If one of the plain clothes police squad had made a mistake and fired off a gun that happened to kill an unarmed civilian, that would sound like a tragic mistake. But four of them, and two of them emptying their guns?

As I understand it, in America it's legal for civilians to have guns, and they are entitled to use those guns if they are in danger of their lives, or have reasonable cause to think they are in danger of their lives. Can any one really believe that, if four civilians emptied their guns into an unarmed stranger who was taking his wallet out of his pocket, they would be found not guilty of anything? "We all thought it was a gun" just wouldn't be good enough.

I'm not anti-police. I've got family who are in the Gardai. But a bad cop is the worst enemy a policeman can have. And a trigger happy cop is the worst kind of bad cop. If I was a New York policeman, I'd feel safer if those kind of cops were long gone. This is where zero tolerance has to apply.