Officer Safety

Police officers like to justify their trigger happy nature but uttering the magical words "officer safety". When an officer beats and unarmed man to death? Officer safety! When 10 officers unload 1,000 rounds into a truck that wasn't even being driven by a suspect? Officer safety! What happens when officer safety puts officers at risk though? That's what happened when a group of Miami police officers when all officer safety on a couple unarmed individuals:

As the car was wedged helplessly between a light pole and a tree, nearly a minute passed before officers opened up – firing approximately 50 bullets at the car and the two unarmed men inside the vehicle.

The two men inside the car survived that initial volley of gunfire, according to witnesses, who said they could see the men moving inside the Volvo. Everything went quiet for nearly two minutes before the officers opened up a second time – unleashing an unrelenting torrent of bullets that lasted almost 25 seconds. By the time it was over, the two men inside the car were dead.

CBS4 News has learned a total of 23 officers fired a total of at least 377 rounds.

Nothing unusual about this story, right? But wait, there's more:

Montesano and Valdes were killed by the dozens of rounds that tore through their bodies.

But Montesano and Valdes weren’t the only ones struck – two Miami Dade police officers were hit as well – caught in the crossfire. One officer was shot in the arm and the second was hit in the arm and grazed in the head. If the bullet had struck just a half an inch to the side the officer would have been killed.

The officers were going officer safety so hard on the unarmed suspects that they ended up hitting two of their own in the crossfire. Considering this was the unloading of 377 rounds into two unarmed suspects really defensible under the magical words "officer safety"?