But I had this sense that I could handle him and wanted to minimize the risk to him and myself. If he didn't have the good judgment to put down the knife when I approached him, he might try to swing it, and then I might have to kill the guy. I thought I could handle it another way. So I made my move and went up to him and simply took the knife away from him. I might be criticized by my fellow officers for my tactics, but I made a judgment call.
Officers do that day in and day out.
A lot of times they show remarkable restraint when they would be legally entitled to use deadly force. They have these experiences daily of risking their lives in quiet corners that nobody knows about. There is a small percentage of bad cops who somehow wind up with a badge and a gun. Some of them are pathological, but it's a tiny minority. But when I speak to churches, I say the reason we can sit here, calm and secure, is because right now there's an officer assigned to protect us.