Shoot pretty much any direction in a busy city, and hit somebody. He was a loose cannon, aiming a deadly weapon irresponsibly. It can be argued, he had to be taken down. Cruel, but when people put themselves in that position something has to be done, and quickly.
Not clear why a sleeping dart couldn't have been used though. Animal control does a pretty good job in such situations.
I should have mentioned, the police cordoned off the entire block with tape and there were armed police on every street. The police were also yelling through the megaphone. Nobody was on the street and nobody was leaving their houses in that climate. The parking lot was 99% empty.
As mentioned, he shot the ground directly in front of himself. Once.
And as mentioned elsewhere here, German police would in that case shoot e.g. a leg to disable the threat, not aim to kill. Someone gave the kill order and a lot of shots were fired. Of course your suggestion to use a sleeping dart (or something similar) would be ideal.
On top of all that but less relevant to this thread, they left the body uncovered on the street until late in the afternoon, approx. 8 hours. I took a lot of pictures of the entire thing (starting after the shooting, because I was afraid the police might think I had a gun too with my huge black camera with telephoto lens).
> Someone gave the kill order and a lot of shots were fired.
I honestly don’t believe anyone gave a kill order, I rather feel (maybe not fairly) that police had guns trained on him and heard gun fire and instinctively pulled without even taking a second to analyze situation. If I’m right (good video footage could help prove the theory), this should scare everyone (but likely won’t).
So if someone throws a firecracker near an active US police situation all the officers are just going to open fire on whatever is in front of their gun barrels?
I probably shouldn’t have been that vague, knew I was leaving myself open to whataboutism / trolling. Here’s a bit more specific version:
“If a police officer hears and sees the perp’s gun go off, they likely won’t stop to think even long enough to see who got shot, but likely instinctively pull to neutralize the threat.”
In most places outside the US, they’d aim for legs / arms as that would “neutralize” but not “kill”. In this scenario they’ve got snipers trained on him after all, no excuses about handgun accuracy. Yet in the US, you’ll virtually never see that, all shots will be into the chest.
Not clear why a sleeping dart couldn't have been used though. Animal control does a pretty good job in such situations.