Most Officers Never Fire Their Guns. But Some Kill Multiple People — And Are Still On The Job.

In Seattle, one offi­cer’s mul­ti­ple dead­ly encoun­ters offer a win­dow into this lit­tle-under­stood cor­ner of American policing.
The video is brief but dis­turb­ing: Moments after two Seattle police offi­cers kick down an apartment’s front door, a shirt­less man appears on cam­era, lum­ber­ing slow­ly toward them with a 4‑inch switch­blade in his hand.
Inside a near­by bath­room was the man’s bar­ri­cad­ed girl­friend, who had dialed 911 after she said he threat­ened her life and his own. Within 6 sec­onds, the offi­cers opened fire. Ryan Smith, a Black and Latino 31-year-old, was killed in a burst of 10 shots on May 8, 2019, accord­ing to police records.
The offi­cer who pulled the trig­ger first — and fired eight of the bul­lets that killed Smith — was Christopher Myers, 54, who has earned an array of com­men­da­tions in his three decades at the Seattle Police Department, includ­ing offi­cer of the year and a medal of hon­or. He was once her­ald­ed as an offi­cer with an “unbe­liev­able degree of patience” who cared deeply about the peo­ple on his beat.
Myers, who is white, also belongs to a rare but sig­nif­i­cant class of American law enforce­ment offi­cers: He’s used dead­ly force mul­ti­ple times in his career, fir­ing his gun in four sep­a­rate inci­dents in the last 11 years. Three peo­ple were killed in the shoot­ings and one was seri­ous­ly injured. All but one were peo­ple of color.

The Seattle Police Department declined to say whether Myers act­ed appro­pri­ate­ly in each encounter, though offi­cials gave him an award in at least one case. And accord­ing to the inde­pen­dent unit with­in the depart­ment that inves­ti­gates alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing, the Office of Police Accountability, only Smith’s killing was referred for review, and there was no find­ing of misconduct.
In an inter­view with NBC News, Myers attrib­uted his repeat­ed use of dead­ly force to a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing threats posed by armed sus­pects, a will­ing­ness to rush toward dan­ger and a con­fi­dence honed through years of expe­ri­ence and tac­ti­cal train­ing. He denied any racial bias in the shootings.
“I don’t expect any of my calls to esca­late into shoot­ings,” he said, adding: “Unfortunately, some peo­ple don’t yield and some­times force the situation.”
Read the rest of the sto­ry here; https://​www​.nbc​news​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​u​s​-​n​e​w​s​/​m​o​s​t​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​n​e​v​e​r​-​f​i​r​e​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​g​u​n​s​-​s​o​m​e​-​k​i​l​l​-​m​u​l​t​i​p​l​e​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​n​1​2​6​4​795