If pepper spray doesn't work is the next logical step to kill someone? Most likely not. Police officers should have enough experience handling firearms that they could aim for a leg or another non lethal part of the body.

Does pepper spray work from over 20 feet away? As for shooting to kill, I'm not sure about it, but I remember hearing a long time ago in elementary school a cop say that when they shoot, they shoot to kill. I think liability reasons would also come into account. The cops could shoot him in the leg, and he could sue the city for crippling him, and well, that wouldn't be good.

When I read your title I had a mental image of a cop with a chain saw launcher.

Sure a police officer was hit by the saw but there is no reason to get that close.

so, what did you want them to do?
you first say this guy has 'issues' then say that the police didn't use their 'skills' in calming him down. Sometimes you can't reason with people, even if you're highly skilled. sometimes people, especially those disturbed enough to threaten police officers with a chain saw, have nothing left to reason with...

then you say that they should have used pepper spray. you have to be within 3 or 4 feet of the subject for pepper spray to be useful...which is probably what the officer that was struck by the chain saw was attempting to do (or did).

Messy buu is partially correct when he says that officers are trained to shoot to kill. They're trained to hit center mass, not arms and legs. trying to hit the knees of a moving subject is extremly difficult to do in the best of circumstances, let alone when you have adrenaline flowing. besides, there's a big femoral artery to worry about...hit that, and your subject's likely to bleed out and die anyway.

i'm not sure that you understand the ramifications of shooting a subject. in most police departments, the officer is immediately suspended until an independent hearing has been held, and often has to undergo psychological counselling before being allowed to return to duty. it's not a matter of 'shoot someone and go back to work'....

You are correct.
Thanks for your opinions and insight. If you have to shoot you need to shoot to kill. lets say the man had a gun if you were shot in the leg you could still shoot someone. I guess a point I would like to make would be the use of "non-lethal" tools such as bean bag guns and the tasers. I assumed that with such a larger number of officers there would have been another way to resolve it.