I am very surprised the article doesn't mention the american "shoot-to-kill" policy, despite the fact it gives the perfect example of how this policy is overkill (pun intended). If a knife-yielding attacker runs toward you, police in other countries (say western Europe) will shoot at the legs to NOT kill the attacker but sufficiently harm him so that he is not a threat anymore.

But in America the shoot-to-kill policy is so deeply ingrained in every officer's training that they only see 2 choices --when should I kill or not kill-- as depicted by that officer's simple question at the beginning of the article ("How close can somebody get to me before I’m justified in using deadly force?").

I have done research in the past on why the shoot-to-kill policy became prevalent in the US but not in other countries, and I have never found an answer. This puzzles me more than it should.

Edit: to the replies saying "if you don't intend to kill, don't shoot", you are wrong. This is precisely why tasers and non-lethal weapons were invented: there are many situations were harming or incapacitating an assailant is needed without necessarily killing him. On this note I agree a taser would be a safer weapon than trying to cause harm with a firearm. But my general comment is meant to apply to scenarios where a police officer cannot make the choice of firing with a taser[1]: in this case shooting to harm is better than shooting to kill.

[1] For whatever reason: he has no taser, or a firearm is the weapon he has in his hands during the split second where he has to decide to shoot, etc.