Let's think this through: An alcohol-enfeebled elderly man spends what, oh say, an hour, slashing away at himself with a blade and fails to do much damage. In fact, he is unscathed to the point that he is capable of wandering around Hoyt Arboretum yelling at yuppies and brandishing said blade (In the audio clip of Walters 'splainin' what happened, the officer himself refers to the weapon as a 'razor'.) Is it reasonable to believe that this man, Jack Collins, posed a threat to anyone's life? Particularly the life of a police officer whose whole career is predicated on training for situations exactly like this one that occurred last month in the park? Taking a casual inventory (And excluding whatever training the policemen might have had in the physical restraint of suspects), Walters packed a taser, a baton, pepper spray........and a gun. Why not knock the blade out of the man's hand with the baton? Walters was out sick the day they covered the proceedure in basic training? Why not opt for the pepper spray? Was Walters afraid he himself might get a dose of the nasty stuff? And why not the all-mighty taser, friend of every minion of totalitariarn governments worldwide (Those that can afford the things anyway...)? The coat! It was the coat! Officer Walters feared that Jack Collin's coat was too thick for the 100 thousand volts to penetrate at close range. That left the gun. I'm left with the image of a helpless, hopeless homeless old man bleeding to death on the cold ground...wearing a warm winter coat. 'Very Portland'...
- KBOO