

(2) to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the peace officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony involving the use or threatened use of deadly force; or

(3) to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or great bodily harm if the person's apprehension is delayed.

And yes i am not here to SWITCH how you feel about the incident but to let know that, this is relative to the z post in that, whats reasonable in use of force was not present by Z and thus i am confused on this post that you would think, making an officer guess whats real when a choice was made by that party was his own, i am not sure i get that.

by the way i am really not a big fan of the mentally ill deal as the out, because he could have grabbed a beach ball, a tennis racket, a spoon, and so on but decided on something that shows off a potential for deadly force, so for that moment he was sane enough to not pick up any of those NON potentially lethal items?

Just so you know, I have done street work in several capacities for about 15 years total and have experienced many emergent situations with with police, criminals and mentally disturbed people so that I have some insight beyond just what I read from papers or the computer screen. I will grant you that all but 3 years of that experience was in Canada and the climate there regarding police and their weapon use is quite different than in the States.

Beyond saying that I again assert that we disagree on fundamentals regarding the role of police and their lack of training.

I am not asserting that police run out and take a bullet for someone nor that they should not exercise all due caution in order to protect themselves. However, there IS a pattern to these reported situations over the years where people are shot and killed by police, usually by a group of them, because the police over reacted to some stimulus that indicated they were not in control of their own reactions. People want to believe that police training is an in-depth, nationally standardized program, but it is not. Some police departments give only cursory training and have poor psychological assessments to boot when they hire. Much of that stems from lack of funding but also from a lack of public awareness of what the hiring and training systems amount to. I can tell you that there is a huge difference between dealing with Canadian city police than with American city police and that that has nothing to do with the operational guidelines or laws surrounding those policies. It's attitudinal, screening, training but most of all public expectations of police performance that makes the difference.

In any event, thanks for your feedback, which I am taking to heart because I do respect your thinking and lines of argument and the quality of your posts.

CUL

there is always a pattern to justify a position one wants to side with, there are enough non reported stories where officers should have and witness expected a suspect shot dead but those rarely make the news.

training is never the how it really is in most use of force situations because the unknown variable is the suspect and the unknown actions he or she might take compared to any training scenario officers will have completed, even in the best academies.

In the end i put alot of weight on the choice of citizens to use freewill responsibly and in this case that choice was not hampered by any outside forces that would have required that he be shot other then his own want.

And so I will travel forward hoping to continue present my post that will allow for more nice comments you made and maybe catch you on a post where your thinking might be off lol lol lol and yes in any event, you have my respect too!

Cool. :)

In the end i put a lot of weight on the choice of citizens to use freewill responsibly and in this case that choice was not hampered by any outside forces that would have required that he be shot other then his own want.

I don't know how free will would play into mental illness. If we don't find people culpable for their actions in court if they are considered mentally ill, wouldn't the same concept apply to this man who was shot?

CUL

what applies to this kid that was shot is his abilty to save himself, he had a knife when in the house and then exited with an airsoft gun. SO again he may have been up set but he knew what he wanted to use to display for those who witnessed him on the street.

Explain your comment. Do they not have a brain between them?

Obviously not. It takes a special breed of idiot to ignore the dispatcher and draw a gun to shoot someone multiple times.

I seriously doubt that the dispatcher told them not to shoot. More likely she told them that it was possible it was not a real gun. Those airsoft guns are made to look real, and as soon as it is pointed at them, they don't really have the luxury of guessing, "is it or isn't it?" Additionally, police and military are trained to shoot at least twice, not once. So if they have good aim it will almost always be "multiple" gunshot injury. What they knew was that there was a mentally ill man running around with what may or may not have been a fake gun. Were they supposed to wait for him to shoot it to find out if it was actually fake? I just don't think we should indict these cops so quickly. They have a dangerous job and they have the right to protect themselves if they believe their lives are in danger. In this case, I think it was a reasonable use of force, and I suspect a judge and grand jury would agree.

