Trooper

This right there is what drives Americans. An average American will read the article and just jump all over it like a sunday service. "Those cops shot the guy 50 times..." It never says what the accuracy of those shots is, could have been 5%. Now if in the coroner report it would say how many wounds he had it might be different but the media is going to publish what gets the readers.

When you adrenaline is flowing and you are threatened, id like to see anyone stop firing after they start. Its one reason they suggest new gun owners buy revolvers so they only have 6 shots. You have one thought on your mind...pull pull pull pull.......

CingularDuality

Ah, if only it were true...

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tHa_KhAn

The report I read had one officer firing 31 rounds. Based on that number he had a semi-auto with high cap mag(15) and had one round in the chamber, then reloaded and emptied the second magazine. The amount of time necessary to do that is very minimal so even though it's a high number of rounds from one person that still happened in a small window of time.

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TheFeniX

From the limited information, this just kind of reeks of bad decision making by the police officers. There's nothing I would really view as criminal, but just wanton stupidity. And I find it insulting that they always point back to "we only had a split-second to react." It's BS as the officers had time to assess the situation and they just made a bad judgment call as they probably had no idea how to properly handle the situation. Considering they were there to bust prostitutes, that's not surprising.

At the first mention of the phrase "go get my gun" police should have immediately intervened and detained all the suspects. What sane person would hear a guy say "I'm going to get my gun" and not consider that a threat of violence? By a suspect stating he had a weapon, the cops would have had probable cause to search pretty much everyone there. Instead, they find it more prudent to let the suspect not only get into a position to secure a firearm, but also gain access to a 3000 lbs automobile? The cops should have acted sooner to diffuse the situation, rather than let it escalate. A few cops set a bad example and the city suffers: haven't heard of that happening before.

I would like a 3rd party account of the situation, but that's not likely right now as cops have had time to interview any bouncers or valets that were present. Hell, at strip clubs in Houston, there's almost always at least 2 uniformed officers around at any given time, especially those in city limits.

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Kerostasis

@tha_Kahn: That's probably correct, I was just going by the description in the verdict since it was the most detailed I'd seen so far.

@Fenix: Excellent analysis. Under this view, the actions of the officers during the 3 second window when they were shooting aren't nearly as suspect as their actions 5 minutes earlier when they set up the scenario that led to the shooting. Unfortunately, the level of detail available to us on the events leading up to the shooting is fairly low, so its difficult to properly assess the accuracy of your theory.

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ScratchMonkey

Another case where TV and movie experience leads one to a quite different belief than what real life offers.

It's like when, in the 60's, every minor car accident was believed to end in a fireball explosion, because that's what happens in TV shows. It led to a lot of needless back injuries from ignorant good samaritans dragging people from wrecks.

The comedy series Police Squad occasionally lampooned this. I recall one of the Abrahams/Zucker comedy movies also spoofing Dirty Harry with a line like "Did I fire 142 bullets or did I fire 143?" (Was it Charlie Sheen, or Val Kilmer? Too long ago for me to remember.)

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