Cops kill Costco pizza lady....

So far we've discovered that the pizza industry is just as mysterious as law enforcement to many folks.

Hellbound said:
Also, as an aside, you generally do NOT want to get into a hand-to-hand situation with someone weilding a knife, unless there's no other option. One of the first things to be taught in knife training is that you will get cut. Accept that at the beginning and try to limit the damage. I don't blame them for not attempting to wrestle someone with a blade.
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Here's the thing, there was another video of a female with a knife and an officer's interaction with her:



In this case there was no shooting, a female officer safely took the knife from her with minimal injury and at great risk to herself. Of course commenters on the video claimed that this was "police brutality" and that there was no need to take her to the ground. This just demonstrates that there are some people who will criticise police regardless of what they do.

DreamingNaiad said:
Correct me if I'm wrong here (and no offence intended, I have great respect for LEOs):

This sounds a little like "shoot them until there is no possible way they could have survived the onslaught". I was half expecting it to end with "and then shoot them in the face to be extra careful".
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No, they shoot until the immediate threat is neutralised then carefully assess the situation. If it takes five shots before they're down that's what it takes. They then carefully approach the suspect ready to fire again should it become necessary.

joesixpack said:
I actually know of a case where it was done, though I doubt I'll be able to find any evidence and I'll be the first to admit that it was under completely different circumstances. It was back in the late 80s or early 90s, and it was a stand-off between cops and a man who was threatening to shoot himself. The police sniper was able to actually shoot the gun out of the guys hand. It made the national news.

ETA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHvWaviIXsk
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Firstly it's important to remember that this is something that happened 20 or more years ago and is still considered extraordinary today. Secondly I imagine that the marksman was completely reamed out by his superiors for undertaking such a reckless action against an armed man.

If anyone is interested in actual police training in approaching knife situations there is a now defunct, party hilarious video available in full on Youtube. Sure it has dramatic reconstructions of scenarios that involve terrible special effects, sure it seems to be mostly teaching how to tackle knife wielding Canadians, but it does go into some detail of situations encountered by officers and the injuries they have sustained because they didn't take a knife situation seriously.

 
Not having been on scene, the only thing I can tell anyone is that officer didn't wake up that morning with the intention of using lethal force - some action on the part of the suspect caused that officer to fire his/her duty weapon.

I'll await further developments before gathering the lynch mob.

If anybody doesn't believe that slightly built females can be dangerous - armed or unarmed - I could very easily convince them they are incorrect.
 
BStrong said:
Not having been on scene, the only thing I can tell anyone is that officer didn't wake up that morning with the intention of using lethal force - some action on the part of the suspect caused that officer to fire his/her duty weapon.

I'll await further developments before gathering the lynch mob.

If anybody doesn't believe that slightly built females can be dangerous - armed or unarmed - I could very easily convince them they are incorrect.
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The question is not whether the police officers woke up thinking "Ooooh! Let's try and kill someone today!"

The question is whether or not the police officers had to kill the woman who is most certainly dead today.

And while it is funny of you to use the term "lynch mob", everybody knows that none of these police officers are actually going to get lynched.

However, the woman who is dead is dead now.
 
angrysoba said:
The question is not whether the police officers woke up thinking "Ooooh! Let's try and kill someone today!"

The question is whether or not the police officers had to kill the woman who is most certainly dead today.

And while it is funny of you to use the term "lynch mob", everybody knows that none of these police officers are actually going to get lynched.

However, the woman who is dead is dead now.
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Which will be determined in the coroner's inquest/grand jury investigation and the findings of the agencies shooting team, not on an internet forum.

No shortage of folks who have never been in a shoot/no shoot situation that can dissect with perfect 20/20 hindsight the events where the facts have yet to be determined.
 
One would think they could have subdued her without resorting to deadly force. I'd say someone was trigger happy.
 
BStrong said:
Which will be determined in the coroner's inquest/grand jury investigation and the findings of the agencies shooting team, not on an internet forum.