I am sure that at some point in time, someone had a real gun and the family said it wasn't real. Why would they do something like? So that the police wouldn't shoot their loved one. Put yourself in the police officer's shoes for a moment. You have a gun and are pointing it at someone who is pointing a gun at you. Their brother tells you it's not real. Do you automatically believe it? Do you literally bet your life on it?

Yup, I'm capable of pulling doubt out of my @$$ so I'm gonna forgive the police for spilling the blood of my family members.

Police can do no wrong.

They shoot dogs every day, what's the life of one that walks on two legs holding an airsoft gun?

If there weren't for criminals like you, we wouldn't need police.

nosferotica:

Here is a link to an image of an airsoft gun: http://www.airgundepot.com/beretta-92fs-green-gas-full-metal-pistol-by-cybergun.html

Notice how life-like it is, other than the very small orange ring at the front of the muzzle? Now imagine seeing that thing pointed at you straight on, in the harsh morning light that is likely orange in color from the sunlight filtering through the smoke from the wildfires. All you would be able to see is a small ring of what may or may not be orange.

fed up-or if someone has removed the orange part or painted over it in black

Katy M: The only problem with your scenario is that I doubt many have pre-emptively called police, before police were even aware of a problem, and told them a family member has a fake gun. They were trying to protect their family member. Guess that was a mistake.

Katy MI am sure that at some point in time, someone had a real gun and the family said it wasn't real

this doesn't even make sense, there was NEVER a real gun in this situation. toy guns do not look like the real thing, obviously the people that believe otherwise has never seen nor held a real gun before, they may resemble a real gun but resemblance is not the same and if an officer cannot tell the difference between a real gun and not a real gun then they should no be an officer. to the police everything is a weapon so they can shot you.

law enforcement officers are not above the people who pay their salary, citizens and in this country we are innocent until proven guilty so that means officers need to give benefit of doubt to the citizen, not themselves, unless facts say otherwise.

swagg maybe something you need to understand ALL PEOPLE (POLICE TOO ) ARE INNOCENT till proven guilty

The court of popular opinion. Double tap is not several rounds. The cop acted without consideration as such negligence is the only fore-seeable negative verdict for the officer (unless other actual evidence shows otherwise). A young person is dead. Toy guns, real guns, ray guns and of course LED guns. What will it matter tomorrow?

Put yourselves in the officers shoes. You chase down a person, he raises a gun, whether it be toy or not! Whatwould you do in that split-second scenario? In the incident I was involved in as a police officer I did not even know that the man had fired at me and the bulet just missed me by inches...damn thing went through my radio case, and I never heard it nor do I remember hearing it to this day.

Swagganaut,

You clearly need to look at my previous post on this very comment. There are many toy guns that look exceedingly like the real thing. There is a reason that there are many hold-ups that are used using airsoft guns instead of real guns- it's because they look so life like!

-and Alright!: I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the family members that they did not do the illegal thing and remove the orange tip.

I agree... they knew. I can not imagine how they will justify this... it sickens me. That poor family.

Wrong!!! They were told it was fake. I'm guessing you have never been lied to.

how am i wrong? read what the dispatch said to the 911 caller. she said they know about the gun and how to handle these situations......epic fail

I swear I thought it was a pellet gun he was holding.....I have no idea where he got that real gun....so sorry the officer is dead

Officers wear body armor, and are expected to take risks? Are you advocating they shoot first and never expose themselves to danger? How many civilians should be killed to protect an officer who knowingly accepted a dangerous job? If you can't bear the thought of being shot at first to protect the citizens you swore to protect, you are a coward and in the wrong line of work, maybe something that involves retail sales?

I'm sick of hearing about coward cops that shoot first because they refuse to accept any risk for the profession they chose.

You are wrong because you don't know what you are talking about "Mr. Phd"

Armed Assault (which may be responded to be using deadly force) doesn't even require an actual weapon, as long as the perpetrator to act as if he has a weapon.

If you want to actually learn something, as opposed to merely expressing opinions on something you have no knowledge or experience of, google "mistake of fact" versus "mistake of law".

I don't have a Phd, but I AM trained in Law Enforcement AND I am a firearms instructor AND I am smart enough not to express opinions on subjects I don't know anything about.

