This simply cannot be enough to use lethal force. Officers should at least be required to see if the thing they believe is a knife is actually a knife and not an instrument for writing. The fact that the department is refusing to release the photo only fuels the speculation that it looks so much unlike a knife that assuming it was one is preposterous in and of itself. I agree with the hunch that if Tommy Le's pen looked knife-like, images of it would already be circulating right now. They aren't.