Eighth-Grader With Gun Shot by SWAT Team

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
If someone points a gun at you and you have no clue whether it's real or not, what would you do in the event that you were armed with the ability to halt the proceedings?

You would do so.

I don't speak for anyone but myself usually, but I am going to make a judgement call here.

If a 15 year old young man raised a gun to you in a hostile situation, and you had no reason to believe it might be fake, and he threatened to shoot you...each and every single one of you people would shoot him back.

How do I know this? Because how many of you would risk getting killed to have a young man's continued life on your conscience?

-AC

Is this discussion still raging? I thought we were uncertain of the elements... but AC is right. If I were in that situation I would have shot the kid. Weighing up your options in a split second must be one of the most difficult things to do, but to protect myself and others around me I would definitely shoot a kid threatening people with a gun. Real or fake is irrelevant. If I didn't know whether the weapon was real or not I sure as hell wouldn't stand around to find out 😬

Originally posted by Syren
Is this discussion still raging? I thought we were uncertain of the elements... but AC is right. If I were in that situation I would have shot the kid. Weighing up your options in a split second must be one of the most difficult things to do, but to protect myself and others around me I would definitely shoot a kid threatening people with a gun. Real or fake is irrelevant. If I didn't know whether the weapon was real or not I sure as hell wouldn't stand around to find out 😬

So if you saw an isolated kid with a gun without any hostages you would confront him and kill him?

Or would you leave him confined and wait till a plan to neutralise him that didn't require leathal force got drawn up???

There's deserving what you get, and then there's just having it coming. If you rob cars all the time, you deserve to have your car robbed.. if you are innocent but simply park your car in a bad neighborhood unprotected, you had it coming. This kid had it coming.

Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
So if you saw an isolated kid with a gun without any hostages you would confront him and kill him?

Or would you leave him confined and wait till a plan to neutralise him that didn't require leathal force got drawn up???

I can understand the defense of the policeman however but I am still skeptical about the whole approach of the situation in question for good reasons.

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
There's deserving what you get, and then there's just having it coming. If you rob cars all the time, you deserve to have your car robbed.. if you are innocent but simply park your car in a bad neighborhood unprotected, you had it coming. This kid had it coming.

erm... lol! so If I'm friends with someone who has aids I deserve to get it?? Doesn't quite work that way! No one should be killed... Killing them is the easy way out.. Why do these kids keep shooting people! they should ask the kids and find the source of the problem..

Seems that the atitude is to cut the the problem off from the source and hope it doesn't come back... rather then to try to fix the problem so it never arises again...

Originally posted by overlord
That's a simple way to avoid hard subjects like this but not very helpful..

Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
So if you saw an isolated kid with a gun without any hostages you would confront him and kill him?

Or would you leave him confined and wait till a plan to neutralise him that didn't require leathal force got drawn up???

I'm sorry, I can't view this kid the way you are. He's not some poor, unfortunate soul. He's some stupid shit who took a gun to school, threatened people with it and then got his dumb ass shot.

He wasn't isolated, not long enough for the authorities to draw up an alternative course of action anyway. How long do you think they had, exactly? The cop acted as quickly as he could, with the backup he had at the time.

This wasn't about neutralising some almost defenceless animal. This was about stopping a psycho kid with a gun from potentially killing an innocent person. The kid wasn't an innocent person, he was a moron.

Ha ha ;

Saying you would shoot someone is one thing. Shooting someone is another.

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
I was basically just giving my input on people saying he "deserved" it on the first couple of pages.. since I didn't read the whole thread. I don't think he deserved it but I think when people say that they basically meant he had it coming. It wasn't intended to be "helpful," since it wasn't advice but my opinion. Sorry if it didn't satisfy your standards, please find it in your heart to forgive me.

I can understand the defense of the man who is blamed too but I think it's better to frown at the handling of the situation than always be so harsh to a 'criminal' for they are human too and we should expect the best from the ones who enforce the law/keep the piece/protect.

Do you think that he could not make amends?? He was obviously wrong, But why would he act this way?? Seems that something must of upset him! but this "shoot your problems away" attitude will only cause more deaths... It will never solve the long term problem...

Sure he made a mistake... I'm sure he could of gotten his hands on a real gun if he wanted to kill someone... threatening people isn't a death sentance in my books! Sure there was something wrong with him but he didn't need to die!

Threatening someone else's life basically is a death sentence if that person has a means to kill you.

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
Threatening someone else's life basically is a death sentence if that person has a means to kill you.

Seeing as he didn't have the means to kill others...
(other then with his brute strength)

how could he of killed them???

You're missing the point! The kid had a potentially murderous weapon and was more than willing to use it. He got shot because one man wasn't 100% certain that his gun was a fake.

So they thought he had the means to kill others, and in that split second they had to make a decision. Kid got shot.

"your missing the point..." 🙄

The kid shouldn't have had the chance to aim his gun at the swat members.. They should of trapped him in the toilets..
And they got told from 3 reliable sources the gun was fake!

Police should use lethal force as a last measure! they shouldn't of had to use it in a situation like this! they had 101 ops to solve this without a death...

If he was looking to kill he could of gotten a real gun.. More likely he brought the gun in to act all cool, But the situation got out of hand...

Why don't they shoot every drunk driver? they got a potentially murderous weapon, and there obviously willing to endanger others.. (yer that makes as much sense....)🙄

He didn't bring the gun in to 'act all cool' 😂

The kid was suicidal, he wanted to terrify the students and staff at his school. He threatened them all, including the police officers. They did not know for certain that the gun he had was a fake before he got shot... I stand by my very first reaction to all this; What an unfortunate chain of events.

It's not some action movie you know, you sound like you're directing some cheap budget amateur movie 🙄 'They should have done this...' 'They should have done that...' Don't you think they would have done anything other than kill him if they could?

Drunk drivers are an entirely different kettle of fish. What a stupid example.

😆 How could they have done anything worse?? He didn't have a hostage... They got told he was unarmed by 3 people.. 2 of which saw the gun and held it before... why they didn't just cover themselves and tazer him boggles belief...

How are drunk drives any different? they know that they are putting others lives in danger when they get behind a wheel! Why don't the police shoot them before they kill someone! 🙄

Sorry, but I don't agree that the police were entirely at fault.

Are you seriously saying that if you found yourself in that situation you wouldn't shoot him to protect everyone else, and yourself?

On a side note, these officers were trained. I'm thinking they know a little more than us regarding situations like that 😬

If I got told that someone was unarmed and had secluded themselves in an area of the school that could easily closed off I would most likely do everything I could to make sure that I didn't have to shoot him...

After all hes not a trained marksman and I'm wearing armour and have a shield... I think I'll try to preserve a life... not the easy way out of just shoot him...

Who else were the officers protecting? they were putting there lifes on the line by standing in his line of sight! they could of easily concealed themselves, and talked to him/non-leathal forced his ass...

Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
Seeing as he didn't have the means to kill others...
(other then with his brute strength)

how could he of killed them???

Everybody knows that if you point a gun at a cop, you get shot. I really don't understand why you're defending this kid. For all we know it was a suicide attempt he just didn't want to have to pull the trigger himself.