No shortage of folks who have never been in a shoot/no shoot situation that can dissect with perfect 20/20 hindsight the events where the facts have yet to be determined.
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Actually, it wasn't a shoot/no shoot situation until the officer drew his weapon. It was that wrong choice that limited his options. This was a disoriented woman holding a knife, not a squad of ninjas.
 
squealpiggy said:
If anyone is interested in actual police training in approaching knife situations there is a now defunct, party hilarious video available in full on Youtube. Sure it has dramatic reconstructions of scenarios that involve terrible special effects, sure it seems to be mostly teaching how to tackle knife wielding Canadians, but it does go into some detail of situations encountered by officers and the injuries they have sustained because they didn't take a knife situation seriously.
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That's a fascinating movie. I watched the whole thing. But one notable element is that almost all of the gruesome injuries officers sustained were from criminals whose concealed knives the officers never saw. They were attacked by suspects they thought were unarmed, and in some cases were already in custody. The film also depicts a number of successful nonlethal disarms with batons and plain brute force. In the Costco case, officers were responding to a 911 call about a disturbed employee with a knife (the call was made by her supervisor). They knew what to expect, and authorities might have dispatched a crisis intervention team or something similar. (I also noted how unfailingly polite those Canadian officers are: "Sir, would you please put your knife down, eh?")
 
Seems to me situations such as this were precisely the kind tasers were intended to handle. What is the failure rate for tasers? That is, how often do they fail to operate as designed when their use is initiated?
 
joesixpack said:
Actually, it wasn't a shoot/no shoot situation until the officer drew his weapon. It was that wrong choice that limited his options. This was a disoriented woman holding a knife, not a squad of ninjas.
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I rest my case.

Niether of us witnessed the incident, but you already know what happened.
 
lionking said:
What a rubbish post. Do you think cops anywhere want to go out and kill someone if there's an alternative? Do you know anything about police training?
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Where did I say they want to shoot anyone?

I stated the truth. Cops don't get much training trained in non-violent conflict diffusion.

Not non-lethal. I'm sure they get lots of training in how to tackle someone or use a taser.

I mean 100% non-violent conflict resolution.

But OK provide evidence. My guess is at best you'll see something like a mandatory 1-hour seminar. Not nearly the amount of time as devoted into the more physical methods.
 
triforcharity said:
So, you've got no evidence whatsoever that any of those things are actually what happened, correct? I think I'll wait till the investigation is finished before I make any conclusions.
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No, no evidence. But what's more plausible: 1/ One or more of several possible sudden-onset medical issues; or 2/ At 2:30 p.m. she was cheerfully handing out pizza bits, and by 3 p.m. she had made a conscious, rational, deliberate decision to begin chattering gibberish, threatening co-workers and attacking police officers who were pointing guns at her?

Based on the limited information we have, the woman came at/rushed/approached the police with a knife, and the police shot her. Justified IMO. Someone comes at me with a knife, I'm firing my weapon also.
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It probably was justified, in a legal and administrative sense. Police are entitled to defend themselves. The question is was it necessary and unavoidable? The facts aren't in dispute as far as I know: The police state that they confronted a woman with a knife, Tased her without effect, then shot her five times. But was that the only course of action available to them? She didn't harm anybody before the police got there, and when they arrived she was apparently alone in a break room. She was not an immediate threat to anyone. Instead of charging in and demanding immediate compliance, could they have left her there until they got more information about her and the situation? Could they have waited for backup? Could they have spoken to her from outside the room? Could they have approached her behind riot shields? Used pepper spray? Fired bean bag rounds? Was the Taser failure a result of poor training, inept deployment, improper maintenance? When the Taser failed, would one gunshot have stopped her? Two? And I continue to believe that a steel baton is a formidable weapon in trained hands. Prison corrections officers routinely take down violent inmates -- big, mean, hardened convicts -- without shooting them. If slowing down and formulating a plan meant the officers took a little more risk to spare a civilian's life, that's part of the job. The police motto is supposed to be "Protect and Serve," not "Comply or Die."

