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We are responsible for every round that comes out of our weapon. IF we were allowed to fire a warning shot and it does damage to property or hurts/kills someone we are responsible. In fact here in KC, 2-3 years ago, a girl was killed by a bullet fired from some distance away during a New Year's Eve get together which included "celebratory" gunfire. It can and does happen.
In reality, during my shooting, the reason I fired 8 was because my gun malfunctioned (actually self induced due to the slide locking lever being the bigger version offered on the G35 model which I promptly replaced with the thinner one when I got my pistol back). There is no definitive minimum or maximum amount of rounds to fire but you might be questioned why if the amount seems out of place. It was noticed in actual shootings some of our officers were firing two rounds and stepping left or right and pausing. Guess what? That is exactly how we do our qualifications. The range staff noticed this and change the qual up every so often so nothing gets ingrained. Kinda like the CHP incident where they found empty casings in the dead officers pockets... they had it ingrained to pick up their brass after shooting.
Bottom line is don't judge if you weren't there. I have been in a similar situation but I still try not to judge because it is just Monday morning quarterbacking. Officers are judged on what they knew at the time of the incident, not what was learned afterwards. I am just trying to paint a more objective viewpoint for some as they may not realize what all goes on, etc during a situation like this.
On a related note, what if someone painted the end of a real AK47 or AR15 blaze orange to try to disguise it as an airsoft weapon? Have any of you seen the super soaker that had a real shotgun inside and would fire? Don't point things at people with real guns if you aren't prepared to deal with the consequences.
This is a horrible tragedy and I, too, think the parents (or whoever let him take the thing out of the house or lack of supervision that allowed it) are at least partially to blame. I have seen 10 year old kids stuffing toy guns down the front of their pants in the inner city. That is learned behavior from somewhere. I have had people point their hands at me like a gun and act like they are pulling a trigger. Once again, learned behavior.
Someone earlier in the thread said the best course of action is to comply and then deal with the treatment later. That is the best advice. Police are reactionary, we don't drive around shooting people at will. We react to their actions. If people would comply, incidents like this would be reduced.
Another thing just occurred to me as I sit here typing, a few years ago there was a shootout between an officer and a bank robbery suspect. The suspect was hit something like 17 times with a .45 ACP before he went down. He wasn't high or drunk or wearing body armor, just determined. The last two rounds, if I recall correctly, were headshots (shot placement is more important than caliber) that stopped him. So again, saying how many shots it should take is not plausible in situations like these.
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