Arizona officer fired after shooting of shoplifting suspect in a wheelchair

Taser cant penetrate a wheel chair back cushion. Pepper spray with their back turned? Maybe if there is a cross breeze that could work. Thrown something under his tire? Yeah, throwing random objects at a person at best will piss them off, at worse you just gave them another weapon (well technically worse is accidently hit them in the head and kill them).

Suspect had a knife and was in a wheel chair, and brandished it (and used it as a threat, technically this is now armed robbery with a knife). Officer was the only officer on the scene, and already had his weapon drawn with suspect moving away. He should have kept ordering the man to stop and only shot if he was close to someone else (about 10ish feet) and follow the suspect. Most people would have ran away just seeing an officer with a weapon drawn. Backup will be there in probably 3-5 minutes, and the backup officer can deploy bean bags (knock the person out of the wheel chair and threat is now very little at 10+ feet away).

*Keep in mind I am going only off the AP article, havent watch the bodycam yet.

/r/news Thread Parent Link - apnews.com