Teen Critical After North Kingstown Shooting l WPRI.com

There seems to be an awful lot of problems with people with knives who are distraught being killed or nearly killed by law enforcement.

I believe there conflict prevention intervention would go a long way in diffusing these really sad situations. If there was a hostage being held, that's one thing. But when you start shooting rather than shut the door, and wait for the person to calm down or bring in your swat team or mental health professionals to deal with it so you have a rather peaceful apprehension, not only do you kill the person with the problem, you risk injuring your fellow officer by turning the place into a shooting gallery. Talk about a lawsuit in the making.

Police have to go and we have ensure their safety. Putting them in impossible situations isn't good for anybody.

I know where I speak. I lost a family member in another state a few years back due to inadequate training to deal with the mentally ill. I see a problem with training.

i agree, these cops are dying to get to use their guns. You could use mase or stun guns instead. I could see if the kid had a gun but this is bullshit. How could a teenage boy with a knife be that threating to a grown man?

they get so bored with target practice they really long for some serious action .so what if it is a 18 year teen with mental problems.shoot 1st ask questions later seems to be the policy here.

jerry wrote:

You could use mase or stun guns instead.

Did you read the article???

Dont believe everything the cops say in the article you know thats probably not how it really happend. They also said they shot him 9 times. I dont care who you are 9 times is excessive.

My thoughts & prayers are with the NKPD. They are there to protect us & they did. Do you want a person running around town wealding a knife or do you want to be safe. To Jerry, have you read the articles??? They did stun him & he continued to lunge at them with a knife. I'd like to know what you would do in that situation!

SKR wrote:

My thoughts & prayers are with the NKPD. They are there to protect us & they did. Do you want a person running around town wealding a knife or do you want to be safe. To Jerry, have you read the articles??? They did stun him & he continued to lunge at them with a knife. I'd like to know what you would do in that situation!

Jerry would probably give the boy a great big hug. Because he was probably mistreated as a youngster. Good job NK! Make sure you go home to your own kids who haven't threatened anyone with a knife today!

the updated story(as of tonight) stated that the stun gun didn't work..so much for the superhuman strength that threatened the police officers. you shoot a human being in leg if it's the absolute last resort....not 9 times, 3 in the face, and several in vital organs. that's a bunch of shit...i knew mark personally. he allowed myself and band members to stay at his apartment while we were on tour...nicest kid i've ever met in my life. hang in there mark...

you dumb hicks in nk have no common sense.there was no need for this situation to go down like it did.a distraught teen holding a knife should not have been shot down. of course they are going to say he lunged at them.the cops were so out of control they even shot their own guys

Josh wrote:

the updated story(as of tonight) stated that the stun gun didn't work..so much for the superhuman strength that threatened the police officers. you shoot a human being in leg if it's the absolute last resort....not 9 times, 3 in the face, and several in vital organs. that's a bunch of ****...i knew mark personally. he allowed myself and band members to stay at his apartment while we were on tour...nicest kid i've ever met in my life. hang in there mark...

From your post, I can count 13 of 18 shots accounted for. 12 in the kid and one in the cops arm. What happened to the other 5?

In order to shoot the kid in the leg, the cops would have to be good shots.
I've seen cops shoot. It ain't pretty. But there's a reason for it.
In court, the cops can claim that they are trained to point and shoot (instinctive shooting), rather than careful aim. This way they can claim that a deadly shot was an unfortunate (lucky) shot. In this case, they'd have a had time explaining 18 shots though. I'm sure that if it wasn't for budget cuts, the shot count would have been higher. As far as lack of marksmanship is concerned, I submit that the officer shot in the arm is pretty good evidence. Unless of course the kid was armed with a 9mm knife...

Good luck kid....
I hope you can face these thugs in court for excessive (18 shots against a knife) use of force.
Beware, they have the policemans bill of rights and the poice union on their side.

jennithib wrote:

<quoted text>
Did you read the article???

Yes !!
A taser is very effective if you hit the target. The kid would have dropped like a wet rag.

