Officers Went by the Books
The teen-ager who used a BB gun to rob an off-duty sheriff’s deputy made the last mistake of his short life. While the shooting was fully justified, the media sound-bite spinners explored the deputy’s ability to tell the look-alike Beretta from a BB gun.
Ramona Ripston and Carole Hemingway asked me (I was a talk show call-in) why the Los Angeles police officer didn’t shoot at the legs of the Pacoima broomstick-wielding youth. They are trained to shoot at the “body mass,” the chest area, a lethal area. It’s not like the movies, with officers shooting the gun out of the assailant’s hands.
They asked why one of the officers didn’t wrestle the youth to the ground. Training dictates that one never enters into a wrestling match, as the officer’s gun may betaken away and used by the assailant.
FRED WOLF
West Hills
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