I thought about that too. I have three thoughts on that:

1) there are so many facts we don’t know about what position the cop or the other two for that matter were in. Everyone passing judgment is analyzing very limited information (this video clip) , which may not provide the most material information. For example, Had this perpetrator stabbed someone else earlier? Was this officer issued a taser?

2) I have no idea if a taser would be more appropriate or not. Others have pointed out that a taser could cause muscle convulsions that might cause an involuntary stabbing. Idk if that’s realistic and even if it is, idk if our police training is shaped by that information. Another thought I have is, I think, but someone else will know better, that typically the tasers officers have don’t do much good if you miss your first shot. In other word, what I’ve seen is some strings flying out of tasers, which makes me think there must be some delay between the first and second shot of a taser if you don’t make contact the first try. In this situation, that could be devastating. With that, I think again it’s difficult to judge this officer based on his choice to use a gun vs a taser, but that gets me to my final thought.

1. I think there could be more agreement among the commenters here than we might initially think. I think commenters supporting the cop are supporting the cop based on police training and tools currently available. We don’t know how many of them, if asked, would agree that it would be ideal if officers were provided more non-lethal ways of disabling a violent criminal. On the flip side, most of the anti-cop comments I see ITT are directed at the officer, but I wonder if their true concern is with the training and resources provided to officers to respond to these types of situations.