I suspect that Dudley Doright missed.. Therefore they had no choice but to shoot EIGHTEEN TIMES !

i agree with josh. once the cops realized the stun guns wern't effective the should have put one in his leg, two at most. but nine in vital areas is just fucked up.

nothing realy happens in nk and when the cops went to the kids hows they got a little to excited and shot the kid nine times thats just messed up.

This looks like this ordeal will cost the taxpayers of NK a few million. The fact that a cop got shot, suggests a crossfire to me. You will be lucky to hear the whole story, but this looks like real excessive force

Let's see a published picture of the " knife" that put the fear of death in 3 armed trained men.
The taxpayers that are going to cough up millions for this one should be shown this. I bet there are lawyers salivating from Maine to Spain to get this case

Every one here agrees that the kid was mentally unstable and possibly suicidal....what better way to kill yourself if you don't have the balls to do it your self, attack the cops with a knife..suicide by cop a very real situation!! No one disagrees that there were far to many rounds fired. In the academy you are taught shoot to stop and fir into center mass (the largest part of the body) not into the leg!!

Pawtucket Resident wrote:

Every one here agrees that the kid was mentally unstable and possibly suicidal....what better way to kill yourself if you don't have the balls to do it your self, attack the cops with a knife..suicide by cop a very real situation!! No one disagrees that there were far to many rounds fired. In the academy you are taught shoot to stop and fir into center mass (the largest part of the body) not into the leg!!

I don't care what they teach at the " academy", that does not make it right. This is 3 against 1, in close quarters, and one of them even shot another one. They teach that at the academny too? I can't tell you how many times I qualified combat, and I know full well 3 armed trained men could have done a better job than this. Let's see a picture of the knife!

Pete wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't care what they teach at the " academy", that does not make it right. This is 3 against 1, in close quarters, and one of them even shot another one. They teach that at the academny too? I can't tell you how many times I qualified combat, and I know full well 3 armed trained men could have done a better job than this. Let's see a picture of the knife!

they must have gotten their training in NYC. Are you kidding, having shot this guy that many times..how do you justify that..

all im gonna say is mark was a friend of mine, and being from nk i have had to deal with these cops. me and my friends predicted something like this happening. these cops have gotten more and more power hungry and its no big surprise they finnaly did this. the goal should be to disarm not to kill. one or two shots to disarm, if you are honestly going to defend these officers tell me how nine shots is to disarm. weather it was poor training or them just being the power hungry pigs they are it doesn't change the fact that a friend of mine is almost dead. There was no self defense here not when you have three officers with 9mm weapons and one overweight kid with a steak knife. Are you going to honestly argue that they had to fear for their lives when he was threatening his own. So good job NKPD you cant even manage to finish the job, i hope all of you cant sleep at night.

Here we go with the typical monday morning quarterbacks saying to shoot him in the leg (nice post about the kid being overweight..like a person can't stab someone if he's overweight). Police are trained when they shoot they shoot to kill...not shoot someone in the leg or in the foot or whatever. Want to know why? Because when they are shooting someone they are doing so because it is a last resort. If you aim for the leg and miss, then you're dead..If you shoot someone coming at you with a knife in the foot, guess what, he can still stab you and kill you. I'd like to see how the NK High hero post would confront an "overweight" kid coming at him with a knife and raising it to stab him. I'm sure the "power hungry pigs" just love shooting people..so that they can be suspended for a year while it gets reviewed by 3 different state boards and maybe gets cleared, then get investigated by their own department, then get sued by the victim's family...Yup..that sounds like a lot of fun to me. They got called there for a reason...Maybe that "overweight kid" would have stabbed a family member or someone else if they weren't there. You weren't there and still haven't answered how you would have handled the situation. Oh, and the post about just closing the door until he calms down?? Have you heard about the caretaker law where once the police are called they are responsible for everyone at the scene...so if they close the door and the kid stabs himself, the cops get sued and you can write about how they should have done something else.
I have an idea..how about faulting the kid with the knife that tried to stab the cops?? Everyone knows all the answers until you put them in that situation.