>I think some of the articles mentioned eyewitnesses, plus the >police spokesperson mentioned looking at footage from other nearby >cameras. Plus forensics and all that.

Witnesses make mistakes; which is why no one asks just one witness. Because they usually all say something different. Please produce this footage and the 'forensics and all that' evidence you say exists.

>Several articles pointed out that Williams was shot to the side, >so (if correct) unless he was advancing in a fencing pose, he >wasn't really posing an immediate threat to the cop, or at least >not advancing towards him. Plus the blade was found closed.

As you say (thanks for being fair) this is what just what articles say happened. And the fact is; when you decide to shoot you are basing the decision on what he was doing slightly before you pulled the trigger. If he turns away as you are shooting, he's going to get shot in the side or even back. And the cop is supposed to take the time to be sure the knife is open?

>lying motionless after 4 firearm rounds in his torso

The cop had no way of knowing he hit the torso with all 4 shots.

>Sure you probably could surprise someone and inflict massive injuries with a single cut or stab of a knife, but against someone who is 10 feet away...not so easy. Plus, having seen real photos of what a single bullet (even a small caliber one) can do to a human body, you'd have to be wielding a chainsaw claymore to do that kind of damage.

As has already been mentioned. Most people cant' react fast enough to shoot someone who starts running at them from 21 foot away.
This very incident disproves knives can injure more than bullets. Williams was shot 4 times. Does he look like he's been gutted? Now just think of what a knife stabbed into you then pulled sidewards can do. Human bodies are very easy to cut (you can do it with paper).

Mostly harmless wrote:
> Although the dangerous knife man existed nowhere else but in the officer(s) mind, the stresses of confrontation were very much real. Which means there is little or no ability to process an alternative interpretation of events.

This is the nub of any shooting. It is incredibly stressful, and you have a fraction of a second to make a decision that may get you killed or in prison. Then the pundits spend weeks debating.
Maybe this cop did go out and decided "I'm shooting the first person who looks at me funny". I'm not defending him. I don't know what happened. I'm just saying there isn't the evidence here to condemn him. And the arguments about 'he only had a folded knife' is incorrect.
qjs