Actually when Seige who I have reason to believe is a competent Chinese language reader posted the video at post 169 he said
“Peaceful axe-wielding protester shot and killed by PAP.”
Since then the video has been taken down by the authorities and we can all have our thoughts on why and to date, no one has come up with any proof to suggest the perp was anything but that
Well that was clearly a pisstake of the typical biased western media. It was original reported as Terrorist suspect shot by police, and I have no reason to doubt that given what I have seen.
In my recollection of the video, the axe had left the hand of the perp as he was shot.
Well you may want to watch the video again rather than rely on hazy recollection.
The police shot him as soon as he made his first sudden movement towards them, and he was hit before his arm could fully start the downward dragging arch of the throw, which gives the weapon most of its power and accuracy, hence why his axe fell with little speed or accuracy.
That is only possible because the police reacted instantly. Had they waited even a fraction of section, the terrorist would have had time to complete the throw, which would have made the throw far more dangerous and likely lethal.
Your argument that they should have waited to see what would happen in that situation is plain stupid, unreasonable and downright unprofessional. As to do what you suggest would put the officers and members of the public at far greater risk. I cannot believe anyone would seriously be disputing this.
There did not appear to be any attempt to avoid the trajectory of the axe by front facing PAP and the axe eventually fell by their feet. And whose to say it wasn’t the warning shot that provided the catalyst to the perps final course of action. Also the Perp did not like he had the conditioning to do a Usain Bolt dash.
More nonsense to suggest the warning shot triggered the aggression. And if it was Bolt, he could have covered that distance in less than a second. 2 seconds is perfectly doable by anyone in reasonable shape.
(Have you ever played cricket? I have, and even as a very average player I can dodge a ball bowled at me at 100kph, so sidestepping an axe thrown at a much slower speed although at a slightly shorter distance would not have been a problem.
More nonsense. Firstly, the objective of cricket isn't to hit the batter. Secondly, the ball is thrown 20 meters from the batter not 10 as in the example here, and is thrown into the ground first, taking a massive amount of speed off of it. And still even professional cricket players get hit all the time by the ball despite all that. Hence the helmet and pads.
I have just come back from rein acting the axe throwing scenario with my brother. We substituted the axe for a short handled grubber. I threw in the general direction rather than at him and he was able to take avoiding action before it reached the 30 foot mark.
Congratulations, you have just made all throwing knives and axes unless.
Please use your head and apply some logic and common sense! If it was that easy and reliable to dodge thrown axes and knives, why on earth would they have survived as weapons even to this day?
Sure it's possible to make a dodging attempt, if you were expecting it in advanced, and planned on dodging it as your first reactive response to seeing the axe thrown. But the first trained reaction of armed police is not to go driving for cover as soon as the perp made a threatening move is it?!
Yes, the PAP officers made no attempt to dodge the axe, because they had no time to do so.
This isn't the movies, once you make your initial reaction, you don't have time to instantly make a second, totally different reaction movie in frame-by-frame slow-mo.
If you really want a remotely realistic experiment, make a snowball, hit it behind your back. Get your bother to shoot a paintball/BB gun at a paper target 10m away while you stand next to the target.
Get him to hold his weapon ready but not aimed. Shout him a warning as you hurl the snowball like you mean it and see a) what his first reaction is, b) whether he can make a second reaction move even as he is carrying out his first move, and c) how successful he is at dodging the snowball, if he even had time to try. Just wear a protective mask as well while doing it. Safety first.
My argument is the PAP could have done the same while realising Perp was no longer armed.
And had they waited until after the terrorist threw his axe, one of them could have been badly injured or dead. It would have been unprofessional and incompetent for them to have waited that long to react. And it's totally unrealistic and unreasonable to suggest they should have waited.
You can suggest the Perp had closed the distance to the front facing PAPS but that doesn’t explain the closeness of the PAPs to his right who had plenty of room to increase the distance between them.
The 3 PAP officers were likely either standing close talking to each other or standing in a outwards facing triangle on guard, as numerous photos have shown police to do in Xinjiang.
Terrorist walks up towards them gets spotted and a shouted challenge is issued and the other two officers takes a couple of steps away as they turn to face the threat and you have your starting positions of everyone in the video.
I brought the subject of Lee Rigby’s killers up to show that despite your assertions that armed police are trained to shoot to kill, the responding armed police did not do so. In fact they were more calculating on how many shots were required. In all eight shots were fired by the police and they too feared for their lives. Any additional shots you hear are the perps firing back so any thought by the police that they were ordinary guys who had flipped would have long gone. The additional shooting while the perps were down were in hand to get the perp to drop the gun, not coup de grace shots to the head as you are advocating.
Well again you are ignoring the facts of the situation. The attackers charged the police as soon as they arrived and the officers started shooting as they were still in their car.
The first shots were fired from inside the car, through the window. As the terrorists went down, the doors of the cars would have taken them out of line of sight, making further shots impossible without the officers dismounting first.
By that time, both suspects were hit, and down. So the threat situation is already massively decreased, allowing the officers more time to react and greater freedom to decide what to do next.
Personally I think the thumb shot was more luck than judgement.
As the second suspect brought up his revolver officers fired at him, and one of the rounds happen to have struck the gun and taken off his thumb as opposed to the officers having deliberately aimed for his gun hand.
To do that later would have been unprofessional and dangerous.
As to try to aim for such cases a small, moving target would have taken longer and carried a far greater chance of missing than aiming for the central mass of the torso.
That would have put fellow officers at risk if the longer aim time allowed the perp to get a shot off first, as well as members of the public, since even if you did hit the hand, it would have offered little resistance to your bullets, meaning those bullets will retain far more energy after leaving the suspect and could easily hit and injure or kill members of the public in the vicinity.
That is why all armed officers are trained to aim for the central body mass when firing. They don't, or at least shouldn't, aim for the head, limbs or weapons of the perps.
They are supposed to put rounds into the central mass to maximise stopping power and minimise both the chance of missing and the chance and remaining energy of rounds passing through the perp to minimise the risks to the members of the general public because odds are they will be shooting in places where innocent bystanders might be nearby.
That consideration is why officers are trained to shoot to kill rather than anything fancy like disabling or disarming the suspect with their shots.
In addition, as I already mentioned, even though the Rigby case was a terrorist attack. First response officers would not have known it at the time.
Their reactions and choices would have been about how to deal with everyday perps, not terrorist suspects in the wake of a major terrorist attack.
That is why the De Meneze case is more relevant and why the nature of the perp being a terrorist suspect is significant. Like it or not , different rules apply when dealing with terrorist suspects compared to just general members of the public.
By the way, ten years in the army and a similar period in the police is hardly a sheltered life
Well then, you shouldn't should know better.
