Not weird, more like incredibly sad. I saw this on the BBC when I woke up this morning and it's been pissing me off all day.

A veteran officer fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines, Kelly said.

He fired that many rounds into three people? Was it a "come dressed in your finest Kevlar suit to my stag party" that warranted that level of attack, or was it more like a trigger-happy cop not knowing what the hell is was doing?

If this was the UK, the cops would be placed under investigation, there'd be a formal review and they'd be let off/allowed to retire/go onto "other duties".

That's very sad. Why did they fire so many times?

The article said five of the veteran cops had never discharged their weapon in the line of duty. I don't know how long you have to be on the force to be considered a veteran, but something weird happened.

The spray of bullets hit the car 21 times, after the vehicle rammed into an undercover officer and then an unmarked NYPD minivan twice, police said.

Obviously there's more detail to this story than contained in the article, but if the guys were trying to run over an undercover officer, I wouldn't be surprised that the other cops unloaded into the car.

The article said five of the veteran cops had never discharged their weapon in the line of duty.

It's more common than TV makes you think. A cop can go his entire career and never shoot. There are only 850 murders a year in New York City, but NYPD has 37,000 cops.

if the guys were trying to run over an undercover officer, I wouldn't be surprised that the other cops unloaded into the car

Running over someone is "assault with a deadly weapon".

He fired that many rounds into three people?

If you shoot, you don't shoot once and hang out to see what happened. Diallo notwithstanding, I don't believe that the number of shots is indicative of whether the shooting is proper.

If this was the UK, the cops would be placed under investigation, there'd be a formal review and they'd be let off/allowed to retire/go onto "other duties".

SOP in the US is desk duty for any officer involved in a weapons discharge while the incident is investigated. The NYPD, like most large-city departments, has an internal affairs division that is specially tasked with these investigations.

The real problem is usually the police board, which has the power to fire for cause. Very often these boards, which tend to have union reps and (usually carefully screened) civilians on them as well as police and city management ex officio, are reluctant to hand out anything but minor punishment except in the most notorious cases. As such cops have utter contempt for their often political decision-making process. A secondary effect is that it makes the internal affairs investigation a trigger for the code of silence among cops.

But a cop with even a black tick next to his name becomes very nearly unpromotable. It's a career killer.

There are only 850 murders a year in New York City

Only?!

There was "only" 765 homicides in the whole of the UK last year!

There was a great Bill Hicks gag about this exact disparity, which annoyingly I don't have to hand.

if the guys were trying to run over an undercover officer, I wouldn't be surprised that the other cops unloaded into the car

Running over someone is "assault with a deadly weapon".

You must think those guys were stupid or something! Why would you try to run ANYONE over with a car, regardless if they were white, black, cops or not?
Believe it or not, there are black people WITHOUT criminal records (I'm one of them!)
They were going to a wedding in the morning!!
There was no mention of drugs or alcohol and witnesses say they weren't even rowdy!
I'm trying to wait for more information, but this totally fuckin' stinks.

Well, it's a mess for sure either way.