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snottyotter
What I said was that I'd be wary of getting too close to him, not that what they did was right. I'm not a policeman. I also pointed out what the Guardian article fails to mention: the fact that he's literally asking to be shot whilst walking towards police with a knife.
I don't think two is really an appropriate number to detain someone with a knife. If you're not allowed to use/don't have access to a gun it can turn out like this
.
They can't just get back in their car and bugger off. How can they know if that will actually calm the situation? Funnily enough they don't know that he was calmer before they arrived because they weren't there then. They also don't know he'll calm down once they leave or whether he'll be a risk to the bunch of people standing around watching.
Shit situation all round really, you'd hope a taser would work but the distance they're at (and they mention his hoodie potentially negating the effects of the taser in the article) you wouldn't want to find out it was ineffective. Doubt you'd get a second chance to stop him.