When the kids get home and dad asks what happened at camp today, maybe they will finally say more than “nuttin.”  From CBS Local in Miami:

Fritz was reportedly shot by an officer Thursday morning at 350 NW 13th Street, near Gibson Park in Overtown. Police say the shooting occurred just outside the nearby library’s entrance.

The dead man, Fritz Severe (when is the last time a media reported a killing and used the first, rather than last, name of the deceased?), was mentally ill and homeless, but a regular in the area.  Also in the area was a group of about 50 children from a summer camp.

[Witness Nichelle] Miller was at the park when it happened – so were about 50 children who were apart of the summer camp.

Several campers told CBS4 that Severe was carrying a pole and began swinging it at an officer when he was told to leave because camp was in session.

“The guy from the camp told the police and the police came. He (the officer) told him (Fritz) to drop the weapon he had and he started swinging at the police, and the police shot about seven shots,” said a 13-year-old camper.

That’s when the children began running for cover.

Not your ordinary summer exercise, running from gunshots.  There are a number of conflicting concerns with the use of force against Severe.  On the one hand, he had a metal “stick,” which would very reasonably give rise to concern by a camp counselor for the safety of the campers.

While Severe may have been at the park regularly, metal stick in hand, it’s still not the sort of common occurrence that a counselor would, or should, think too normal for alarm.  It’s hard to fault a counselor for caring about the safety of his campers, and a crazy guy with a metal stick who won’t go away from the children isn’t a good thing.

So the counselor called the police for assistance, which most people would find a perfectly appropriate thing to do.  Should he have anticipated that Police Officer Antonio Torres, a 20-year veteran of the force, would choose to start shooting?

As for Torres, he was faced with a guy swinging a metal stick, certainly a weapon that could inflict some serious damage if it made contact, as well as a park filled with campers.  Was Severe a threat to anyone before Torres arrived on the scene?  It’s unclear, though there is no suggestion that he was anything more than scary to the counselor.  It’s hardly unusual that a scary situation escalates into a dangerous one by the introduction of a police officer into the mix.

But, according to witnesses, Severe didn’t start swinging until he was ordered to “drop the weapon.”  And that’s when Torres shot and killed Severe.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my god, he just shot this damn man five times! Five times, really?  That’s ridiculous! That’s ridiculous,” said witness Nichelle Miller.

This is where the focus on whether it was justified, or whether it was avoidable, comes into play.

People who live nearby said Severe was here all the time, he’s homeless and always carried a metal stick.

“They really didn’t have to shoot that man. What happened to the Tasers? Why couldn’t they tase him?” said neighbor Stephanie Severance.

Most people default to avoidable, whether alternative means of addressing a situation, short of death, could have been employed to achieve the same goal.  Aside from the persistent, and misguided, shoot to wound rather than kill, the use of less-than-lethal force is, as it should be, raised.

[Miami Police Chief Rodolfo] Llanes said not all officers carry Tasers, because they have to be certified. He would not say whether this officer was carrying a Taser.

If Torres had a Taser, this would have been a particularly good opportunity to use it. He didn’t, and it remains a mystery whether he had one, or if not, why “not all officers” have a Taser and are certified to use one.  It’s not like they haven’t been around long enough for routine deployment to all officers, along with proper training in their use.

And even without an alternate weapon, other options remained available to Torres, including the somewhat obvious option of backing away, out of Severe’s reach, with weapon unholstered and at the ready, but without firing.  Until the threat of harm is so imminent as to be inescapable, there is no need to fire.

But was the shooting and killing of Severe legally justified?  This isn’t a tough call.  A man refusing a lawful command to drop a weapon, and a metal stick is, without a doubt, a weapon, and swinging it at the officer presents a threat of serious harm or death.  The law clearly authorizes an officer to respond to such a threat with deadly force.  And Torres did just that.

Yet, what of the campers, the children, watching this encounter?  They were put at potential risk by Severe, but there was no indication of his conduct reaching the point where he was an imminent threat to anyone.  Likely, more scary and weird, the fear of something going wrong, and if it did, what was the counselor going to do to protect his charges against a crazy guy swinging a metal stick?

The greater risk was presented by Officer Torres taking Severe out.  Cops aren’t always the best shots around, and even if he was a good aim, bullets miss their mark, ricochet, and strike innocent bystanders. In this instance, the bystanders would be children.

If nothing else, the 50 campers having a lovely summer day at the park expected to see nature at its best, not its worst.  Rather than see butterflies and chipmunks cavorting, they watched as a police officer took the life of a human being.  No, it wasn’t your regular day at camp, and being a spectator to death isn’t the sort of thing a parent wants his child to do for his summer vacation.