You hear it all the time, "Why didn't he just shoot him in the leg?" Every single time I just shake my head & try my best to ignore the ignorance. Believe it or not, it's not that simple... The fastest human clocked was Usain Bolt at just under 28mph. Let's say that a person running, with adrenaline factored in, can run half that fast. That's 14 miles per hour. Now if a body is moving 14 mph, how fast do you think the legs are moving individually? How about the arms? Exactly. REALLY FAST! It would be damn near impossible to focus on your surroundings, a fast moving target, and what's beyond that target and make a shot like that. In fact, it only happens by accident or in movies.
Now take a look at the targets in the picture. Notice anything? Targets do not have legs. Only one has an arm that is not in front of its body. The top left is an actual police used target. Anyone that has ever trained has been taught to shoot 2 things, center mass or head. That's it. It's called "deadly force" for a reason. If I am in a life or death situation, I'm going to choose life for myself, that only leaves death. Guess who I'm dealing that to...
But police officers should be a much better shot, right? Not even. Police officers, believe it or not, do not practice shooting all day. I spoke with several and flat out asked them how often do officers hit the range. The answer actually surprised me. For the average patrol officer, it is required that he qualifies with his weapon (time between qualifications varied from 1 to 6 times per year). That's it! There is no set schedule for logging range time. For a tactical response team, the consensus was about once per week. I don't care who you are, one time shooting every 7 days will not give you the skill set needed to hit a target like that. On top of that, the only time deadly force is supposed to be used is when a person is deemed a threat to the lives of others (*"supposed" being the key word). In my opinion, that doesn't call for a leg wound.
Now think about this, law enforcement agencies are government funded. That means that you and I pay for what they use. When budgets get low, practice bullets are pretty high on the list of things to cut. That's almost a set up for failure. All police officers aren't snipers. In fact, only the ones called snipers are snipers & they miss too. This is just another reason for individual citizens to take it upon themselves to train. Every American needs to be able to defend himself. Period. And I bet you won't shoot someone trying to kill you in their damn leg...