this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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What, exactly, would a gun do if he was a suicide bomber?
shoot out the fire or scare the guy so much he stops being on fire -- only options
Shoot the suicide bomber before a bigger boom. What if there was another person? Another thing? We can't know, they can't know. We know now, due to hindsight.
They are security. They secure scenes. They aren't paramedics.
I am not making pro cop statements here, but all the comments about "ohhh the cop arrived to a dangerous scene with a weapon drawn!" Is like saying "the garbage man picked up the garbage bin when he drove past my house!" Duh!
He's on fire! Shooting him wouldn't stop a bigger boom!
I'll give the cops this: they probably were not trained on what to do if someone lights themselves on fire. They just fell back on basic training.
It's murica, they weren't trained at all.
They did the one thing they were trained to do -- Pull first ask ~~questions~~ for fire extinguishers later
Stop him before he got any closer to the embassy. Obviously a gun won't stop him from commiting suicide, but it could easily be the difference between one person dying and a much larger act of terrorism
There's a metal fence. What would he even get close to?
Considering the security forces had no idea whether he was working alone or what was happening, they obviously didn't think they could rely on the metal fence.
Look, I'm all for a free Palestine and I agree that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. I also think that voluntary membership in any American or Israeli law enforcement makes them complicit in the heinous acts perpetrated by American cops and the IDF, respectively. I don't know you, but I'd guess that you and I agree a lot more than we disagree on these issues. I'm just saying, from the PoV of the security forces at the Israeli embassy, this was a potential threat to the embassy and their job is literally to prevent threats from harming the embassy. Without any further information to go on, their decision to draw guns first and get the extinguisher second is reasonable.
If he wasn't alone what would shooting him accomplish? You still haven't actually presented a compelling reason he needed to be kept under a gun.
I think it's understandable that people untrained for a situation like this would fall back on the default, I know I wouldn't know what to do, but calling that "reasonable" as if it really makes sense in hindsight is a stretch.
Once Bushnell was on fire and had stopped moving toward the gate/fence, you are correct, he didn't need to be kept under a gun. However, if he had started to move in a threatening way or if he had been working with a larger group, having the guns drawn could have saved crucial seconds if someone else began to act in a threatening way. The security forces simply didn't know what the fuck was happening, and in that situation, it is better to have the guns drawn and to be ready for the worst case scenario.
That's fair. I can get behind calling it "understandable" instead of "reasonable"