Empire State Building shooting: Of the nine other injuries in the incident, ALL were caused by police bullets

[Gee Whillickers]

Most of you have undoubtedly heard some of the details of this incident. Disgruntled man shoots and kills co-worker, police take him down.

You may also have heard that nine others were injured by gunfire in the incident.

But not gunfire from the assailant. Oh, no. In every case, the gunfire came from the overzealous rain of bullets from the police officers trying to take him down. Really makes me wonder who people need the most protection from these days.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/justice/new-york-empire-state-shooting/

[The Pecman]

The moment the word about the shooting hit the news, I asked my partner (who has a law degree), "counselor, what would be the city's duty of care in this situation?"

And he answered, "oh, New York is gonna be screwed, big-time." He figures at least $5 million per bullet, plus court costs. But what are you gonna do? A guy's running down the sidewalk, popping off shots on 5th Avenue? They had to take him down, and there was no clear and easy shot they could take, because there were too many bystanders. This was a no-win situation.

[Merkin]

Perhaps before the next tragic go-around of this same scenario, New York City (and many other municipalities) would be wise to spend a few million preventative dollars training law enforcement personnel to use those weapons with skillsets resulting only from frequent and intense training sessions under the direction of expert instructors.

[Cole Parker]

Perhaps non-lethal force meant to stop the assassin rather than kill him could be used? Just a thought. Less collateral damage that way, too.

C

[Lugnutz]

Hire gang bangers as snipers.

[Gee Whillickers]

Some follow up reading shows that there are two issues here, both of which will cause huge legal headaches for the city.

First, NYC cops currently have some of the poorest training and lowest scores in firearms anywhere. And second, a recent change to standard issue guns to NYC cops has resulted in trigger pulls that require 12 pounds of force rather than 5, possibly resulting in considerable decrease in accuracy as the extra effort required pulls the barrel off target.

[JamesSavik]

Obviously we need to confiscate the guns of police since they are a clear and present danger.