First and foremost: not a single one of you is a certified law enforcement officer in the United States, nor are you employed by the department these officers belong to. You do not know what training entails nor the departmental policies these officers need to abide by. Therefore, everything I have just read was pure and utter speculation, opinion, and for lack of better terms: uneducated.
With that being said, here are some facts whether you agree with them or not...
1. U.S. Law Enforcement officers are trained to shoot center mass. They are trained to do this because it is a larger target and stands a greater chance of stopping the individual. They are not trained to shoot arms, legs, heads (exceptions for tactical teams/designated marksmen with specific rules of engagement for exceptional circumstances), or any other part of the body. In a dynamic situation involving moving individuals, the probability of hitting any one of those targets are significantly smaller.
2. They are trained to shoot to stop, not kill. They shoot until the threat stops being a threat, whether through voluntary compliance or the understood potential consequences of using lethal force (force likely to result in death or great bodily harm such as unconsciousness, permanent disfigurement, loss of bodily organs/functions, etc...) which is involuntary compliance.
3. They do not meet force with equal or lesser force. They are trained to use whatever force is necessary to gain compliance as long as it isn't excessive.
4. They understand that where there is one gun, there's usually another nearby.
In analyzing this situation you have an active resistor with a history of being an active aggressor and is a known felon. What this means is they have a non-compliant individual with a past record of attempted murder on law enforcement officers, who had a gun within reach upon contact. Therefore, having weapons at the ready, especially after seeing the gun and verbalizing its presence, was fully warranted. Also, commanding the individual to "not move" made perfect sense. This was repeated multiple times and was disobeyed. Having removed the visible gun, it was not unreasonable for the officers to suspect there could be another gun. Inside the vehicle, the individual continued to make movements and began exiting the vehicle; all in direct opposition to the officer's direct commands.
Upon exiting the vehicle, the individual made a sudden & furtive movement similar to that of a person raising a weapon with his hands, prompting the officer to discharge his weapon in self-defense, though it was determined after the fact that the individual's hands were empty and he was raising them up. Again, it was night-time, the individual was a known felon with a history of violence towards law enforcement, a weapon was involved, the individual's actions were in direct opposition to the commands of the police officer, and it wasn't unreasonable to suspect a second weapon might be involved. You have less than a second to decide to stop the threat being presented to you, or risk hesitating and potentially being harmed or killed.
As this situation is presented, the officer's actions seemed reasonable considering the totality of circumstances and if I were in his position, I would have done the same. I believe both officers were wholly justified in their actions and just because a person is unarmed, does not mean a person cannot kill you. He was shot before his hands were raised because he moved after being commanded not to. Don't move means do not move.