I also note that Loudoun County is a prosperous suburban community that until a decade or so was largely rural. They don't even have an actual police department; police services are provided by sheriff's deputies, who also run the courthouse and the county jail. The county hasn't had a single homicide in at least three years, and incidences of robbery, rape and assault are in the dozens annually. I would be willing to bet that these county sheriffs haven't had as much experience with violence up-close as most city cops.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/real-estate/neighborhoods/Loudoun+County,VA-neighborhood-details.html
http://sheriff.loudoun.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/314

Some commenters on other forums have expressed the opinion that many younger police officers have been recruited from the ranks of returning military combat veterans. I don't know how true that is, but if police officers are bringing a "kill the enemy" attitude from Fallujah to our suburban malls, it's not good news.
 
Kahalachan said:
Where did I say they want to shoot anyone?

I stated the truth. Cops don't get much training trained in non-violent conflict diffusion.

Not non-lethal. I'm sure they get lots of training in how to tackle someone or use a taser.

I mean 100% non-violent conflict resolution.

But OK provide evidence. My guess is at best you'll see something like a mandatory 1-hour seminar. Not nearly the amount of time as devoted into the more physical methods.
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Okay, you have confirmed you know next to nothing about police training.

I was in charge of a training unit which operated out of the Victorian Pilice Academy for several years. It wasn't operational training, but I spent a lot of time at the Academy and witnessed the extensive and multi-facited training in unarmed conflict resolution.

The last thing police want to do is draw their weapons. I've met police from many nations and I'm confident that this is their intention and its how they are actually trained.

A 1 hour seminar? Hilarious.
 
For me the key issue is we do not know what the order of the scale of threat was. If the cops arrived to be immediately confronted with the lady charging them with a knife, then their actions as described were justified. Anything else and the situation may have been resolvable by other means.
 
Kahalachan said:
Where did I say they want to shoot anyone?

I stated the truth. Cops don't get much training trained in non-violent conflict diffusion.

Not non-lethal. I'm sure they get lots of training in how to tackle someone or use a taser.

I mean 100% non-violent conflict resolution.

But OK provide evidence. My guess is at best you'll see something like a mandatory 1-hour seminar. Not nearly the amount of time as devoted into the more physical methods.
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Here's California's POST 832 pc training requirements.

http://www.post.ca.gov/training-and-testing-specifications-for-peace-officer-basic-courses.aspx

At various points in initial training, a trainee will spend about 40 hours on non violent/non lethal conflict resolution, with threat evaluation being in heavy emphasis.
 
angrysoba said:
If the cops went in there in force and still couldn't dream up a better way of ending this than by blowing the woman away then they are are very sorry bunch of individuals.
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I wasn't there and don't know the details, but it's hard to believe that a man who is physically larger and stronger than the attacker AND has at least some rudimentary training in disarming an attacker was in danger of being mortally wounded in this situation. It's highly likely that he would be injured, but...the question is this: Is avoiding injury sufficient justification for using deadly force?
 
aggle-rithm said:
I wasn't there and don't know the details, but it's hard to believe that a man who is physically larger and stronger than the attacker AND has at least some rudimentary training in disarming an attacker was in danger of being mortally wounded in this situation. It's highly likely that he would be injured, but...the question is this: Is avoiding injury sufficient justification for using deadly force?
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Um...yea. Why wouldn't it be? It seems like several people here are under the impression that it a cops duty to put themselves in more danger than is necessary.


You don't know the details, I don't recall reading any details of the deputies involved, are you just assuming the deputies were men and physically larger and stronger? I know a few tiny ladies who are law enforcement.
 
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It's a really terrible idea to think you can gauge a persons physical ability by their build. Not only does it honestly not really matter all that much when a weapon is involved, but you never know if someone is a lot stronger then they look, or have some type of skill. I've seen tiny looking people throw people around twice their size with ease, not necessarily because they are stronger, but because they know how to.
 
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