COPWORLD

Shoot to kill

By Noah Bruce

In the wake of the shooting of James Levier, the deaf man shot by the cops in a Scarborough parking lot, I’ve heard several people, sympathetic to Levier, ask, “Couldn’t they have just shot him in the leg?”

This is a question often asked when the authorities kill a perpetrator, who, despite presenting an obvious danger, appears a sympathetic character. Sure, when he was killed, Levier was aiming his rifle at police officers. However, he was also the victim of years of abuse as a student at the state-run Baxter School for the Deaf, and on the day of his death was protesting (in a misguided fashion) the government’s refusal to apologize for its part in the abuse of Baxter students.

Unfortunately, according to Deputy Chief Bill Ridge of the Portland Police Department, police officers are not trained to “wing or to wound,” and Ridge offers a logical reason for this.

“People watch too many movies,” says Ridge. “No one is so good with a gun that they can be reasonably sure they can hit someone in the arm or leg.” Ridge explains that cops are taught to aim for the “center mass” otherwise known as the torso. “If you try to shoot me in the arm or leg and you miss, then you’re dead. Your job [as a police officer] is to end that threat as best as you can.”