I just saw the scene where the cop shoots whom he believes to be Lecter, who's lying on top of the elevator. This makes no sense at all. Why shoot a man in the leg, who appears to be unconscious, and risk hitting an artery? If he were faking it, just dropping something on him would make him move with no need to inflict additional injury. Those Memphis cops sure are portrayed as very stupid.
They were dealing (they thought at that point) with an extremely dangerous individual who had somehow killed two officers already despite being locked in a cage. When the corpse that they thought was Lechter did not comply with their commands, they shot him in a non-fatal manner to make sure he was no longer a threat. I didn't really see anything unreasonable with their actions at that point. Perhaps if they had a taser, they could have used it, but at the time of this movie, maybe tasers weren't very common.
The cop could've either continued to look down the shaft at him - ready to fire - as the cop in the elevator opened the hatch. Or better - they could've raised the elevator while still watching him from above and pulled him out the door. Shooting him as they did wouldn't have immobilized him. He still had the other leg and two good arms.
Right.....especially since he was holding a revolver. That's why the popo shoots at center mass, and shooting someone in an extremity to "immobilize" is hollywood.