Tragic no doubt, but perhaps we might also ask what we as a society and parents are imparting upon our children about acceptable behavior. Walking down the street with an airsoft AK47 and pistol, which we know are amazingly hard to discern from the original. Is it a failure of perhaps the child, the parents and even society for what we consider to be acceptable behavior? It is hard to judge without all the facts, but we do know that a citizen in a vehicle driving by told the teen to put the guns away as the police were right down the street and on their way. It is understandable that he was just a teen processing this information but what was that teen educated about when he was allowed to have those airsoft weapons and carrying them in public? Did his parents do their job when allowing him to have these replicas? Did they know that he had them? Did the kid think it would be funny to spin around with the weapons in a threatening manner? Did he actually spin around in a threatening manner? Can a 13 year old who is into airsoft and is carrying two airsoft weapons not have the cognitive ability to understand potential issues from carrying these airsoft guns in public even after being warned about putting them away as the police were coming? Did the Officer react too quickly? Or perhaps some combination of in between? Was it justified? This is not intended to sound like a pro-LE stance as it is not, but this is a WTF happened here stance? Perhaps a lot of failures which led to this incident.
Lets scrutinize the LE side of things. We need to consider a spectrum when it comes to training that an Officer may have. This is a pretty broad sweeping estimate which may not apply to any certain agency as some are better and some are worse, however if we look at it in a national setting it can make more sense. Now there will be Agencies with different standards for hiring. There will also be different standards for training. So there will be Officers who are lacking acceptable training to those who receive training that might meet some type of State or National recognized standard and finally you will have Officers who receive a high degree of training. If we put numbers to it, it might look something like 2% lacking, 88% meeting and 10% above average.
It is pretty recognized in LE via training and via studies that Officers with substandard training (bottom 2%) often make incorrect decisions in regards to use of force. This could be shooting too late, making incorrect decisions on appropriate application of use of force, to flat out what the effs. So indeed when that bottom 2% is involved in a use of force incident, it does not automatically mean they will react poorly, but the odds can increase. It is also pretty clear via stats and via force on force training that the 88% who meet at least the minimal standard have one common theme in that they often react way too late or with too little force in a genuine scenario where use of force is justified. Reality based force on force training with say SIMUNITIONS clearly shows this. They often wait until fired upon or until they have been cut before responding. The response is often not correct and errs on the lesser side of the force options.
Now the top 10% show a much larger gap in proficiency between the first 2 groups. Why is that? Real life statistics and training shows that the more inoculation to actual deadly use of force incidents ie. gunfights or to higher levels / frequency of reality based training, the more experienced or more highly trained the Officer the quicker the processor runs. The OODA loop that was referenced above in a highly trained Officer already has a larger data base from which to draw their life experiences from (Orient phase), then since the Officer may have found themselves in similar real life or reality based scenarios, the Decision making process has a frame of reference which greatly reduces the time to the Action phase. In other words they have seen or been in this situation before real or training, perhaps multiple times and already processed various potential actions or outcomes. So in essence the highly trained Officer understands many of the nuances of a deadly use of force situation from experience and they react more quickly with what has proven to be effective. So that 10% generally will have more experience with varying outcomes, they will probably have better mechanical or technical skill sets, their observational skills are probably enhanced, they have a better understanding of how quickly a person can raise a muzzle, clear 21 feet and deliver a lethal blow. They tend to understand that even under "IDEAL" conditions reaction is about .25 of a second slower than the action and that they are behind the curve from the start. So if we look at the OODA (observe, orient, decide and act) model, basically their training and experience makes the Observation to Action phase much quicker with higher levels of precision when applying use of force.
So what does this mean? Training is the key. Lack of training (2%) means potentially bad things. Base minimum standards (the 80%) generally gets more Officers killed as they are often more concerned about after action topics (investigation, liability, self doubt, etc). If someone is doing a bad act and are confronted by a highly trained / experienced Officer (top 10%) we need to understand that they may process and react with a more precise response in a much shorter time frame. Best to not be doing something Darwin like as the window of opportunity for ceasing bad or unwise acts may be short especially if you fail to heed warnings if one is given.
The last thing is we need to understand the use of force and perhaps the "reasonable person" standards and how those may apply. There is no black and white when it comes to use of force. Of course there are situations as defined by law, but how the individual perceives the threat is key and there are varying factors that may justify the force used. The same standard is not going to apply to an 80 year old 100lb female as opposed to a 25 year old 240lb muscled male as just a singular example. Also Officers like any professional, doctor, dentist, etc are also held to a standard of reasonableness among their own professional peer group. In other words if another appropriately trained Officer having the same information at the time of the contact, working within the confines of the agency use of force policy were to utilize the same level or a higher level of force, then the use of force guideline under "reasonable standard" for LE is met. Of course untrained or lesser trained individuals who have never acted within the same confines could have an entirely different perspective of what was reasonable, which is why juries are a crap shoot especially in civil litigation. They often have no frame of reference of having received training in force on force, or been in one or multiple deadly incidents from which to draw a similar conclusion as to how use of force should be applied in a given scenario. They need a lot of education from subject matter experts and even then they often still fail to understand as they have no personal experience to draw from.
All in all a very sad situation for the individuals directly involved, their families and society.