we all know, or OUGHT to know, that building a police force is a hard thing to do...you need officers who have courage and ability to BE out on the street, but you want to avoid the ones who just like to carry a gun and intimidate people. The latter type apply a LOT, and many get by the psychological profiling and GET to carry that gun!...and they learn quickly how to justify whatever they do...and few police will criticize another officer.

I do NOT know if this incident was over-reaction or not, and if I were on a dark street where the bad guys did often have guns, I might make mistakes too--but there sure needs to be some way to weed out cops who abuse the badge BEFORE they do harm.