About that shooting in West Des Moines

To an outsider, the shooting in West Des Moines probably doesn't sound like much of a big deal. But to locals, it's a big story. Police-involved shootings seem like a DC thing. (That's not for lack of good reason: In Washington, they measure police-involved shootings in percentage terms.) The official report on crime statistics for West Des Moines reads with an almost Disney-esque lack of trouble. A city of 56,000 people reported just 32 robberies for the entire year. So here's the interesting part: The shooting, which was reportedly based on a warrant executed in connection to a series of home invasions and rapes, involved three police officers, each of whom fired his weapon. So in one incident, West Des Moines police firearms saw more active-duty, non-practice use than in a normal year.