With the information at hand (the blog and associated article), I see no problem with what the police did. The situation is an unfortunate one for both sides. There is no doubt about that, but let's look at the facts. This occured near city hall at 8:30am. I'm assuming that there were civilians around at the time. A man with a knife charged at police officers putting their lives at risk.

Let's take this step by step. The officers initially called for assistance to defuse the situation without force. Exactly what they should have done. Then their lives were put in danger by a man charging with a knife and they shot him in the torso. Again, exactly right. The idea that you can fend off a man with a knife by using a knight stick is ridiculous so I will not comment on that further. I'm not sure if all patrol officers carry tasers, and even if they did, unfortunately they are just not reliable enough. Cops shoot for the torso because it is the biggest target. They can not start shooting at moving arms and legs with cizilians in the area. The risk of hitting an innocent party is too high. These men are not sharpshooters. And the other argument is run away? Come on? Are we being serious here?

In closing I'd like to say that police work is an extremely difficult job. Unfortunate things happen, but these officers acted correctly. The homeless man died because he came at officers with a knife. Not because cops are lazy or overly violent. I'd like to see you walk in a cop's shoes for a day or two instead of armchair quarterbacking from the comforts of home.

Difficult, yes, I'm not about to argue.  However, how many officers react (and in some cases it's even how they've been trained to react) makes situations worse than it needs to be and can even escalate a situation - particularly if dealing with someone who is an addict or mentally ill.  So better crisis resolution skills would work wonders in many situations or certainly has the potential to do so.  I've seen many situations that were relatively peaceful - other than that someone had a potential weapon within reach - and one or more cops basically went off.  I've spent hours under my desk because local law enforcement sent in SWAT instead of just a Sheriff to evict a neighbor - and didn't bother to warn anyone to leave. 

Maybe this particular situation couldn't have been avoided or at most would just have been delayed a few moments - but many COULD be avoided with the potentially violent person going to jail or the psych ward peacefully and voluntarily in the end, if only the cops would more calmly and appropriately react. Screaming with weapons drawn, ready to fire isn't always the most appropriate response.

Homeless people are treated like criminals in shelters. Guess what effect that has on how they are perceived by cops?

It is exactly the same issue. Only deadly.

Must agree with Anti Vigilante.  Homeless are often treated as criminals or even worse than criminals in shelters and particularly so if they can figure out you fall in certain categories (like mentally ill).  Once you're outside - and you spend a lot of time outside since quite a lot of shelters are just drop in shelters where you sleep at night till around dawn - you face the same attitudes (or worse) from the public, drawn along the same lines.

I had thought the stand offs that last hours are less likely to end in a death and less likely to involve a homeless person.

My impression was homeless shootings by Police tend to be short term street face-offs.

For those housed but experiencing mental illness it would be a longer term situation I suppose.

On the issue of housed women as Police shooting victims have you noticed if that was because of children being involved?