[adroitcuffs]

Re: SWAT shootings raise policy questions

"I just thought it was horrible," said Farmington resident Wade Lake, who watched police close in on Wood. "Just like someone tormenting an animal in a cage."
In the death of both Lamb and Wood, friends and family members say that if only they could have spoken to the man with the gun, maybe things would have turned out differently.

Tormenting an animal in a cage? Hmmm, and I suppose it was just a misunderstanding that Brian Wood thought it was perfectly acceptable to discharge a firearm during an argument with his wife? Ahhh, if only they could have spoken to the man with the gun... Well now, I suppose if it really were that simple, we'd have absolutely no need for SWAT to exist at all and the family had no business dragging the police into their family drama, right? These two individuals were hell bent on ending their lives, plain and simple.

Gunshots are not the sounds any police officer wants to hear at the end of a standoff, Watt said.
"No SWAT officer I know wants to kill anybody," he said. "He's hoping to avoid it at all costs."
For Martin, that cost would have included using nonlethal weapons such as Tasers and rubber bullets to subdue her nephew.

And if that rubber bullet hit your nephew in the head, or if he died after a Taser deployment, you'd still be filing the lawsuit and blaming the police for your nephew's death.

In Farmington, Watt said he understands there will be plenty of scrutiny while a community heals.
"There are a lot of decisions that have to be made," he said of any standoff. "They're not easy and they're not popular."

The ultimate reality. Police work isn't a nicely-packaged, Power-Point sales pitch, with soothing music playing in the background. We deal with otherwise nice people in their times of crisis, the dredges of society, and everything in between. Let's put the accountablility where it belongs -- with the individual who created the situation that required law enforcement response.