Axe wielding woman shot dead by Tennessee police after eviction notice

I'm not always proud to admit, I jump at the chance to beat on the police when they screw up badly..this will not be one of those cases..the woman should of dropped the axe or halted her aggressive approach..I would of shot her too.

originally posted by: Fishy


The solution to this would be a sweeping but simple reform :

1. Double or triple cop salaries.
2. Any cop who kills someone is no longer a cop afterwards. Not even a desk job. Regardless whether the killing was justified or not.

That way cops don't shoot to kill unless it's absolutely necessary.

You are also going to end up with lots of dead innocent people as cops are going to actively avoid any calls which may result in possible deadly force encounters.

Seriously, you advocate punishing someone for doing their job and using the level of force required to save the lives of themselves or innocent members of the public? You would potentially put a working man and their family on the street for doing nothing wrong?

Plenty of cops have died because they were worried about what would happen if they pulled the trigger.

originally posted by: opethPA

originally posted by: Fishy

originally posted by: veracity
Wow, she looked like a zombie coming after him, scary...

Why didn't he shoot her in the leg, foot. Why did he shoot her dead?

This is a perfect example to use a tazer.

There were ample other ways to stop her without killing her.

I totally understand he was scared, I think its a failure in hiring and training police officers.

if he felt he had to draw the gun instead of the taser and shoot, he simply chose to shoot to kill rather than to incapacitate.

Or...The criminal could have not come at the police with an axe?
I see you blaming everyone but the one person that caused this issue.

As for your shooting her in the leg or foot that works great on 24 or in video games meanwhile in the real world let me know how it works out for you. Lets say you aim for a much smaller mass of someones leg or hand , hey because I saw it in a movie once so that means it's real life, and the shot misses and strikes an innocent bystander would it be worth it then?

The reality of it is if you pull the trigger on a gun then i would suspect you are doing it with the intention of stopping the person coming at you.

Again though, this problem could have been prevented if the person with the axe made different choices.

Mental gymnastics to justify unnecessarily killing by an unprofessional cop. We're not discussing the criminal's actions here. It's already a given that the criminal should not have charged any cop with a deadly weapon.

We're discussing the cop's handling of the given situation.

Also, the glock he's using has a 20 bullet magazine and is a semiautomatic pistol, is it not? He can't manage to hit her legs in 20 rounds but hits her head in 3 rounds?

He's clearly aiming at her head. Moreover, clearly risking hitting the deputies or troopers or whatever they are, some ways behind the woman.

An asshat of a cop.

And yet he's vigorously defended.

Why?

Additionally - I just noticed this on second or 3rd viewing now - you can see the cops behind the woman, sitting next to the other cop cars, completely unfazed, just sitting there chatting to one another. They're clearly not afraid of the woman. They don't have their weapons drawn. Yet they risk being shot by the asshat that's last to arrive on the scene when he shoots the woman dead, clearly aiming at her head.

Did they notice bullets whizzing by? Or did he hit her with every shot fired?

a reply to: imitator

I guess you've never seen foreign news where police and military forces get into huge gun battles and kill random bystanders?

I guess you're ignorant to the fact that the overwhelming majority of police/citizen interactions don't result in death?

I know the MSM likes to make it seem otherwise, but it's true.

Neither your comment nor mine are relevant. Wasn't that fun?

originally posted by: Fishy

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: TechniXcality
a reply to: Annee

They're not "bad" if they are killing within the law, once again do we accept taking a life when actions could of been taken to preserve all lives.

The USA is an armed society, we can't react the same way UK police can.

So we really can't take the other actions that European countries do, simply because anyone might have a gun.

The woman had an axe, not a gun. Axes don't shoot bullets. If this was a proper cop he could have knocked her lights out on the spot, in one punch, without retreating. Before she even managed to lift the axe, much less hit him. Or taze her or pepper spray her. Or shoot her in the arms or legs.

Instead it's either a :

- easily frightened (so as not to call him cowardly) cop
- poorly trained cop
- an indolent cop, who can't be bothered to do any more than the bare minimum required of him
- a psycho with a gun and a license to kill looking for justifiable homicides.

I like melee kills in Call of Duty too.

They don't really work all that well against actual people instead of pixels, though. Perhaps you should set up a combatives training course for military and law enforcement agencies, since you seem to have a wealth of totally realistic and applicable knowledge.

