1. No they are taught to aim for centre mass so its less likely to miss. Lots of variables can cause a missed shot, the person is running, the officer is under pressure. If they miss they could end up dead.
I still believe this should be considered a situational thing. I think in this case as slow as the kid was moving anyone with any firearm training should have been able to hit the legs if the kid was calmly walking towards them. I mean, the only real downside to going for the leg in this specific situation would be, might still accidentally kill the person, which is totally fine if you can purposefully do it anyways, might miss just as with any other shot which again should be fine because you're not dealing with someone with a gun also trained on you or someone else but a walking kid you should have time for a second, well several more shots really, and really, that's it.
I mean, there's totally situations where I don't think you can play around, if they also have a gun trained on you or another person please go for the safest shot, don't give them any more time to react than fate gives them. If they're so close you can't get a second shot I accept that, again go for your safest sure shot. If they have so much forward momentum they'll be on you even if they're hit then again take the safest best shot you can, if they're going to be on you better they be close to mortally wounded.
But there's also situations where I think this should totally be uncalled for too. If someone's walking around their momentum's not going to carry them 10 feet after being shot, come on now. And if your weapon's already trained on someone moving that slow you should be able to easily take another shot in the event you missed the first or if they shrug it off and keep coming.
Look at it this way, if your efforts failed and you still end up killing the person, well, if we're going to allow you to outright kill people we'll be "ok" with you failing in your attempt to not kill them to.
2.Rubber bullets still kill people. And Rubber bullets sometimes do not stop people. Drugs are a hell of a thing
And people have been killed from punches, choke holds, van rides, etc, etc, and yet no-one advocates just flat out killing people for every infraction because they may die anyways. This is just stupid.
If someone died accidentally from a rubber bullet what's the problem? If we're ok with just killing them, again, we should be ok with them accidentally dying in an honest attempt to save their lives.
As to the second part about them failing to stop people on that I agree. I think they should only be deployed when you have superior numbers and you have other people alongside you who can use lethal force if they don't work. I think it's a bad idea to expect them to be an officers first weapon in most situations because at the end of the day I'd rather the assailant die than the cop if that's what it would come down to.
3.Pepper spray, this does not disable the person, this makes them blind and does not stop them from swinging wildly
Sure, and if they don't freak out and get enraged and start swinging around feel free to then kill the person! Not everyone's on drugs with the intent to kill, I promise you some people will drop what they have and tend to their eyes.
4. Tasers do not stop all people, tasers also still kill people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcNTxZv8rhU
Again, if someone accidentally dies from an honest attempt to save their life what's the problem?
5.Tear gas the same as pepper spray
And same reply as pepper spray too!
6. Launching a net? This isnt the looney toons mate this is real life.
I'm not a blue lives matter type of person, Im not from the US I also think your police force has a lot of garbage people. But its not as simple as "just taze them aye."
Coulda' fooled me.
What I mean by that is I'm always perplexed how one of the main arguments against trying non-lethal weapons is that sometimes people still die therefore we should just use lethal weapons anyways! Like what the fuck kind of argument is that? Only with police too, nobody says "this medical operation might save your life but you might die on accident, so, lets euthanize you instead!" Fucking absurd. Nobody watched the Eric Garner video and thought them using a choke hold was too dangerous for Mr. Garner and that the cops should have just shot him instead. Right?
Now, non-lethal weapons do have a time and place. I in no way expect an officer in a dangerous country like the United States to have a non-lethal weapon as his or her main weapon. Sorry guys. Yes I look at Europe with envy but I don't think we can be like Europe. More spread out than Europe. Probably have a stronger anti-getting caught sentiment among criminals due to harsher jail conditions and sentencing than Europe. Have WAY more guns on the street than Europe. Less access to healthcare and less chances to move up than Europe. I don't think we can keep everything else the same but turn around and give our cops batons and expect a good outcome. well, for anyone but the criminals. Not to say we couldn't become like Europe, we could, but we'd have to address all that other shit first.
My stance on non-lethal weapon use in this country remains that it should be done in a group setting where you have people ready to use lethal force in the event it fails.
There does get a point where people trot out such an insane list of gear they want a cop to have on them at all times that it does get ridiculous. I tend to think patrol officers should be light and have their gear short and simple. They're not Batman and I don't want them taking 5 minutes longer to respond to every call because they have to go to their trunk and grab a riot gun, don a gas mask, grab some kind of CS gas grenades, throw a bean bag gun around their shoulder, put their flashlight in their mouth, and just generally fumble around on their way to the location dropping shit as they go. Nor do I want them getting caught on everything as they go around, be overly encumbered if they need to run, or just have so many weapons that they can't realistically keep it all secured on themselves in public. Even in an ideal situation where every patrol car did have everything listed the first guys on the scene shouldn't be wasting their time getting it out. But at some point where an encounter lasts upwards of 30 minutes or more you do have to ask why somebody didn't have something, anything, else to try besides shooting them.
My main concern with rubber bullets is less that the person may still die and more that how many would die on accident by loading the wrong rounds into their gun? I mean, I guess you could carry a dedicated non-lethal gun and a dedicated gun for killing I question exactly where it'd go and whether it's worth replacing something else they carry with it and realistically I expect most to cheap out and just issue both types of ammunition for the same weapon which I think would be equally disastrous. Like that LA bank robbery was insane but imagine a few cops accidentally using rubber rounds on the jack asses or having less lethal rounds on their person and being forced to use rubber rounds on them as it's all they'd have left, or, imagine them thinking they've loaded non-lethal rounds into their weapon and killing someone on accident. That shit would happen.
So really, I think most of the non-lethal suggestions people have given should generally be the sort you could use because the situation allows you or another officer to go back to your vehicle and retrieve it or another unit to arrive with it.
Now in this situation I still think one of the officers should have had a taser and should have tried it before killing the person. Plenty of time, non-opened knife, slow moving target, if it works great if not, fine, kill the person. I also happen to think that yeah they should have felt comfortable taking a shot at the legs first before resorting to chest shots.
At a safe distance from a knife wielding criminal, you simply can't aim for a specific body part, no matter how good of a shot you are, that is why cops are taught to aim at center mass, it gives you the best chance to hit someone. Handguns aren't very accurate beyond 10-15 feet no matter who is pulling the trigger.
Do you honestly feel a trained individual can't reliably hit the legs of someone casually walking towards them? I've said it before but when someone's just walking forward the target's generally the same size as their chest, just really missing the arms! Look, the legs are just moving forward but occupy the same width at all times all that changes is the depth and if you pull the shot high you get them in their stomach or genitalia or some shit. It's a different request completely than trying to take a shot from the side or at a running target.