Joreth, I don't understand what point you're making. I'm military, so I understand the spectrum, and the spectrum only proves my point: verbal commands are ranked well "below" the non-lethal weaponry, and therefore have always preceded the use of tasers in every video I've ever seen. I've never seen a video where the police jumped straight to tasers with no other actions.

Gromgor, I confess, I don't know the laws regarding such a situation as well as I ought to. My understanding is that in all cases, the criminal will have all instances of crimes placed on their head, if we assume the shooter was in the right. However, you talk here about how police should permit a suspect to flee, rather than shoot in a potentially harmful environment. I agree! But this case is not that the suspect was fleeing. The suspect made an aggressive move, and was fired upon for it. In this case, he even had a weapon, although they're claiming it was unloaded. I suspect they mean there wasn't one in the chamber, not that there was no magazine. The spectrum Joreth mentioned earlier (for the military, anyway) says I need to keep one step ahead of the suspect, not one behind. If he's reaching for his waistband after a failed attempt at using non-lethal force, the next escalation is lethal force, as seen here.

Kailen, go jump in a river. Statistics show that the police are more likely to fire upon a white individual than a black individual. Oh, sorry, that doesn't fit your narrow view of the world. Go ahead and ignore what I'm saying and pick up your "He was only carrying a sandwich!" sign for the latest Ferguson incident.