On September 20, 2011, four police officers were shot at a small restaurant in Azusa, Calif. Two days later, on September 22, another cop was shot dead on a busy street in the small city of Gardena, prompting a manhunt. By the time police had cornered the suspect, Nashat Richardson, in a condominium building across from the famed Del Taco, the LAPD, Long Beach PD, and other local officers had gunned down at least one person each that week and more than 30 people had been injured. When Richardson was captured, the toll had climbed to three dead and at least 25 wounded. Though Richardson was not charged with any crime in either shooting, a month after his arrest he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. No one disputes that Richardson killed, and that he probably would have killed again had he not been taken into custody. But his case is a textbook example of how police in crisis make bad choices—how they see the presence of firearms in any home as a clear and present danger, how they see any shooting as justification to unleash a hail of bullets. The problem isn't limited to the LAPD or Long Beach. During the same week that Richardson was killing people, a Detroit woman was shot and killed by police when she fled from an apartment where a violent neighbor had broken in and allegedly threatened her with a gun. According to police, the woman ran toward a nearby neighbor who lived in the same building. That neighbor told a reporter that the woman told him: “He’s outside, he has a gun, and he wants to kill me.” Like Richardson, the Detroit woman is deceased. But unlike Richardson, her family is holding a grudge. “My aunt was murdered by the police officers, and I still don’t know why they had to shoot her,” the victim’s niece, Najeeyah Franklin, told a local TV reporter. In a press release following the news of the Detroit woman’s death, her family members said that she didn’t have a gun, had already opened her apartment door and was calling out to her neighbors when the police opened fire. And the neighbors did confirm that she didn’t have a gun—because, they say, it wasn’t hers. But that didn’t matter. In both cases, the people with firearms were the only ones accused of any crime. No one disputes that Richardson killed, and that he probably would have killed again had he not been taken into custody. But his case is a textbook example of how police in crisis make bad choices—how they see the presence of firearms in any home as a clear and present danger, how they see any shooting as justification to unleash a hail of bullets. The problem isn’t limited to the LAPD or Long Beach. During the same week that Richardson was killing people, a Detroit woman was shot and killed by police when she fled from an apartment where a violent neighbor had broken in and allegedly threatened her with a gun. According to police, the woman ran toward a nearby neighbor who lived in the same building. That neighbor told a reporter that the woman told him: “He’s outside, he has a gun, and he wants to kill me. Cops say that the woman then broke into a nearby apartment, that she attempted to jump through the apartment’s window, and that the police, fearing for their lives, shot and killed the distraught woman. One week earlier in Detroit, two different men were shot and killed by police in two separate incidents while driving their vehicles. According to the Detroit News, the first man, who was shot in the back, “was being pulled over for making an illegal left turn” when an officer chased him down and shot him. The second was shot by police in a car chase. “Officers allege the man was driving a stolen car,” the paper said. In both cases, police said the men were shot while the officers were in fear for their own lives. Of course, it’s easy to sympathize with police, and to understand the fear they live with when they walk the streets of a city. In the summer of 2005, I followed LAPD cops on a ride-along, which I wrote about here. In my experience, a cop in Los Angeles will carry out an arrest—as soon as he or she can bring in a squad car or two—rather than walk the streets with a gun or call for backup in the dangerous neighborhoods that make the Los Angeles night—like the Compton, Long Beach, and LA Chavez—too frightening to navigate without some heavy firepower. The reality, however, is that when police shoot to kill, they risk killing innocent people. Which is exactly what happened when Richardson allegedly shot and killed Officer Paul Tanaka and injured another man during a routine traffic stop. As Richardson reportedly reached for a handgun in his waistband—“he was not complying with the officer’s commands and was moving toward the officer’s partner”—he was shot seven times by LAPD officers Paul Tanaka and Sharlton Wampler. An investigation found that Richardson had been running from a drug dealer who had shot and killed a neighbor of his in an unrelated incident. A loaded pistol was later found in the back seat of Richardson’s car, which was the car that Richardson was allegedly reaching for, while trying to grab his own weapon. “I don’t care what state of mind you’re in, when you are holding something in your waistband and you put your hands up and you talk to the police officer, you give him the benefit of the doubt,” Police Chief Charlie Beck told CBS-TV’s Dan Rather. “It was just pure incompetence on their part. No. One. Will. Ever. Get. Away. With. This.” Unfortunately, they did. And though an autopsy has yet to confirm the results of the investigation into Richardson’s death, the mere suggestion that an officer might have gotten away with it was enough to start a public discussion about police officers’ culpability in murders and violent deaths that would otherwise go without mention. “You know what? They have a right to be paranoid,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. “I am sure their families have talked to them about it, the last thing they should be doing is talking to the media. But they aren’t all bad apples. Some of these shootings, if they were not justified, are clearly preventable, like we saw with Nashat Richardson. There were so many warning signs leading up to that. You cannot go through life being so paranoid that you end up shooting an innocent bystander who happens to be outside your car when you pull up.” “What you have to remember about those shootings is that the officers are actually in fear for their lives. They are on the ground, or behind vehicles, under threat of being shot, they are outgunned. These guys are professionals. They don’t want to kill anyone else, but they are fighting for their life in some situations. Those are not preventable circumstances, but with training you can reduce the possibility of that.” “Even when you have shooters, there is so much you can do to save lives,” says Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles. “The officer that came up here before, there were people outside that knew who this guy was, and there were cameras.” The same day that he was sworn in as the mayor of Los Angeles, Garcetti rode along with LAPD officers in the afternoon traffic, as he often does as part of his official duties. They took him up to the Compton neighborhood, and stopped a car in a routine traffic stop. They arrested three people for assault with a deadly weapon, and two more for possession of a firearm, while Garcetti observed what happens when cops and civilians get together. “If I had a gun, and you asked me that question,” he says, “I’d probably feel a little nervous. But I would not be sweating. I would simply show you my pistol and tell you to call the police.” This article is part of The People’s Guide to the Great American Gunfight, a series supported by the Fetzer Institute, and made possible by the generous support of individual donors. The project takes advantage of the wealth of data—news stories, data sets, and videos—that can now be found on sites like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.