OK, so let's do this - instead of being critical, just answer what would you have done? There's no ideal here since it was a shitty situation to begin with, but what would have have done in the exact situation?

they should have used their mad escrima skills with their ASP (or are they issued Schrade?) collapsible batons to disarm her.

or, alternatively, they should have shot the knife out of her hands.

or if they're not a good enough shot, shoot her in the arm or leg. better hope they don't hit the brachial artery or femoral artery, though, cuz that'd be bad.

otherwise they should have just kept yelling at her to drop her weapon until she did.

@_@

"She never bothered nobody," said one local, then adding "except for that time she tried to stab a bunch of people.  Other than that though, totally harmless!"

Listen-- I'm all for quis custodiet ipsos custodes & keeping the NYPD honest.  There are plenty of things-- "rape cops" & brutality at Occupy Wall Street, etc-- that you can get down on the police about, & I'll support you.  Shooting people who attack you?  That is, well, obviously not ideal, but that is how the cookie crumbles.  The cops aren't Batman.  They aren't action heroes, they aren't impervious to stabbing, or able to shoot knives out of people's hands, or anything like that.

Let's not condemn the cops for doing their job, when there are actual transgressions we should be paying attention to.

I work right above this.  The street is still closed, blood puddle still very much visible.  I pulled out my phone to take a picture...but before I did I remembered that this was someone's life...not an episode of NYPD Blue.

too bad the nypd isn't outfitted with some type of device that could disable people without killing them; something like, oh, i don't know -- pepper spray....

oh wait.  i guess that's just used on people already isolated and in custody...

It's really just a silly question designed to add snark to the situation but here goes.Pepper spray doesn't work on deranged persons nor will it stop someone charging at you with a samurai sword over their heads. Further, patrol units don't carry tasers, only the patrol supervisors do.

From on average of 33 feet, it takes an assailant 1.5 seconds to put an edged weapon into someone's chest, faster than it takes to break leather and fire a single shot. Do you, in that situation the officers found themselves in this morning, really emply something that might or might not work or do you go home and see your family at the end of the day?

there will be an investigation WHY they didn't call for a supervisor, who would have probably made the call to get a taser on the scene, or for ESU (who carries tasers on all their trucks) to come; and why they didn't back-off in the meanwhile and made those calls?

i think it's really sweet of you to elevate this poor old crazy deceased homeless woman with a letter opener to equivalent status with the legendary extinct  upper echelon of Japan's warrior class.

it follows that it was proper that she went down swashbuckling in a hail of gunfire. distracting her and then throwing a coat over her would have just been degrading

Distracting her and WHAT???? WTF are you talking about? We're talking real life here, not some superhero shit you see on TV. As far as the weapon, I can only judge by the photo provided, but even if it WAS a letter opener (and it ain't), she can't get that in your chest?

google this " police standoff woman with knife".

hundreds of examples of how it should end when police are faced with distraught people that have armed themselves with knives because they're freaking out. (as opposed to the flying homeless ninja these officers were up against.)

And if you look at those, they are ALL tactically different situations than one on the street were someone is charging you with an edged weapon held over their head. In a closed room, you can sometimes have the advantage of stepping out of the room and simply closing the door. There are things you can step behind or around to buy yourself that time. This was in the street so you don't have those barriers ready. Keep in mind the 33 feet in 1.5 seconds it takes for an armed assailant to put a knife in your chest.

You have this unrealistic and childlike view of police work or the street that just doesn't jibe with real life, though the deploying the ol' throw a coat over the charging armed person when it's 55 degrees out in October and who has a coat anyway much less the time to take it off gambit was hilarious as much as it was bewildering. thanks for the chuckles. :)

just glad lives were saved. jk.

exactly. taze me bro!

I really thought the first story here, given all the attention it got over the weekend, would be the multiple videos of the cops telling the protestors not to got on the Brooklyn Bridge's roadway while they all chanted "Take the bridge!" 

Yeah, too much to ask.

You mean something like this? http://gothamist.com/2011/10/0...

Just shoehorned that in as an update? Too lazy to spin a headline to make them look bad? Why not insinuate the bullhorn was broken or the mob was chanting "Cake in fridge!" because they were hungry?

I hate it when I'm immediately proven wrong, too.

Try and slant that headline a little more. why not throw in a picture from her First Holy Communion.

There's a third victim here - the woman, the cops and your journalistic integrity.

Nobody wins here.  Dead woman, cop scarred for life, mental illness continues (and due to budget cuts and the upcoming health care changes will get a lot worse for everyone in the city), and for the icing on the cake, the Daily News comments are as cruel as ever.

life sucks and then the cops shoot you five times and then you die.