Oh and as for the cops "standing around talking": what you actually see are sheriff's deputies, who had called for a police to come out and deal with the woman. What were they supposed to do? Tackle her? Well obviously the answer in your little head is "yes" because that's what you do when facing an edged weapon: tackle and/or one punch the person.

a reply to: Fishy

You clearly have no idea of the dynamics of a real life deadly force encounter. Police forces the World over train to shoot lethal threats centre mass. No police force trains to shoot at legs/arms. To do so increases the chance of missing, not stopping the threat etc. A person at the range we see here has the capability of delivering a deadly blow in under a second. The priority is to stop the threat quickly and with minimal danger to the officer or bystanders.

Quick once over on real life shooting. Handguns are weapons of convenience and are inherently under powered. In the real world they only reliably stop a target with a CNS shot (brain or spinal cord). Otherwise they rely on tissue damage and haemorrhage, neither if which are reliably quick. Shooting someone in the head is difficult due to it moving and being a small target. Cops are therefore trained to fire multiple times centre mass to maximise the chance of vital organ and blood vessel damage, and possible spinal cord hit.

People react differently to being shot. Some drop with minor grazing wounds. Others take multiple hits to various parts of the body and keep going for several minutes. Unfortunately the only way to stop someone reliably is to damage enough of their body to stop it functioning. This means shooting them lots of times.

Unless you strike bone and remove mechanical support for the body, leg shots are very often ineffective, particularly when using a handgun. Bear in mind that the femur is roughly 2" in diameter and covered by muscle. Could you guarantee hitting a moving target 2" wide that you can't see while you are also moving, under stress and with a handgun? If so then well done, because I've been a combat shooter for 25 years and was part of my regimental pistol shooting team, and I couldn't guarantee it. Arm shots are even tougher.

Perceptional distortion also plays a massive part. In high stress and adrenaline fuelled situations the shooters forebrain often closes down to it's most basic level and the omigdila takes over. They get blurred and tunnel vision, hearing reduces and their perception of reality changes. This is why post shoot reports are often different depending on who you speak to. Adrenaline flows, resulting in hands shaking and reduced fine motor skills. The end result is a firer who cannot aim their weapon as effectively as normal. Hence another reason they train to aim for the largest target available to maximise the chance of a hit, i.e. the centre mass.

So as you can see it is not just a matter of the cop being a trigger happy prat. There are real reasons for shooting like they do.

a reply to: PaddyInf

But...but he could totally have one punched her!

originally posted by: Shamrock6

originally posted by: Fishy

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: TechniXcality
a reply to: Annee

They're not "bad" if they are killing within the law, once again do we accept taking a life when actions could of been taken to preserve all lives.

The USA is an armed society, we can't react the same way UK police can.

So we really can't take the other actions that European countries do, simply because anyone might have a gun.

The woman had an axe, not a gun. Axes don't shoot bullets. If this was a proper cop he could have knocked her lights out on the spot, in one punch, without retreating. Before she even managed to lift the axe, much less hit him. Or taze her or pepper spray her. Or shoot her in the arms or legs.

Instead it's either a :

- easily frightened (so as not to call him cowardly) cop
- poorly trained cop
- an indolent cop, who can't be bothered to do any more than the bare minimum required of him
- a psycho with a gun and a license to kill looking for justifiable homicides.

I like melee kills in Call of Duty too.

I don't play CoD. Never played CoD.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
They don't really work all that well against actual people instead of pixels, though. Perhaps you should set up a combatives training course for military and law enforcement agencies, since you seem to have a wealth of totally realistic and applicable knowledge.

Bull#.

If you have reflexes and presence of mind worth a damn to properly operate a motor vehicle with a manual transmission you also have enough to handle a situation such as this better than this asshat of a cop handled it, especially after receiving his training.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
Oh and as for the cops "standing around talking": what you actually see are sheriff's deputies, who had called for a police to come out and deal with the woman. What were they supposed to do? Tackle her? Well obviously the answer in your little head is "yes" because that's what you do when facing an edged weapon: tackle and/or one punch the person.

You missed all of the points so here they are again :

1. They didn't feel the need to shoot the woman. The cop did.
2. They didn't feel the need to taser her while her back was turned charging the cop. The cop felt he needed to shoot her dead.
3. Shots whizzed by them unless the cop hit the woman in the head with each shot he took. The cop was clearly aiming at her head. Besides unnecessarily killing the suspect, the asshat cop also endangered the two deputies or troopers or whatever they are.

originally posted by: Fishy

Mental gymnastics to justify unnecessarily killing by an unprofessional cop. We're not discussing the criminal's actions here. It's already a given that the criminal should not have charged any cop with a deadly weapon.

