This reminds me of a local story with the police that happened about 25 years ago where I grew up.

There was a man named Daryl who was prone to getting drunk and locking his old lady out of the house. Well one night Daryl was drunk and had a shotgun, and like the man in this story was threatening to kill himself so his wife called the sheriff.

The sheriff and a couple deputies show up and try to talk to Daryl but get no response. So one of the deputies kicked in the door to make sure he was okay and Daryl shot him in the stomach.

At this stage the police had not draw their weapons even. They knew he had a gun and was threatening violence but they just wanted to help. After the deputy was shot they drew their guns and had a little standoff at the door. They managed to drag the deputy that was shot off and take better positions. Two state police came when officer down went out, and they wanted to get a bunch of officers down there and raid the place.

The sheriff knew though that Daryl had been drinking and probably wasn't in his right mind so he just waited. Figured he would sober up in a few hours and they could talk with him. They just sat at their cars drinking coffee and smoking, sometimes cycling a man to go stay with the deputy at the hospital who it looked like would die.

A few hours later, Daryl sobered up and realized that he had done something terrible. He called out wanting to surrender and begging for them to let him know what had happened to the young man he shot. In this way, the whole thing was resolved peacefully.

The deputy lived, and Daryl had to do a good chunk of jail time, but at least no one died where they didn't have to.

90% of police shootings I've seen in the last few years have been completely preventable. They just need to stop seeing targets and realize these are people, and people can often be dealt with if you just use some patience.

The officers in this case didn't want to help anyone. They just responded because they saw a chance to shoot somebody. There was no talking, no waiting, no learning about the person. Just assault rifles and screaming then gunshots.