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This thread veered gone off course.  Expect a cleansing soon, and try to stay on topic please.

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Spoken like a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

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Yes, it was. By your backhanded insult...

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A man who allegedly threatened police officers with a knife was shot and fatally wounded Saturday afternoon near Times Square in Manhattan, authorities said.

The 3 p.m. incident, which occurred in an area popular with shoppers and tourists, began when officers approached a man because he was smoking what appeared to be a "marijuana cigarette," said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.

The man, 51, became agitated and brandished a knife, which had a 6-inch blade, near Seventh Avenue and 44th Street, said Browne.

Additional officers responded and pepper-sprayed the man six times, to no effect, when he menaced police with the knife and refused to drop it, according to Browne.

"He advanced on uniformed officers, refusing officers' repeated commands to drop his weapon," the deputy commissioner said.

The man was shot at Seventh Avenue between 37th and 38th streets by two officers after he refused to drop his weapon, according to police.

The unidentified individual was transported to the hospital, where he died.

It remained unclear Saturday evening whether the suspect injured any pedestrians prior to being shot. Three officers were treated for ringing in the ears, presumably from the sound of the gunshots.

Browne said the officers involved in the shooting will be on required administrative duty while the incident is reviewed.

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You mean, two plus "additional" police officers were not able to handle the threat of one stoned guy with a 6-inch knife better than shooting him to his near death?

Ok, I take back what I said. In the US, never trust a cop for anything else than being able to hand you a ticket for speeding. With everything else they will either fail or blast everyone and everything.

Seriously...

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Are you saying that NY police officers should run away and hide from a man charging them with a knife?

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Police say they approached Kennedy because they believed he was smoking marijuana. He allegedly became belligerent, and, in a confrontation widely captured by cell phone cameras, he led a growing number of officers through Times Square brandishing an 11-inch kitchen knife. After refusing to put down the knife, police say he advanced on two officers, who opened fire when he was three feet away. 12 shots were fired—one officer fired nine times, the other three.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital, where he was taken in 2008 after police say he created a disturbance in Times Square by kicking over garbage cans. A month later, in November 2008, he allegedly threatened officers with a screwdriver after the tried to stop him from harassing drivers near Lincoln Center. The Times reports that he was sentenced to 40 days in jail for resisting arrest. The Post reports that he had 11 priors, including busts for pot possession and robbery.

Kennedy's last known address was Hempstead, Long Island. Newsday spoke with his cousin, Kathy Johnson, of Hempstead, who said she last saw her cousin at her mother's birthday party in June, and he seemed fine. "It was too many bullets, the killing," Johnson tells Newsday. "They could have given him a warning shot, probably a shot in the leg or the arm." But Charles H. Ramsey, commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, tells the Times that officers are trained to aim for “center mass,” not the limbs of a suspect, when using deadly force.

Police tried using pepper spray six times on Kennedy, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, who told reporters, "No officer on the scene had a Taser. The overarching guideline in the use of deadly force is whether the officer or another person present was in imminent danger of death or serious injury. Neither police officers nor the public were in the line of fire."

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly insists officers "responded appropriately. You can second guess all of these things. Under the circumstances what the officers did was appropriate to the situation." And Mayor Bloomberg told reporters that the officers "probably acted in responsible ways” in shooting “somebody who must have been mentally deranged. Taking a knife and going after other people, particularly police officers, isn’t something that a sane person would do."

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The officers aimed for center of mass, as trained. Like I always tell people to shoot for self-defense. The man lunged at them and was three feet away. Anyone who thinks you can get a "leg shot" or shoot his right pinkie to make him drop the knife in those conditions is clueless.

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Cops should be trained to disarm a man with a melee weapon

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