9 OYS wants to know: When can police shoot?
Reporter: Aaron Brackett
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - September 15th, a Tucson Police Officer shot and killed 23 year old Johnny Castillo Romero. TPD tells 9OYS that the wheelchair bound man pointed a gun at a sergeant who then fired his weapon.
9OYS wanted to know - when is deadly force used by police?
TPD Sergeant Chris Widmer tells 9OYS "deadly force can only be used when an officer perceives an imminent threat of serious injury or death to that officer or to another person."
In addition to the initial training officers receive, they are required to attend refresher courses through the year.
"There is yearly training, we do that once a year, said Widmer. "Its called Advanced Officer Training, its very detailed and is 10-12 hours of training. We also have squad training which happens quarterly which is not always on force, but on police procedures, and we also have daily training.>"
Much of that training happens at the Tucson Police Academy Firing Range.
"Every officer has to qualify with their duty handgun once a year, and any other weapons whether an off duty handgun, patrol rifle, shotgun, they also have to qualify with that once a year," said Range Sargeant Al Guinee. "Every qualification course has a score associated with it."
"We also have facilities that we can use to train scenario based training," added Guinee. "We put the officers in a live scenario and they train like they would if they were on the street."
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