Drawing a firearm is a very serious decision. Choosing to use that firearm is an even more serious decision with life changing consequences.
This list highlights instances where the police chose to draw and use their firearms in four very different circumstances.
1. Wyckoff Cop Kills Dog
A Wyckoff township police offer responding to a burglary call mistook 621 Lawlins Road for 622 Lawlins Road and entered the fenced-in back yard while looking for a suspect. Seeing a window open in the back, Officer Kyle Ferreira approached the house with his gun drawn.
Unknown to the cop, the owners of the house leave the window open as a dog door for their 85 pound German Shepherd, who 
Witnesses, however, are contradicting the police’s version of the story. According to other accounts, the police officer walked straight passed the front door and into the back as neighbors tried to warn him that he was responding to the wrong house. Neighbors claim that Otto “was not even remotely posing a threat or attacking [Ferreira] in any way” and that he officer fired his gun “in broad daylight at a moving target in a residential neighborhood filled with children, families, and pets.”
2. Cop Shoots Bull
An aggressive bull on the loose in Florida terrorized school children at their bus stop this week until Officer Jeff Gibbs of the Fellsmere Police Department shot and killed the animal.
“We were all scared,” Yasmin Linares told local news station WPTV. “The moment that the bull was going to our bus stop, everybody started running into the woods everywhere.”
The officer shot the bull three times as the animal charged, knocking the officer to the ground and causing him to suffer from an ankle injury. Gibbs continued pursuing the bull, eventually managing to fatally shoot the animal as it tried to charge him again.
Kudos to Officer Gibbs for acting in the public interest; we wish him luck and a speedy recovery.
3. Video Emerges of Cops Gunning Down Bicyclist
In September 2013 Dontrell Stephens biked down the street. Unfortunately, Stephens was riding down the wrong side of the street, and the police gave chase.
After pulling over, Stephens pulled out his phone to make a call and was gunned down by the cops. The dashcam video came to light this week.
In response to the incident, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said that people must “Stop what you’re doing and comply with us. There’s nothing in the rules of engagement that says we have to put our lives in jeopardy to wait to find out what this is to get killed.”
Stephens survived the encounter, but is paralyzed from the waist down.
4. Unarmed Teen Gunned Down in California
“Mommy, Mommy, please come, please come.”
These words haunt Lucia Morejon, the mother of a 19-year-old brutally gunned down by a Long Beach police officer who claims that he believed the teenager possessed a firearm.
After the shooting Lucia saw her son, the youngest of five, being loaded into an ambulance, but, after identifying herself to the authorities, was told that she could not escort her son to the hospital.
Hector Morejon, the victim, died.
According to police, “The officer observed [Morejon] turn towards him, while bending his knees, and extending his arm out as if pointing an object which the officer perceived was a gun. At this point, an officer involved shooting occurred.”
No weapon was recovered at the scene.
The police are refusing to say how many times the teenager was shot. The family asked for an independent investigation by the Department of Justice.
Bonus: Police Smash Woman’s Face into Ground
While no guns were drawn, this recently released video from San Francisco obtained by ABC News shows transit cops brutally slamming a drunk woman face-first into the ground, knocking her out and breaking several of her teeth, causing multiple face fractures and a pool of blood.