I agree with you on a few points. The officer in Lee’s case should have dropped the guy the moment he raised his weapon. I don’t think it’s a correct interpretation to laud him for de-escalating the situation. That said, for the sake of those kids, I’m glad it worked out well for everyone involved.

But you lose me at Blake. They had lesser force options they could have and should have pursued. They went straight to “shoot to kill" and there’s my problem.

• They could have shot out his tires.
• They could have fired a warning shot into the ground.
• As he was walking around the truck, the other three officers could have moved around to flank him, weapons drawn to force compliance.
• They could have talked to him, reminded him to think of his children.
• They could have promised him he would make it home.
• They could have shot him in the thigh or knee to bring him down.
• They could have shot only once in the back instead of unloading multiple shots in quick succession.
• They could have backed off and called for backup and a roadblock.

I could go on. There were so many other options that aren’t “shoot to kill”.

Blake was unarmed. It doesn’t really matter if he had a knife in the car or not or if there might also be a gun. He wasn’t in the car. He wasn’t brandishing anything at the police. Until that point was reached, other options were on the table. There was no justification for “shoot to kill”. None at all.

He was in a heightened emotional state. The reasons why don’t matter. People cannot act rationally when they’re at that level of emotional distress. The fight/flight/freeze response or other primitive brain responses take over. You have to calm them down first. Duh. This is why we have deescalation techniques to begin with. Being emotionally distraught is not a valid reason for someone to be gunned down in the street like a dog. I’ll say it again.

Being emotionally distraught is not a valid reason for someone to be gunned down in the street like a dog.

It never was. It never will be. The police messed up. They need to take responsibility. They need to make it right to the best of their ability. They need to stop reasoning up yet another lame justification for the fact that they killed someone unnecessarily.

There were other options.