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Recently in this area we had a fatal police shooting in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin at the Mayfair Mall. The press release gave us details of the circumstances which are still under official investigation by the Milwaukee Police Department.
The readers digest version is the police responded to the Mayfair Mall parklng lot after securitu called for assistance for a "disturbance". Officers arrived on the scene and the actors began to flee. Updates to the officers stated that one of the subects may be armed. Officers began to pursue these individuals across the parking lot. Officers were finally able to contain the subects and upon doing so a 17 year old male produced a 9 mm pistol. Officers can be heard multiple times yelling "drop the gun" but the male disregarded and fired a shot towards the officers and missed. The officers then returned fire and one of them struck and killed the suspect. Thankfully no officers or other persons were iniured or killed during the exchange.
Friends and family are now reprising that the aggressor was just a teenager. Unfortunately a deadly force does not have any age limits. It's sad that he was not mature enough to understand the full implications of his actions which led to his demilse but remember it was his action that led to the officer's reaction and the end of his life. The officer was justified in the use of "deadly force" because life was in imminent jeopardy. We had LINTENT (failure to drop the gun, pointing towards officer),; WEAPON (the gun) and DELIVERY SYSTEM (for firearm, the line of sight unbroken by cover). These criteria would also be met under the common triad of "opportunity, jeopardy, ability" as well. Suspect had opportunity (the officers were present within range), then ability (he was armed with a loaded firearm) and the officers were in jeopardy when he threatened them, The officers used only an amount of force needed to stop the threat and no more.
Lives were definitely endangered and there were no other options in the small time window that they officers had before utilitzing the last resort of deadly force. Officers, concealed carry practioners and everyone cannot make assessments on the future of the aggressor or assumptions and are forced to act in the here and now. It's sad but a fact of life. It's sad that I just heard media hupe about the subject who was killed and nothing about gratitude about him being stopped before anyone was killed and especially the officer(s) surviving and their unfortunate forced decision to have to take the action they did.