Police are there to protect and serve the public. IMO they should absolutely be expected to refrain from engagement if that engagement involves gunning down NINE bystanders.
6 took fragmentation from the bullets hitting concrete etc.
3 took direct gunshot wounds
"Gunning Down" is uncalled for
16 rounds fired total.
10 GSW's on Johnson
This changes the picture quite a bit. 10 for 16 is actually VERY good considering what we know about the situation, and about law enforcement training, officers, and guns.
Some points to reiterate:
1) Shooting while moving is not an impossible task. Rather, it is a VITAL SKILL. You must be able to draw and put hits on target WHILE moving off the line of force (getting out of the way of his bullets). It is not at all an unreasonable skill to practice. It is not unreasonable to expect success. It is not an unreasonable thing for the police to do and to do well.
It DOES take practice. Not just qualifying 2x a year. Not putting a box of ammo through the gun every couple of months. But it isn't rocket surgery either.
Not to bring up "games" except to illustrate the point -- go to any "practical" shooting match in the country and you will be REQUIRED to do this in at least half the stages. It is NOT secret-squirrel ninja stuff.
2) The very best of skills degrade about 75% under stress (like the threat of incoming fire).
3) Cops have/had no way to know how many rounds the shooter had in his gun, or on his person, and had no way of knowing what the shooter would do next. They HAD TO react as though he had 100 more rounds in that gun and his next plan was to kill every person on that street. Once that gun came out they had to put him down, IMMEDIATELY, period, with as much speed and assurance as they could bring to bear.
"Tackle him?" "Hit him with their nightsticks?" Please, get real.
4) The cops should have refrained? One innocent hit is too many? Not in the least! You have a guy who you MUST believe is about to go out in a mass-homicidal rage. You are faced with a risk-assessment: Hold back and allow him to kill (YOU and) many people with impunity while you stand idly by -- or -- take him down, knowing there's a
possibility that you MIGHT wound, or even kill an innocent person (or nine)?
Think about it for a moment. Yes, harming an innocent person is terrible. Letting a killer slaughter some untold number with deliberate precision is MORE terrible, by far.
The cops had to engage. They hit him 10 times. TEN TIMES out of 16 shots. Based on what we know about lethal force encounters, that's pretty good!
They also hit 3 innocents with direct fire. That SUCKS. Really, that's awful. That should be a(nother) wake-up call for better training throughout the country. But they didn't kill anyone, and they did keep HIM from killing many more people (potentially).
Six others were hit by fragments and ricochets. This is going to sound mighty callous, but that's just life. It is not the fault of the cops, it is the direct fault of the KILLER they were stopping from harming the public.
All the wounded will be taken care of by the city, assuredly. They'll probably walk away with a nice parting gift, courtesy of the civil suits. I still feel very bad for their pain and suffering, which is real. But life is dangerous. They might have gotten hit by a bus, had something fall on them from a construction site, fallen in a man-hole, or had any number of other accidents happen to them that day. As it is they were injured as part of the collateral damage caused by a deranged person who'd just murdered someone and who pulled a gun on cops. Life is dangerous, and sometimes very bad things happen to people who don't deserve it. We (society) will help them get back on their feet, and after a fashion, thank them for their sacrifice.
That isn't FAIR. It just IS.