So, I am going to go a couple ways with this one.
First and foremost, cops don’t “shoot to kill” they are actually trained to “shoot to stop the threat” but they are absolutely trained to shoot vital targets-torso and if that isn’t available, head or you do a double tap to the chest and one to the head-we used to do that drill all the time. Another reason cops aim center mass is that it is the biggest part of the body and thus the easiest to hit under stress and it is the area that contains the most vital organs that is more likely to put a suspect down. Sure, a headshot is always your best bet to take someone out, but remember the head is a smaller target and thus, harder to hit especially while under duress.
Second, I really can’t make up my mind definitively one way or the other on this one. Why did they stop her? What were their intentions if they got her stopped? That matters to me a lot.
Third, as for the actual shooting-when I watched the videos, I couldn’t actually tell which one fired at first-I saw the elevated video first that shows the officer almost get hit. Then I saw the one where the officer grabs her door handle and I still wasn’t immediately sure because you see bullets striking the windshield near the officer that grabbed the door handle. I also have to add that I watched this after I had taken ambien as well, which can fuzzy the eyesight a bit. I don’t get fucked up or anything. The first couple times I took ambien, I had a hell of a fucking trip- but it seems you get inoculated to it very quickly and even if you go quite a while without taking one, that first wild trip never comes back. It’s either like “chasing the dragon” as they used to say with opium or it actually reminds me more of Stephen King’s “The Dome” where people feel a shock and see a vision the first time they actually touch the dome but then it never happens again.
Anyway, I am rambling.
So on to my next point. Why did the officer fire two more times when he stepped out of the way? That one’s trickier. First, use of force should cease once the threat is passed, so by that thinking, once he was definitively out of the way, he should shoot anymore-in theory, at least. However, there are two caveats there.
First, the easy to explain one. That officer doesn’t know if there are any officers behind him that are possibly in the path of her vehicle and he felt he had to act and act immediately or she would be passed him and if there was an officer behind him, he would miss his chance and would never have the time to first check if there is an officer in her path and be able to react.
Second, there are so many studies that try to gauge an officer’s reaction time and how long it takes the human brain to first, detect a threat, second you process that information and label it as a threat, third you make decision to act-and fourth-you act, ie draw gun if not out already and shoot.
Now, after making the decision to shoot and you actually shoot, now you have to go back down the ladder when it’s time to stop shooting. You have to perceive that the threat is passed, process that information, tell your body to stop pulling the trigger which is a trained and untrained reflex at that point, then the “stop shooting” signal has to travel back down the body to the hands
Hope this helps or was what you were seeking
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