I am not using mental gymnastics to defend anything.
To me one person caused the outcome and she paid the price for her per choices.
It's easy for us to sit here and armchair quarterback this scenario.
The reality of it is no one knows how they would react until they are in that same situation.

You go on keep calling the cop an a$$hat and ill go on blaming the criminal.

a reply to: PaddyInf

TL;DR. More mental gymnastics to try and justify unnecessary killing.

20 bullets plenty enough to subdue without killing when the suspect has no firearm themselves. Also, that glock also has a burst fire feature if I'm not mistaken. Are you saying a 3 round burst to the thigh wouldn't have had caused her, at the very least, to stop advancing?

If you can't hit the lower body of suspect from that range with enough bullets to subdue why are you a cop? If you're a bad shot even at that range, why are you aiming for the head - as he clearly is in the video? If you're a bad shot even at that range, how do you get two headshots with two shots?

How do you back up into your own car? Forgot where he placed it? Forgot where he is? Is he senile?

originally posted by: opethPA

originally posted by: Fishy

Mental gymnastics to justify unnecessarily killing by an unprofessional cop. We're not discussing the criminal's actions here. It's already a given that the criminal should not have charged any cop with a deadly weapon.

I am not using mental gymnastics to defend anything.
To me one person caused the outcome and she paid the price for her per choices.
It's easy for us to sit here and armchair quarterback this scenario.
The reality of it is no one knows how they would react until they are in that same situation.

You go on keep calling the cop an a$$hat and ill go on blaming the criminal.

Of course I'll go on calling the cop an asshat because that's what he is. The cop is supposed to be a professional, to serve and protect. Someone worthy of the highest respect because he is able to subdue criminals such as this without killing them and choosing not to kill them when he could have done so lawfully. That's what commands respect for a cop, at least as I see it. Being a professional. Going above and beyond the requirements of lawful killing. Choosing not to kill when not absolutely necessary.

Being a craftsman or master craftsman of policing.

He's not a conscript or enlisted soldier or officer or a mercenary of an occupying army subduing the restless natives through war crimes.

He's a civil servant whose job is to protect and serve. Not execute unnecessarily. No one saying she wasn't a criminal for brandishing a deadly weapon and injuring a deputy.

The problem is people purposefully going into law enforcement for the opportunity to commit justifiable homicides and for the prestige, authority and power tripping. Rather than treating it as a profession and caring about actually protecting people rather than the thrill of exercising authority over civilians and taking opportunities to commit lawful, justifiable though unnecessary killings when such opportunities present themselves.

This is the result of police departments' hiring policy, where they'll turn down people who are too smart for the job, are too quick witted, aren't going into policing for ego and power trips etc.

At the very least this cop panicked or has PTSD and should have been behind a desk.

At worst, this guy went there with the intention to commit justifiable homicide.

if tazers arent effective enough to save innocent lives (innocent until proven guilty in the court of law) then clearly, we need better tazers. in my opinion, crappy tazer tech is no excuse for taking a life without trial.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
Oh and as for the cops "standing around talking": what you actually see are sheriff's deputies, who had called for a police to come out and deal with the woman. What were they supposed to do? Tackle her? Well obviously the answer in your little head is "yes" because that's what you do when facing an edged weapon: tackle and/or one punch the person.

Three grown, armed men can't handle a woman with a 'satanic battle axe'. Two of them having the drop on her from behind? At the very least being able to shoot her legs without worrying the woman is charging them?

Clearly, the only option there was to be had was to shoot the woman dead in the head.

a reply to: opethPA

Many thousand's of police in America and the rest of the world come across these kind of unstable people everyday and they manage to deal with the situation without killing anyone.

Why would you defend a person who's clearly incapable of doing his job effectively and in a professional manner?

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: opethPA

Many thousand's of police in America and the rest of the world come across these kind of unstable people everyday and they manage to deal with the situation without killing anyone.

Why would you defend a person who's clearly incapable of doing his job effectively and in a professional manner?

Show me the last example of a person stabbing or hitting one officer, then coming after another with an axe and refusing to stop when given direction to.

That isn't the same as a crazy guy on the street cursing at someone and the cops need to stop him.

Some people here want to blame the cop for this outcome when one person caused it and sitting safely behind a keyboard I am not qualified nor experienced in similar situations, like almost everyone here, to say exactly how i would act.

The lady with the axe had multiple chances to stop, she had multiple opportunities to not cause this scenario. I wish she would have made different choices just like those blaming the cop wish he would have made a different choice.

a reply to: Fishy

You completely missed the point. Cops are not trained to shoot at legs. They are taught to shoot centre mass or at the largest part of the target visible for the reasons I stated.