PS. Do you think the police have ever been lied to by family members?

So a kid points a squirt gun at you and deadly force is warranted?

Depends, Eric. Did the airsoft gun have the federally mandated orange tip to signify that it is fake? A lot of kids either saw it off or paint it black to look more authentic. If it didn't, then I don't blame the officer at all for his training taking over his instinct when a suspect pulls something that looks exactly like a real gun on him. If it did have the orange tip, then obviously some more investigation/reprimanding is warrented.

I'm not denying this is a tragedy; not by a long shot. But it's worth considering that this officer might be just as upset about this as the rest of us.

Why because the brother told them so. You can't blame the police on this one, I don't care how you people look at. I was wonder how many commentors here have actually dealt with mentally out of control phychos. I would of fired also seeing a person pointing a gun & I wouldn't trust family members when it comes to the truth.

Some people here seem to think that the police should wait until the bad guy shoots before they can shoot back. What if the bad guy's first shot his the cop right in the head, neck or any other part not covered by a vest, killing him outright or fatally injuring him? After that the shooter is free to shoot any nearby innocent witnesses, etc. Completely ignoring the human cost, the taxpayers wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on training the officer, buying his insurance, paying survivor benefits... oh wait, maybe you think the murdered lawman's wife and children don't deserve that. After all, they should have known it was a risk of his job.

"I swear on my mother's life I truly thought that badge was fake and the person wearing it was an impostor! I shot him/her because I thought my life was in danger! With all the stories about people impersonating cops, I wasn't going to take a chance with my safety and the safety of my family! HOW WAS I TO KNOW THEY REALLY WERE A POLICE OFFICER!?!"

Hey, if a cop can get away with killing someone just by say "I saw what looked like a real gun" -- then the average citizen, not trained to know the minute details between a fake cop and a real cop, should be able to use that same kind of defense should they ever happen to kill a cop.

To all the people who keep insisting that a cop was shot after being told by the dispatcher that the perp is mentally ill and has a fake gun, prove it. Go ahead and search the internet. As everyone knows, it should be easy to find situations like this. Go ahead and do it. I bet you don't come up with anything.

police are not above the citizen, do you people not get what country we live in? we are INNOCENT till PROVEN GUILTY so by that measure police should always give the benefit of doubt to the citizen UNLESS facts says otherwise. the gist of the FACTS in this case is that the 'family' told dispatch that their mentally disabled family member is having a breakdown and grabbed an air-soft gun and went outside, the dispatch assured the family that they are trained to handle situations like this and that they would be aware of the fake gun. police are paid to take risks to their personal safety in order to protect the public's safety and serve their needs, if an officer cannot protect and serve the citizen before himself or his fellow officers then that officer is no officer, only a selfish narcissist only concerned with keeping a 'job' and supporting their choices.

a hero is someone who risks their personal safety and life in the face of danger to save another without question, motive or reward. when you kill someone instinctively or because you "think" they might hurt you, you are a coward.

Mike the red THERE ARE SEVERAL POLICE JOBS OPEN GO GET TRAINED AN SHOW UP FOR WORK seriously these people actually breed and vote

Officers wear body armor, and are expected to take risks? Are you advocating they shoot first and never expose themselves to danger? How many civilians should be killed to protect an officer who knowingly accepted a dangerous job? If you can't bear the thought of being shot at first to protect the citizens you swore to protect, you are a coward and in the wrong line of work, maybe something that involves retail sales?

I'm sick of hearing about coward cops that shoot first because they refuse to accept any risk for the profession they chose.

That is the most unbelievable thing I have read in weeks. The thought that police have to allow someone the first shot - just to make sure - before they can return fire. Hell, maybe that first shot was an accidental discharge. Maybe we should make police have to wait until after the 2nd shot to return fire - just to make sure. That's just plain crazy.

