Its a case of suicide by cop.

If there WAS a bomb, it would be different.

If you pretend to be a danger to people the cop has to protect, and get shot as a result, as cops do not have your medical records handy most of the time, its called commiting suicide.

The sad fact is that the average IQ in our prison system is about 70.

Maybe the ones with more cranial fire power don't get caught as often...or maybe the wit-chalenged have a harder time getting a decent job, and a harder time making good decisions to compensate for that.

Bipolar people are almost never violent. They typically are somewhere between wanting to die, and wanting to paint the house while learning russian and planting a garden...maybe all within the same hour, etc.

If you want to die, but don't want to do it yourself, you can get someone else to do it for you...walking in front of an oncoming car/train, etc...pretending to be a bad guy so the cops shoot you to death, etc.

So the fact that a bad guy is really stupid or crazy doesn't change the situation much, they still represent a threat at the time, and I for one would not want to be the cop standing there with my gun out, watching some guy with a potential bomb or AK-47 in his hand, trying to decide if when he pulls the trigger/switch, anything might happen.

If I'm the cop, and I have a second to decide if I have to shoot or call the bluff, I think I'd shoot.

If the guy's wife is yelling "He's off his meds, and trying to get you to shoot him", rather than "He's off his meds, don't shoot him", I might go for a leg shot, etc. as a compromise, or tell HER to go and get the overnight bag/AK-47 from him, etc.

I've been shot, it hurts like a Mo Fo...but if I was a lunitic with a bomb switch, and I wanted to set it off, I think I could flick a switch unless the shot took me out completely...so, you have to shoot to kill/hit center of mass, etc.

Someone else was complaining to me that they should have just wounded him, not killed him, like just shoot him in the hand....

I said that's in the movies, real cops are lucky under a situation like that to hit ANYTHING with a handgun, let alone miss his head and hit his hand, etc...you aim at his middle, and hope you don't miss him completely.



If you are the air marshall, and the guy gets to blow up the bomb he says he has...you screwed up big time.

If you get him off the plane first, that's fine...but the guy and the threat has to be neutralized, that's job one.

So - I feel sorry for all involved, but what happened did not have too many practical alternative endings.