Written by: Beck

New York police recently shot a woman in what's being termed a "stabbing incident." Long story short: crazy lady stabs her neighbor 8 times with a big honking cooking knife, cops come to the scene, tell her to drop the knife, she came at them, and the cop shot her twice.

Sounds relatively normal right?

Oh, I left out one detail. The woman was 65 years old.

Officers shot and killed a 65-year-old woman after they said she stabbed her neighbor at least eight times in an apparent dispute over the woman's cat, and then refused their orders to drop her knife.

[...] The officers found Padula, 59, bleeding profusely and pleading for help just inside the door of her apartment. As one of the officers went to her aid, Lindboe [the crazy old lady] flung open the door of the apartment across the hall and brandished the knife over her head with both hands, police said.

The officer tried to retreat and civilian witnesses heard him shout, "Police! Drop the knife! Drop the knife!"

But Lindboe continued to move toward the officer, knife still raised, prompting him to fire two shots, police said. One shot hit her in the chest.

Tell me something. Am I being unreasonable in assuming that a New York police officer should be able to disarm a 65 year old lady without shooting her a couple times?

Now, I can understand that standard police procedure when being attacked by a knife wielding maniac is to just drop the person. Attempts at disarming and/or wounding can simply lead to severe injury to the officer. But if a cop can't see clear to bending the rules a bit when it comes to a sixty-five year old lady, then that cop hasn't sufficient mental faculty to be making the sort of life-or-death decisions which come with the territory of wearing a gun on your hip as an agent of the state.

Did I mention that it was a 65 year old lady?

The officer involved should be ashamed, and his actions are a disgrace to the New York police.