One of my favorite stories is that of LAPD Officer Stacy Lim.
Yep, listening to her recount the incident is worthwhile, too. I met her at a CNOA annual training conference where she was a speaker during one of the seminars, and went into great detail about her incident. I don't know if she's still making the rounds of the training circuit, but she's a very interesting speaker if you ever get the chance to hear her.
LE members who are able to attend LE-Only seminars would probably find it very interesting to attend some of the annual CNOA training conferences when the schedule includes training by speakers as Dr Lawrence Blum, who offers the "I'm Shot!" 8-hr seminar. He typically has 2-3 LE guest speakers who have survived deadly force incidents, having been themselves seriously wounded during the incidents.
While it's laudable to discuss tactical and legal issues surrounding the use of a gun as deadly force in stopping a deadly force attack, it's sometimes all too easy for people, especially outside LE, to bring up ideas like "shooting someone to the ground", as if that were the only way to measure a successful "stop" of an attacker using deadly force.
I suspect that the dissemination of training & discussions within LE probably has some influence on this, even going back to earlier statements lifted from LE training discussions, such as the statements written in the '89
Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness, Special Agent UREY W. PATRICK
To judge a caliber’s effectiveness, consider how many people hit with it failed to fall down and look at where they were hit. Of the successes and failures, analyze how many were hit in vital organs, rather than how many were killed or not, and correlate that with an account of exactly what they did when they were hit. Did they fall down, or did they run, fight, shoot, hide, crawl, stare, shrug, give up and surrender? ONLY falling down is good. All other reactions are failures to incapacitate, evidencing the ability to act with volition, and thus able to choose to continue to try to inflict harm.
It's best to read the entire article, so those statements have some context, and remember they were written in '89.
Here's the thing, though. In each unique shooting incident where deadly force is used against an attacker, there's going to come a moment when the further use of deadly force is no longer going to be reasonable and lawful. That's going to have to be determined in each unique incident by the totality of the circumstances in how the incident unfolds.
Notwithstanding the possibility of the observed phenomena of a particular defender not being able to process the events of the incident quickly enough to stop pressing the trigger once the threat is over - (as has been examined and discussed by experts, and is a complex discussion, usually involving when an attacker has started turning away from the cop as the cop is shooting) - at some point the imminent threat of continuing deadly force presented by an attacker is going to stop being present, and it may be before the attacker has either fallen down, or has been "shot to the ground".
As a trainer, I wouldn't want to find myself on the witness stand trying to justify why I'd taught someone to "shoot someone to the ground". Not only do I have to remain within agency policy, but teaching someone to only use deadly force until the threat has stopped can be a completely different thing than continuing to use it until the attacker has been "shot to the ground".
Yes, the attacker may be capable of continued volitional movement, and able to continue his/her unlawful deadly actions, even if having fallen to the ground, wounded.
Or not. That has to be recognized by the defender, and any continued, reasonable use of deadly force will have to be articulated and justified at some later time.
An example.
I remember when a team was making a forcible entry into a house. (I wasn't part of the incident, although it involved my agency and I knew the team members.) A suspect, inside the room that was immediately inside the door where the entry was being made, was seen to pick up a handgun and swing it toward the team members.
Due to the way the entry was being done, there was a "constriction" of team members in a doorway, and only one of them was able to fire his weapon, getting off a single round at the observed suspect. The suspect was hit in his "gun arm" before he was able to fire his gun, and immediately dropped his gun.
The threat was "over" at that moment. No other suspects were present who threatened deadly force against the team. Sure, it could be hypothesized that the wounded suspect could've tried to pick up the gun with his other hand, and again threaten the team. That didn't happen, though, so the wounded suspect, who remained standing, was taken into custody.
These are the sorts of things that may be covered in various training venues offered to private citizens, to help give them exposure to some degree of the training that's usually part of LE training (both initial, and ongoing in-service updates). It might really benefit many non-LE folks to try and find some good quality training where such legal issues are discussed by trainers having both knowledge and experience, and preferably some background in the application of such knowledge and experience.
Knowing when it lawful and reasonable to use deadly force (shoot) may help keep someone (as a victim) alive, but knowing when it's
not lawful and reasonable may help keep someone out of jail and/or prison. (The transition going from a victim to a suspect may be swift.)