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There is a Use of Force Contiuuum, but reaching for one’s waistband can be a short circuit directly to the top. Police usually say it is too dangerous to wait until they’re sure you’re actually retrieving a gun. This comes up pretty frequently when police kill people (typically young black men) who turn out to have been unarmed.

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In this particular case, however, the police were already in a safe position across the street and behind their vehicles. The decedent was standing in the doorway and posed no obvious, immediate threat to anyone at the time he was shot.

There is indeed a continuum, but this particular case was at the low end of the band.

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