Sheriff's Deputy kills hatchet wielding D. Disabled woman

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Officer kills developmentally disabled woman who refused to drop hatchet in Walmart

Lesson learned: Don't lunge at armed police officers, especially while carrying a weapon.

Cops need to be trained better how to deescalate situations like this, using a gun as a last resort.

Until then, there should be a class in school teaching children how to deal with cops. That is, don't engage, go into freeze mode as a survival strategy.

The woman apparently lived in an institution and had "cognitive disabilities". She had been shopping at the Wal Mart with two chaperones from the institution when she grabbed a hatchet and started hitting items with it. A commenter on the article from WQOW-TV in Eau Claire, WI, (the article is linked in the Washington Post article in the OP) said that the woman hated police for some reason and had talked about committing "suicide by cop" on numerous occasions. I have worked with developmentally disabled children and they are often taken on public outings to such places as a roller skating rink and a 99 cent store so they are not cooped up all the time and learn to deal with crowds and public places. If this person was suicidal and wanting to be killed by cops, she should not have been allowed out in public essentially alone.

When I first heard of this incident a few days ago on the news, it was reported that she had been wielding a battle axe. This is the first I heard of her using an axe that had been for sale in the store.

Kraich, that's just more evidence that "The Media" tends to hype its own versions of the stories they present to us. I'm surprised they didn't try to downplay the size of the hatchet by calling it a "toy axe".

Maybe it was from Walmart's new line of medieval weaponry replicas. I almost the Mace last week.

America's solution to mental the health crisis: exterminate the mentally ill, one at a time.

Where were you when this crazy woman was allowed to run loose with a hatchet in her hand?

Nowhere.

What did you do to prevent this from happening?

Nothing.

If you want developmentally disabled people protected, then why don't you protect them?

Because it's much easier for you to sit back and criticize the system after someone dies than it is for you to get involved and prevent someone's death.

Doh, I wasn't there, so I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I was there, I probably couldn't have done any thing to stop the cop from murdering her. Short of being well enough armed, to kill the cop before he killed her.

Now why don't you try to contribute something useful to the conversation, rather then just asking random irrelevant questions.

Doh, I wasn't there, so I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I was there, I probably couldn't have done any thing to stop the cop from murdering her. Short of being well enough armed, to kill the cop before he killed her.

Now why don't you try to contribute something useful to the conversation, rather then just asking random irrelevant questions.

It seems that the police did the right thing.
Shooting a person wielding and using a weapon and refusing to follow instructions is the right thing to do to protect the public, such as the other people in the store, and oneself, such as the police officer who shot the woman.
Disability is irrevelant.
It is the same thing to shoot a dangerous person who is not disabled and understands instructions vs. a dangerous person who is disabled and doesn't understand instructions.
In either case, the person is showing themselves as dangerous towards others, and if they lunge at police, they should be shot.

How is it that in other countries law enforcement is able to subdue developmentally disabled, drunk or mentally ill violent people without killing them? Are they not trained in "shoot first, fill out the paperwork later" method of intervention?

Also, remember; the person doing something stupid in the presence of law enforcement (say...during a meltdown) could be quite a few of us. There's a reason the police *used* to have a slogan of "to serve and protect"; part of that was to protect people from themselves who were having trouble.

I have never seen an official "Get Out Of Jail Free" card with the words "Mental Disability" printed on it.

Maybe there's a reason.

chaperoning into the hardware departement, you don't need chaperoning at this point
and shooting lessons may be in order, if it's the arm that's bothering you, shoot the arm

but ehh, even psychs let off serialrapists with viagra in their perscription,
as long as its the job, you might not be accountable

How exactly do you deescalate someone charging toward you with a hatchet?