“Non-lethal.”
“Why couldn’t they use a taser? Why couldn’t they aim for the legs? Why not rubber bullets?”
(1) Tasers have an unearned reputation for being non-lethal. They are less lethal, not non-lethal. Your body’s biochemistry and electrical systems regulate vital organs, including and perhaps especially your heart, and it’s never a good idea to mess around with it. Tasers are a gamble that dozens of people have lost.
(2) Setting aside the fact that police are not always sharpshooters, and less so when they’re in an adrenaline-fueled state, and setting aside that somebody’s legs are relatively smaller targets even when they’re perfectly still–people have major arteries in their legs. Getting shot there could kill you in minutes.
(3) Rubber bullets can achieve a velocity of 240 feet per second and are not only rubber. Your skull is made of 22 separate pieces of bone and it fractures at 200 pounds of pressure. Your eye collapses after a mere 10 pounds of pressure.
The goal is firstly for these encounters–these unnecessary encounters between police and people who have done nothing wrong–to stop.
Beyond that, the goal is de-escalation.
The goal is not “cleaner use of force.”
Creative Control 