This has been a tough year to be a policeman, especially if you live in a Blue State where they have been slashing budgets and bending the knee to the Defund The Police movement. The latest incident here with Walter Wallace Jr in Philadelphia led to riots after officers shot and killed Wallace for coming at them with a knife. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey why did the police shoot to kill? I guess Blitzer thinks this is Hollywood, where police are all marksman that can shoot wings off a fly under extreme pressure.
“BLITZER: The victim, Walter Wallace, had a knife, as you saw. One witness said, though, he had mental health issues. The district attorney said a report was a medical call was consistent with what they know so far. So could these officers have escalated the situation if they obviously could have used Tasers if they had them, but they didn’t have Tasers. But why shoot to kill opposed to shoot to injure and just prevent anything from going further?
RAMSEY: Well, officers are trained to shoot at what we call center mass. Despite what you may see on TV, it’s not easy to hit extremities and so forth (ph), especially under stress. So officers are trained to shoot center mass, not shoot to kill. But, unfortunately, that does happen.
The officers I’m told took him to the hospital right afterwards to try to get some assistance for him. Unfortunately, he died. It’s always a tragedy when anyone loses their life. You know, now we have information that the officers may not have had when they responded.
Again, did he have mental health problems? After the fact, people start learning a lot more about it. But when you’re at the scene and you have an individual armed with a knife coming toward you, it’s a whole different type of situation, and the officers have to make very quick judgments. But there will be a thorough investigation. I was impressed to see the police commissioner and her staff actually come to the scene and engage the public that were gathered there to talk about this, and that’s something that I think is very important that there be dialogue.
The looting that you saw later, there’s no excuse for that, absolutely none. That is stealing that has nothing to do with the tragedy that we’re talking about now. And, unfortunately, this is the same area that got hit hard back in May. Those businesses just rebuilt and reopened and now right back again where they were before.”
These officers’ lives were in danger and they have a right to defend themselves. It is unfortunate that Wallace was having a bipolar episode and may have not been in his right mind at the time. But you can’t blame the officers for doing what they need to do to ensure the safety of the public and also safely get home to their families at the end of their shifts.
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