Police are trained now to not expose themselves to ANY risk. If this means some innocent civilians have to die, that's the price of being a police coward. Until the law starts assigning some negligence to police actions such as this, the police will continue to shoot with impunity. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. maybe polie should be exposed to live fire to harden their nerves and realize that most people especially untrained people will miss on their first shot, that still allows the police to defend themselves with deadly force. This shoot first crap is cowardly.

Mike,

What color is the sky in the dream world that you live in?

By your logic, our Millitary are all cowards. How dare they fire a shot until fired upon?

No reason to take proactive action against an enemy, we should just reach out to them as fellow humans and brothers, and show them the error of their ways.

I will venture to say, you have never taken hostile fire yourself, Foreign or domestic.

Your opinion is therefore held in less regard than those of us who have.

The military is held to tougher standards then our domestic police. So you value the life of an Iraqi more than that of a US citizen, you sir are a fool and a coward too. If you are a coward you shouldn't be in a dangerous occupation. And I call BS you have never been under ROE or you would know what you are talking about. Which you obviously don't.

Ray,

Have you served in the military? I have and when I was in Somalia, we could not even have a round in our chamber until we were fired on first. So get your facts straight before you try to compare apples to oranges!!!!

Hey Ray, the military are not there to protect they are a killing machine that operates where other killing machines are doing the same.

Maybe the next time a cop tries to stop me "for questioning", I'll just ignore her/him and start shooting -- because how the hell am I supposed to know the person with the badge is actually a cop and not some deranged homicidal maniac impersonating a cop?

Hell, even I can get hold of a fake badge that even a real cop would have trouble knowing whether it was fake.

Justice was upheld that day. I have no problem with the actions that the police took. When it is your life and that of a deranged person...pull the trigger.

Not only did the police act appropriately, they saved the taxpayers from having to support, house and feed this fool.

How sad that you think that way. Sad and disgusting. Thank God you are not a cop. I'll bet people are afraid toi come to your door with your ignorant and dangerous "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude. Cops are very well compensated precisely because they are taking on a higher level of potentially life-threatening risk than you or I.

Proudamericanidiot fought wars to allow police to kill their own.

If it was a fake gun, why didn't the family simply take it away themselves? Problem solved.

The cops don't care if a gun is fake or not. They sign up to shoot people. It's what they want to do.

Yeah, because it's better that innocent cops die rather than the life of his brother.

What good is trying to save the life of your brother, at that point.

Don't call the cops, they have no interest in resolving a situation peacefully? Ever wonder how it is we got to this point, that a cop only has to feel threatened and all there needs to be is a minute shred of doubt that they could be in the right and they just sweep the bodies of the innocent under the proverbial rug?

What if they hadn't fired. What if his weapon was real and he fired. But he missed and killed a inocent child. Then you would want their heads.

If the family knew it was an airsoft gun they should have gone after him. Or I know, not had any real looking guns that he had access to. After all they knew he had mental problems.....

That's exactly what I was wondering. We have some of the caller to the dispatcher transcript, but nothing from the dispatcher to the responding officers. I wonder how often they hear it's not a real gun, and what percentage of the time that is true versus when it turns out to be false.

"Sorry"
You should be

You don't know me, so don't judge me!!! So you are saying the family had absolutely no responsibility in this? That is like saying parents have no responsiblility over their children? If the mo fo wasn't right in the head, whose responsibility is it to make sure he is safe? And if it is me next, you better believe it's not because I'm pointing a fake gun at a police, but because I am aiming either my .38 or 12 gauge at your self-righteous, pathetic *ss!!! BANG BANG *ITCH!!!!!

First of all - It's "patient's", not "patience"
Second of all - Tell me you'd feel the same if it happened to someone in your family. Go ahead. Tell me that. Then go warn everyone in your family how you feel about their safety.

The cops did not have to put themselves into the situation where they were "looking down the barrel of a gun." These cops, were they trained properly, and not trigger happy rednecks had non-life-threatening options to find out how real the threat was. They are accepting lots of pay and a nice early retirement, precisely because they accepting a higher level of risk. If they are just going to go around wearing their bullet proof vests and get a free pass to shoot people, you and I are paying them way too much.

Right, they should have waited until he took out an inocent bi-stander then you would be satisfied. Or would you?

