My heart goes out to all the victim's families, as these are all very tragic. I have a brother with down syndrome and reading the story about Ethan and how the situation played out sounds exactly like how it could play out with my own brother, heaven forbid he ever ends up in a similar situation. While I agree the shoot first ask questions later methodology is not the best, I think education surrounding common mental handicaps/disabilities would go a long way to helping officers better understand the situations and better equip them to judge the threat level of situations. I can attest that people with down syndrome can freeze up and easily experience a paralysis through analysis as they are put in confusing and unfamiliar situations, especially once someone starts shouting commands at them and they are not sure what do. Just knowing this simple fact and general behaviors surrounding people with down syndrome/mentally handicapped would give officers the knowledge to know "hey person has x or y disability and is acting this way because of z, this is a non threatening situation." It's almost ironic to me, where a profession that's main job responsibility is dealing with all different types of people all day isn't required to know any more specific social dynamics or behaviors surrounding them. I think requiring a psychology/sociology for police officers so they have a better understanding of human behavior might help in this regard.
EDIT: Grammar.