The knife-wielding homeless man shot in front of the White House when he refused to drop his weapon died Wednesday night, hours after he was charged with assaulting a federal officer.
Marcelino Corniel, 33, had undergone two lengthy operations after the shooting Tuesday and had remained in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital. Hospital spokeswoman Merle Goldberg said Corniel died of cardiac arrest in the intensive care unit at 9 p.m. ET.
A widely shown videotape of U.S. Park Police shooting Corniel has sparked debate about deadly force.
Police say Corniel chased an officer 60 yards across Pennsylvania Avenue, ignoring repeated orders to drop a knife taped to his arm.
But the tape shows Corniel standing motionless as five police officers surround him. When he looks to his left, an officer fires twice.
"I do not feel that we overreacted," said Maj. Robert Hines, a spokesman for the Park Police, which has jurisdiction over Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. "Our officer acted appropriately under the circumstances."
Critics question whether fear of bodily harm prompted the shooting or just nervousness after three other security incidents at or near the White House since September.
"Surely the police can't be claiming he was a threat to the president or anyone in the White House. That would be too far-fetched," says University of Pennsylvania law professor David Rudovsky.
"It may be police were a little jittery because of prior attacks."
Though the entire incident wasn't captured on tape, Art Spitzer of the American Civil Liberities Union says what was shows "this guy was standing still with the knife at his side. I don't see any good reason why they couldn't have waited."
Spitzer, noting the incident took place in an open area in daylight, also says two other officers had guns drawn and didn't shoot, "evidence that (they) didn't feel threatened."
But police say it's impossible to coolly analyze such incidents. "The stress involved in a situation like that is unfathomable unless you are in it," says Baltimore County Police Cpl. Kevin Novak. "It can't be created on a firing range."
Even as the debate raged, more of Corniel's background came to light. He was charged in 1984 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, in Compton, Calif., with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon - a knife - and with intent to inflict bodily injury.
In a later evaluation, county probation officer Aubrey Dunn said Corniel stabbed David Chavez in a gang-related fight.
Dunn described Corniel as "personable and reasonably intelligent" and noted that "he does not seem particularly impressed" by the crime's serious nature.
Corniel spent four months in jail before pleading guilty before Superior Court Judge Kurt Lewin, who placed him on probation and ordered him to stay away from the gang.
Jack Janson, a former FBI agent who killed a skyjacker in a hostage standoff in 1972, understands Tuesday's situation.
"It's flight, fright or fight," says Janson, who still lives with the emotions of that day. "Each situation is so different. There are no classic textbook types of confrontations."
Police try to train for such moments. Last year, the FBI says, 455 people were killed by use of deadly force, the most since 1987, when record-keeping began.
But no number of training film scenarios can prepare an officer staring down the barrel of a gun or at the point of a knife.
"An infinite number of factors come into play" in using deadly force, says Novak. "There's no distance you can set that says `I can shoot at 40 feet but not at 41 feet.' "
Still, some question why Corniel, armed with only a knife, was shot in the chest when a bullet to his legs would have immobilized him.
"The cop who can shoot a gun out of somebody's hand a la Wyatt Earp or wing somebody on the run in the ankle is largely a myth of Hollywood-making," says Bill Geller, author of the standard reference work Deadly Force: What We Know. "Under very intense and ambiguous situations, most police bullets do not hit their target, (so) standard police training is to aim at the largest part of the body, the torso."
Geller says there have been "excesses" in training about assailants with knives. "There's a big controversy in the police business about police training schools that have caused more than proper caution, some think even caused paranoia about knives."
Still, by taping the knife to his hand, Corniel convinced officers he intended to "do as much damage as he can."
As for whether the police may have acted differently had the suspect not been a homeless person, "They were not seeing a Brooks Brothers suit or rags. What they're seeing is the knife," Geller says.
Rudovsky remains skeptical. He says police departments in other cities have developed less-lethal ways to disarm suspects with knives. Among them: nets and stun guns.
"He was surrounded. No civilians were in immediate danger," says Rudovsky.
"There are a lot of alternatives you use before you use deadly force."
Killings by police on increase The number of people killed by police has risen steadily, Department of Justice statistics show. Annual cases ruled justifiable homicides by law officers: 1987 300 1993 455
