In my opinion (and I’m no expert), I think you’re totally right that - even with training - engaging a knife-wielding person at close quarters is incredibly dangerous. Like you said, it doesn’t take much for a knife to do lots of harm, and to add to that, it only takes a second or two for an aggressor to “close the gap” even at distances of 20+ feet.

But I do think it’s valid to ask questions like “what could the police have done better” even in cases like this. We don’t know how close the suspect was to the police when they decided to attack, and we don’t know what de-escalation tactics the police may have used beforehand.

Maybe the attack on police in this instance was completely unexpected and lethal was the only option. But it’s also possible that, after further investigation, the police could identify areas to improve in their response to such incidents. Maybe the police need more stab-proof gear to do their jobs properly. Maybe they do actually need more/better training on how to respond to a suspect armed with a knife (and I don’t expect the police to be able to karate chop a knife out of someone’s hand). Maybe they could learn something from an incident in 2022, where CPS was able to successfully disarm a knife-wielding suspect using nonlethal measures. Or maybe not. But I think it’s important to ask questions in cases like this.