Walk a mile

Jim Jones-6339406 Accept a higher level of risk?

Where do you invent your information? Cereal boxes? Where do you find this on any police recruitment poster or creed. "Come join the police force, your life isn't in enough danger!" Any officer I ever met joined the force to improve their communities and keep crime down for their loved ones, being an officer is NOT AN ACCEPTABLE HIGHER Danger as you wish it should be, should we get rid of all the bullet proof vests that save their lives because you believe this is an inherent risk they accept anyways? It OK for them to get shot and killed because its the JOB DESCRIPTION??!! you are braindead sir! Its like saying firemen become firemen for the chance to end up in a burn unit, the jobs these people take are noble and necessary, they arm themselves to protect idiots like you from getting killed by the criminal element, they choose to protect your miserable life, not because they get a thrill out of risking their own.

seriously were you THERE ?????

Rusty , How much time have you spent in Prison or jail?

Well, Mike, maybe Rusty stated his case a bit harshly, but i have never been arrested, and I do believe a high precentage of cops are NOT trigger-happy, BUT.... I have encountered some arrogant a--h--- in my years that clearly went into law enforcement because their sense of self-worth depended on carrying a gun and playing God with the power of life and death. I was smart enough to play their game. "yessir, nosir." These guys were stupid redneck trash who never should have been in uniform. There are people who go into the armed forces for that reason, too, and if you do not think so, you are oblivious to reality.

There are always going to be arrogant cops who like to lord their authority. That's unfortunate, but inevitable. We like to hate those guys. But it is definitely a falsity to lump them with the rest of the police force and assume they're all trigger happy. There's nothing for them to gain out of this except a mountain of paper-work, months dealing with internal affairs, and some terrible dreams in the future.

This was a tragedy. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is true that the 99% who are bad cops give the 1% who are good cops a bad name. That's too bad for the 1%, but it is worse for the public who have to suffer at the hands of the bad cops.

JOHN you numbers are wrong just like there are a few million police and you want to say 990 thousand are bad really I honestly believe that a lot of you peopl;e were never introduced to the real cops who give their time to help neighborhoods and school seminars and community neighborhoods to structure crime watch programs dare programs the list goes on. I am not law enforcement but one of my sons is my father was military and law enforcement and 2 uncles and a few cousins. I DIDNT WANT TO DEAL WITH IDIOTS so I chose another profession. Too m any people complain before wearing someone elses shoes.

In what world is someone having a mental breakdown pointing a gun at you not an imminent threat of death?

In our world, where an AirSoft pistol loaded with plastic .12g BB's wouldn't kill a squirrel 9 out of 10 times.

In what world are Police suppose to stay perfectly safe at the expense of the citizenry? Last I saw, even a real gun pointed at you doesn't kill, it has to be fired and the round has to hit. Police are cowards, if you can't be shot at while wearing body armor and hiding behind a car, then you don't deserve the badge. ROE for police is more lax in the states than it was for our soldiers in Iraq. If that doesn't tell you anything I don't know what will.

Bulletproof vests are not really bullet proof, and they only cover their chest. Even if the bullet is stopped by the vest it can still kill you. The idiot pointed a gun at the cops and he got shot, as he should have. People need to learn that actions have consequences, and the consequences of his actions were fatal. If a cop is shot in the head, legs, arm, or even in a bullet proof vest it can be fatal, so the cops were acting in self defense. A stun gun is not an effective weapon in a situation with an armed person, as electric shock can cause involuntary muscle contractions which could cause the person to pull the trigger. The person to blame here is the little craphead that pointed a gun, fake or not, at a police officer.

So you think everybody is shot in the chest. Nobody is ever shot in the head or in one of their limbs causing death or dismembering them. If I were a Police Officer I would want to make sure I was the one going home to my family not someone pointing what may or may not be a real weapon at me

Actions have consequences, so you admit that the cop shooting an innocent, unarmed civilian should have repercussions? he gambled that he was in danger and he was wrong. If you or I did that we would be in jail.

