Quote Originally Posted by Irving View Post
I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but I find it pretty hard to believe that anyone could possibly work the angle that the police officer was defending himself. From the story, it sounded like the guy was sitting in his car with the door closed, holding the keys out of the window. If you are reaching into someone's car, through the window, and the person inside the car pulls out a knife, the proper defensive action is to quickly take ONE step backward from the vehicle. Now you are out of danger. You don't shoot until the person with the knife is outside of the vehicle with nothing between you.
I don't think it started out as the officer defending himself. It started out as the officer attempting to take the person into custody. It's not uncommon to have to remove someone from a car to do that. I'm just speculating that's how this started based on the news story. Unfortunately, it escalated from there. But you're right...it didn't need to.

Even the fact that it escalated is unfortunate since the APD officers obviously knew who this guy was. It probably would not have been difficult to get a warrant and pick him later.

I find it's a lot easier to armchair-quarterback this whole thing as opposed to being there and making the decisions on the spot, under pressure. My office chair is comfy.