I just watched the bodycam of Sonya Massey's murder, and on top of how gallingly wrong her death was--and how many people live in fear of the police in the US & Canada for this reason--my heart just breaks for how often SOP in these cases seems to involve utter indifference to being *with* someone once they're wounded and down.
I'd like to think that if I ever accidentally caused a mortal wound, I'd at least have the integrity to be present with the victim in their last moments.
FFS.
@MLClark I was fortunate enough to work for a police department (in the 1980s) that practiced de-escalation. We were one of the first agencies in our area to purchase non-lethal weapons and tools. Our SWAT team was trained to wait out a barricaded suspect, unless invasion was absolutely necessary.
To this day, my agency has never had an incident like this. We've had the rare moments where we did have to shoot someone, e.g. a man rampaging with a machete through a supermarket killing people.