@timetogo, then that person shouldn't be a cop, it's a dangerous job and if you remove 99% of the danger you are going to end up with dead civilians, so how many unarmed people should a cop be allowed to shoot in his career? 1, 5, 10, 20 or unlimited? As long as the cop makes it home who cares if innocent civilians do? The cop headed out knowing he was in danger, does the civilian who was shot pulling out a cellphone or wallet know that?

Guns are for arms of any sort, be they knives, golf clubs, ball bats, airsoft guns, actual guns, etc.

Tasers are for mouthy, recalcitrant citizens.

That seems to be the case, at least.

Rusty,

Bulletproof vests don't cover your face (you can die getting shot in the head, bet you didn't know that), stomach, legs, or arms. You can bleed out getting shot in the leg or stomach also.

Our soldiers wear body armor, so why do they bother taking cover in combat then?

Let me ask you something, if somebody is pointing a gun at you, and somebody else tells you it is fake, is that really going to make you feel any better about the situation? The punk pointed a gun at a cop, he got shot, deal with it. If somebody robs a bank with a fake gun does it make it any less of a crime?

Yeah, I would not put myself in the life-threatening situation in the first place. Lot's of ways to defuse the situation than emptying your gun. Thank God you are not a cop. Hope not anyway.

Jim Jones-6339406

Jim.... oh you of such impecable hind sight, exactly what ways would YOU defuse a situation where someone is pointing a gun at you and YOU as part of your job are required to inject yourself in those life threatening situations. I'll wait for your wonderful assessment of the situation.

Airsoft guns are made to be understood they are not real. They have a big red/orange plastic tip. Its obvious that it's fake. I have one and got it from a Police raffle. They should know better.

These guys were just sloppy. I wouldn't want them on my police force.

Shannon Morris

I cannot BELIEVE people are defending the police on this.
Did you miss the part where the dispatcher was told that the gun was not real????
Did you miss the part where the dispatcher says "Officers are trained in this kind of thing. They're not going to go around shooting people." ????
Apparently, they ARE going to go around shooting people.
Imagine this happening to someone in YOUR family! Would you be defending the cops then???
You people deserve the kind of trigger-happy, power-hungry authorities you defend.

Cody said " the story does not mention whether that same 911 dispatcher ever gave that information to the responding officers."
What the hell is a dispatcher supposed to do? Isn't it their job to relay this kind of information? ESPECIALLY after assuring someone not to worry? Give. Me. A. Break.

Mark - lapsed Catholic and full-time Irish

Airsoft guns are made to be understood they are not real. They have a big red/orange plastic tip. Its obvious that it's fake. I have one and got it from a Police raffle. They should know better.

These guys were just sloppy. I wouldn't want them on my police force.

First of all I am not a cop. I am also unarmed. But these comments are a bit ridiculous. To "Shannon" you said it yourself... " the story does not mention whether that same 911 dispatcher ever gave that information to the responding officers. What the hell is a dispatcher supposed to do? Isn't it their job to relay this kind of information? " Right the story does not mention this. So we don't know if they relayed it or not. As to whether or not it is the dispatchers job... I am sure that there is a slurry of protocols that need to be followed... and frankly... in a life-or-death situation... there is no "system" that can possibly respond fast enough for a perfect outcome. I doubt anyone in particular is to blame on this... the only chance is that a dispatcher did not follow procedure, or "do what they were supposed to do." There is a small chance that it could be a trigger-happy police officer... but I doubt it. Finally the "assurance" not to worry did not come from a source that... I am sure that law-enforcement could consider "reliable enough to be actionable in a life or death situation." They could not take the brother's statement as fact... that's just it. As many people have said the police cannot rely on the statements of citizens' to "not worry" when they are in a potentially life threatening situation! If you think they should... I respectfully submit that you re-consider, and think about the ramifications of what the job of those involved in police work would be like if they were expected to rely on this information in this way.