Of course it is likely he could hit the lower body. The truth is though that lower body shots (even multiple hits) are not guaranteed to stop an attacker. This us why they are never taught to law enforcement or military. There are plenty of real world examples where people have taken hits in the legs but continued to fight.

The reason he hit the head is simple. He was aiming the weapon where his eyes were focused. He was looking her in the face and telling her to stop. Remember the tunnel vision I mentioned earlier? There is a disproportionately high percentage of head and hand shots in shootings like this as the shooter is usually focused on either the persons face or the hand holding the weapon. It is a bit of a paradox as these areas are notoriously difficult to hit deliberately in a real life shooting, but are often hit due to tunnel vision.

This is not 'mental gymnastics', this is just what the research has shown which forms the basis for the current training methods employed by people who carry weapons for a living.

Do you actually shoot? If so have you ever actually been in a shooting? I don't ask this to be nasty, only you don't seem to grasp what it is really like to be forced with a potentially deadly confrontation. The stuff I'm talking about here isn't even advanced, it is basic level for shooters.

The courts don't even expect someone to aim at an attackers legs. That includes armed civillian shootings. The law recognises that a firearm is a lethal weapon and does not expect it to be used in a non-lethal way.

a reply to: Fishy

Bull#.

There. Don't we feel better?

No, driving a car is not akin to being in a deadly encounter. At no point in my time in the military did I ever think "man, good thing I can drive a car. That has totally prepared me for coming face to face with somebody intent on doing me harm." That is, frankly, one of the most asinine comparisons I've seen on ATS in a good while. Congrats on that, I guess.

I can only surmise that your experience with anything combat oriented is a plethora of YouTube videos, video games, and perhaps some light contact sparring in a controlled environment.

As for your points:

1) they were not the ones being advanced on, and had they elected to shoot they would've put the officer in a crossfire. That's generally frowned upon by most in law enforcement.

2) how do you know what they felt? Source? And again, what were they supposed to do? Run towards her while the officer had her at gunpoint? Again, crossfire. One usually tries to avoid running at somebody who has a gun pointed in your general direction.

3) he fired twice. And neither time he fired was he pointed directly at the deputies. The officer wasn't in a position where he had the time and distance to make sure the deputies were entirely out of the way and behind some sort of cover object. I'm sure in a controlled environment, everybody would've been a safe distance and angle from everybody else so there was no chance whatsoever of hitting anybody or anything.

Unfortunately for everybody involved, it was not a controlled environment and the best possible decision had to be acted upon then and there, rather than the perfect plan acted upon later on.

In short, I didn't miss your points. You've just made no rational or logical point to address so far. It's all been downhill since "one punch."

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

You're right. One cop just talked down a suicidal fella with autism and is all over the news where I live right now.

Then again, that guy was sitting on a curb crying as opposed to having already sliced open one cop and going after another one.

People always rail against law enforcement for using a "one solution to every incident" mentality (never mind that it isn't the case in reality) but have no problem using the same mentality themselves.

Ironic.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

You're right. One cop just talked down a suicidal fella with autism and is all over the news where I live right now.

Then again, that guy was sitting on a curb crying as opposed to having already sliced open one cop and going after another one.

People always rail against law enforcement for using a "one solution to every incident" mentality (never mind that it isn't the case in reality) but have no problem using the same mentality themselves.

Ironic.

at the same time, fatally shooting a suspect is supposed to be a last resort. so when it happens and the situation doesnt appear to fully justify it, we have every right to be nervous. especially when we look around and see that there are twitchy cops everywhere who reach for their gun before they even think about a tazer or calling for backup. they would rather be facing a corpse than a live suspect because a corpse cant sue.

originally posted by: opethPA

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: opethPA

Many thousand's of police in America and the rest of the world come across these kind of unstable people everyday and they manage to deal with the situation without killing anyone.

Why would you defend a person who's clearly incapable of doing his job effectively and in a professional manner?

The lady with the axe had multiple chances to stop, she had multiple opportunities to not cause this scenario. I wish she would have made different choices just like those blaming the cop wish he would have made a different choice.

To be totally honest, I don't personally "wish" for anything... seems like she wanted to die and had her wish granted.

I'm just saying the officer clearly dealt with the scenario poorly.

Why did he pull right up on her like that, instead of waiting at a safe distance for his back up? We can clearly see from the video it was just seconds behind him... he backed up right into them, lol!

Fact is, he could have dealt with this cleanly... instead, he just made a mess of it.