By Barry Adams, The Wisconsin State Journal
Police don’t have to be threatened with a gun to use their own guns, a Madison police training officer says.
A 39-year-old man armed with two large knives was shot and killed by two Madison police officers Tuesday morning inside the Red Caboose Day Care Center after the man wounded a teacher. Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard ruled the officers involved were justified.
Police Chief Richard Williams said the man refused officers’ demands to drop the knives. The man was shot when he made a threatening move toward a worker at the day-care center.
The names of the officers and the assailant weren’t released by police.
Officer Eric Anderson, a 10-year member of the department who has been involved in training for the last four years, said officers are trained to consider a number of factors when deciding to use deadly force. These include the type of weapon, the intent and how close the attacker is to a potential victim.
We’re not going to use force unless they close the distance,” Anderson said. “If we’re in fear of ourselves or another person (being injured), deadly force would be justified.” <
In 1997, Detective Laurie Schwartz shot and injured a man who had punched her in the head and came at her with a 6-inch bolt. That shooting was ruled justified.
Tuesday’s shooting was the third shooting by an officer since July. In each of the other incidents, the man shot by police was armed with a gun. All of the shootings were ruled justified.
“What we see happening is that Madison’s growing much larger and we’ve seen nationally when cities bump over 200,000 you see more of these type of incidents occurring,” said Madison police union president Scott Favour.
“It happened very fast,” Favour said of Tuesday’s shooting. “There was no way for the officers to do anything other than what they did.”
The officers were interviewed by investigators and were automatically placed on administrative leave. Typically, it’s up to the officers to determine when they’ll return to active duty, Favour said.
It wasn’t known how many times the officers fired their guns in Tuesday’s incident, but Anderson said police fire their weapons “until the threat is gone” and aim for their target’s center mass.
Dane County Coroner John Stanley said the assailant, who had Madison ties and was under investigation for a violent crime, was shot multiple times.
When four Madison police officers shot and killed a bank robbery suspect last July in the parking lot of a town of Madison convenience store, they fired their guns 19 times.
But it’s not uncommon for police officers to never fire their weapon in the line of duty, officials say. When they do, it’s in extreme cases. Nonlethal weapons such as taser guns and shotguns that fire bean bags can also help reduce the use of traditional firearms, police say.
Madison police officers can practice firing their weapons every Monday at the Dane County Law Enforcement Training Center, east of Waunakee. They also take part in training exercises three times a year, Anderson said.
“To be in a day-care center or school has to be very stressful for the officers, but that’s where training comes in,” Anderson said.