To Mark: "Airsoft guns are made to be understood they are not real. They have a big red/orange plastic tip. Its obvious that it's fake." That's nuts! These are the most realistic looking "fake-guns" that I know of! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airsoft_gun "All these products are designed to be non-lethal and to provide realistic replicas" They have a orange tip... come on... this can be painted over. Other than that... they ARE MADE TO LOOK REAL. Anyone reading through this should go online and look around for images of airsoft guns and decide if they are made to look real. I'll get you started... basic google image search...https://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&authuser=0&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=airsoft&oq=airsoft&gs_l=img.3..0l10.634.2676.0.2991.7.5.0.2.2.0.125.498.4j1.5.0...0.0.enoGJyL6aQQ&biw=1139&bih=588&sei=8Lf7T6K8JMXI0QGo47jZCg

I really like these... http://adminka.airgunstyle.com/images/P30-2273010.jpg and http://www.airsoftclassifieds.com/images/24937.jpg

Yah that little red tip just makes them look totally fake doesn't it?!?!?!

Go ahead and google: airsoft police death ... this has happened many times.

BOTTOM LINE:

They need to get rid of these things... if people want to pretend to shoot each other... they don't need something that looks real. Adults should be grown up enough... that if they want to "play war" they can use things that "look like toys."

Also keep in mind... if you do your research on these things... they are not toys for kids... and they can do harm... but I won't even get into that.

Jim Jones, we pay cops a lot of money? Really? Where are you living then? I'm not sure about that. Today, in this world, cops don't have time to think about if the gun is real or not. If someone pointed a toy gun at me, and I'm not a cop, I would shoot them first. What is a gun made for? Killing. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. If you point something that looks like one at me, I'm shooting you. If you point one at someone and I see you do it, I'm shooting you. If you are holding a gun horizontally with your finger on the trigger, I'm shooting you. These cops did what was right. I'm sorry for the family, but I work every day with mentally handicapped people, and if they have a gun, I'm shooting them.

And as far as "why did they shoot him several times" I know that I will continue to shoot until I FEEL THAT THE THREAT IS OVER. End of story. If it takes 1 shot, or 3 clips worth, I will shoot until I feel safe. Why can't anyone ever understand that? I am walking proof that 1 shot won't kill you. I was shot while being robbed. I'm here typing. Not dead.

Daniel, where do you live, in a dreamland of your own making??? I have a Airsoft Pistol, and it is OBVIOUS that it is fake. It has a red tip that extends down the barrel and can be seen from any angle. This is cops just being idiot's.

And yes, we pay cops good money to be trained not to do this. If I knew you I would worry about you.

My son has several airsoft guns. He and his friends played war games with these mostly harmless toys. However a couple of these would be very easily mistaken for a real S&W 9mm. The early models were almost exact replcas of S&W, Sig and Glock. No red barrel markings or anything to visually identify as a toy. I often felt uneasy when my kid and his pals were out and about carrying these replicas around the neighborhood.

Mark - lapsed Catholic and full-time Irish,

Because it would be impossible for an insane person to take the tip off a "harmless" gun and put it onto a real gun, right? Hey how about this Mark - why was a crazy person given ANY sort of gun, "harmless" or no? Did he need a gun as part of his "therapy"?

The guy was insane, on the loose, and away from his handlers. He could have picked up anything, even a gun. I'm no cop but if some nutjob started waving a gun at me, red tip or not, and I have a chance to shoot him dead, I will.

This includes wallets and cellphones, Police are cowards. They have a dangerous job, the key word being dangerous, they should act like it. Police nowadays are never held accountable for negligence, therefore it's in their best interest to stay safe by shooting anyone they think is or could be a threat. In the end they will say they were afraid and they will be exonerated. Police are cowards, if you are to afraid to be shot at instead of killing an innocent civilian you are in the wrong line of work, maybe a mall security guard with some pepper-spray would be more up their alley.

First ...we all know the outcome ....No charges will be filed

Second this will continue to happen ..... Never call the Police in Situations like this

Handle this yourself ...Cops are trained Killers... they don't think... they don't have too...

they are FREE to do as they want....... What part of this do people NOT understand

Its Sad because this same story will be repeated ...and has

Yellow uiniforms needed in many cases need some real heroes