How many times was he hit?

Another question, was he on drugs- meth, etc? If so, 2 or 3 shots to the body might not work.

The answer to both of these questions is "we don't know".

My wife's nephew is a Sergeant with London Metropolitan Police and can be seen patrolling at Heathrow with a sub-machine gun and a pistol. I asked him the question and the answer is NO to neutralizing. They are trained to aim for the largest body target, ie: between neck and waist. Other body parts are small and can be missed thereby allowing the target to continue the illegal activity or return fire/advance with knife and kill/injure someone.

Indeed we don't know so all we have is a reasonable assumption that the cop went bonkers. He or she may not have done but, on the available facts, it doesn't look good. Very likely we'll never know more than we do now as it seems probable that all the witnesses are themselves members of the police force; they won't be reliable in this sort of case.

I don't think someone could shoot with an intent other than to stop the target by killing them; we're not talking surgical instruments here. The point is that, one the person has been hit, "neutralized", one should stop popping holes in them.

That's not reasonable at all. If the cop was on his own, in a darkened alley, with no witnesses... perhaps I'd agree. But he wasn't. He was surrounded by fellow cops, civilians, etc... so not, it's not reasonable to assume he went bonkers.

It's more reasonable to assume that the alleged criminal was given manu opportunities to surrendered, put down his weapon, etc, and chose not to... which is why he was shot.

And then Tazered.

Look at the latest videos etc- he was tazered because he was still holding the knife.

And, laying there, full of holes, with a knife in his hand, he presented an immediate threat to the police.

It was obvious that the group of policemen who were there thought he did. You can see by the way they all jumped back when they saw he was still carrying the knife.... whilst still being told to drop it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy2zsuRyjaQ

I'm struggling to see what you suggest the alternative is. Do they wait for him to die? Do they send a rookie in to try and take the weapon off him, thus risking his own life? What do they do? Better yet, what would YOU do?

I think a little try with a Tazer would be the first step, then consider Swiss cheesing him ! Yeh ?

Shut him in the bus and wait for him to throw the knife out. If it's available, use tear gas to disable him. If not, and if ordered in, put on a riot shield, gloves and a helmet and hit him with a baton. Boring, I know, but ideally the police should make all potential dramas boring.

Oh yes, using the Tazer after shooting him does seem a little cart before horse.

Boring

Bring in the Army artillery and blow the tram into the lake,

And then given CPR.

I'd imagine the chest compressions would cause his blood to squirt out of his bullet holes.

I hope the inquiry takes a long time so you people can exhaust yourselves speculating and making assumptions based on nothing but a cellphone video, and specifically speculating about what happened in a place not shown in the video, (the floor of the bus). Let your imaginations run wild, feel free to assign blame, reconstruct events we have no knowledge of yet, assume there will be a police cover up, bless us with all your knowledge of what small arms fire is about and how it should be applied, if at all. You only have until the inquiry has happened and findings reached to play at it, then only the facts will stand. Want to know why 9 shots were fired and he was tased after? Wait for the inquiry. Unless you know that policeman personally and he told you, none of you have any idea. Poorly trained policeman? You have no idea. Inaccurate shooting? No idea. Body twitching prompts 6 more shots? No idea. Suspect on drugs or having a breakdown? Toxicology will tell the first part, but until then we don't know. Why no stun grenade or tear gas? Wait for the inquiry and maybe we'll find out. Prepare yourselves for the officer to be cleared in this shooting, not because of any coverup or corruption in the police, but because when someone comes at you with a knife you can often shoot and kill them and go free. Lots of people are killed with knives, "He only had a knife" means lethal force may be justified. Where is Rob Ford while all this has been going on? The Star doesn't even mention him making a statement about it.