In the video below, police appear to shoot a man in a wheelchair who was armed with knives and may have stabbed an officer. There are a number of questions raised by this video over the use of lethal force.
What is curious is that citizens were next to the man when the police arrive and traffic is still moving by the scene despite the possible use of the weapons. The greatest concern is why the police did not use non-lethal force such as a taser or isolate the man while they cut off traffic and tried to reason with him. There were people standing around the scene shortly before the shooting and cars passing by.
One account states that the police first used pepper spray and fired a non-lethal ‘beanbag’ round. Some witnesses state that the man had only been slashing tires and had already thrown his knives to the ground when he was shot. However, the San Francisco papers are reporting that the man had stabbed a police officer in the shoulder at a mental health services center and that he threw a knife before being shot in the groin.
Under constitutional law and common training rules, officers are generally allowed to use lethal force when they are being threatened or to protect others. This can include a fleeing armed suspect. The question is whether the use of additional non-lethal force would have ended the standoff since the man was armed with a knife rather than a gun. With at least seven officers present at the scene, he could have been isolated to protect the public. There is a reluctance, however, to second-guess officers in such a situation. If he did stab an officer and was waving a knife, most courts would find the force justified. This assumes that reports that he had thrown away the knife are proven incorrect. That would leave the question as to whether, as a policy matter, the officers should have opted for less lethal means to subdue the clearly disturbed individual.
Former Federal LEO,
A while back when I disclosed that I had played some semi-pro football, did that help you to understand that I might have taken a few too many blows to the head? 🙂
Thank you Buddha Is Laughing and Otteray Scribe.
I access this blawg primarily to get a constitutional law scholar’s view on the legal process. Luckily, for me, there are other practicing attorneys here or those with the credentials but no longer practice law—for whatever reason. Then there are people with special credentials in other fields about which I can inquire.
I tend to give a bit more weight to a lawyer when asking lawyering questions, a psychologist when trying to understand humanistic behaviors, especially the weirdest ones, et cetera. Finally, there are those people here who have a degree in life and are full of wisdom from their agedness and experiences.
I do not go to LE sites because I know all I *want* to know about LEOs. Besides, they tend not to be self-critical and I would never observe the type of videos or read the comments that I access within this blawg. Oftentimes, I have read comments from a poster and wondered; what type of background does that person have to think that way. Then, sometimes the person opens up just a bit about his/her background and I think, okay, now I understand that comment from last month (beyond that timeframe, my memory bank has had a run on it).
BBB, thank you so much. You do add to the conversation, but some of us were puzzled as to where you are coming from. I understand completely, and by you disclosure, you put a human face on your concerns. No longer just another anonymous blog commenter with an opinion.
FYI, my beautiful 22 year old daughter is a criminal justice major and wants to go to the Academy when she graduates. She has fallen in love with law enforcement. She is a crack shot with a pistol, but I hope and pray she never has to use her skills on another human being. I have been doing debriefings for years with officers who have been invovled in “critical incidents.” God forbid she ever has to be on the other side of the desk from somebody like me.
FCOL,
Good points.
BBB
1, January 6, 2011 at 10:12 pm
……..
Justified or not, it’s no fun trying to console someone who had to kill a kid.
====================================================
Very true … for the good officers there are times when the job can indeed be hell.
BBB,
You add to the discussion here and I would not want you to stop posting. You just gave an indication of why you support LEOs.
Thank you.
LEO,
Less than a month ago my brother-in-law, a police officer for over 10 years, had to shoot and kill a minor who was attacking his partner. There was never any question as to whether or not the shooting was justified.
You think I may have a reason to consider the officers point of view before jumping to conclusions?
Justified or not, it’s no fun trying to console someone who had to kill a kid.
This is another person with mental illness and other disabilities, and these are clearly hate crimes against people with disabilities. We’ve been having about one a week in Portland lately.
American police are failing to respond to a major change in the public consensus about what constitutes a successful outcome in these kinds of events. In Portland, one blog commentator said the outcome of one of these where the person was immediately killed was successful because “the threat was neutralized”. Personally, the kindest thing I can call that is mercenary video game fantasy thinking. I think most people consider it a successful outcome when _everybody_ goes home safely.
If it was a bear or an elephant (other species which, like humans, can go off the deep end and become blindly aggressive) or a person trying to jump from a bridge, they would figure out how to capture and contain it/them without resort to lethal force. Some of us are starting to put a higher value the lives of people with disabilities, even the most disagreeable of them. We can take as good care of them as we do with that bear or elephant.
Was this guy a veteran? Was he at the mental health office trying to get help he’d been denied by our delightful health care system which calls every denial of service a small victory?
Posted without review.
“I was under the impression that the rule was 20 ft, not 21.”
I’m sure the basis for that rule is the 7 yd target qualification. It would present a distance that the officer had become accustomed to recognize.
BBB,
Okay, Fair enough.
Former Federal LEO,
No. I did not read your post before posting mine.
I was under the impression that the rule was 20 ft, not 21.
I prefer to let my words alone determine their merit. In the world of anonymous blogging, if one chooses to remain anonymous their credentials are of no consequence. The time I spent as a stowaway on an Appollo mission, nor the six months I spent undersea as a saturation diver will do much to support my words. My words are the strongest when they can stand alone.
If disclosure, full or partial, becomes a prerequisite for participating in these blawg discussions, would I be required to disclose my memberships in groups whose ideals the regulars may not agree with?
I ask that you respect my privacy as I will respect yours.
What other choose to disclose is their business. In time I may change my mind.
BBB, you took isolated quotes without the full context.
Former Federal LEO
1, January 2, 2011 at 11:18 am
BBB,
Your reasoning is sometimes beyond strange. As an LEO, I was trained in many First Responder courses and they never singled out drowning as a Do Not First Respond To /Let Die crisis.
Are you, or were you, an LEO, paramedic, or lawyer?
___________________
Former Federal LEO
1, January 4, 2011 at 6:55 pm
BBB,
I have inquired previously, are you a lawyer?
Yes
No
Aint none of your cotton-pickin’ business
———–
Or are you a just a legalistic gadfly?
BBB,
Of course, your comments can have merit. I am just trying to understand where you are coming from with you almost unconditional support of LE.
BBB: I must second the question posed by FFLEO and the observation by BIL. Do you or do you not have training or education in law enforcement or a related forensic field? It is not a hard question and can be answered by a simple yes or no.
Perhaps we could play the game of, “I show you mine and you show me yours.” In the interest of disclosure, I am a forensic scientist (earned Ph.D.) with close to forty years dealing with all kinds of agencies, officers, attorneys and a slew of criminals ranging from purse snatchers to serial killers and mass murderers. OK, now it is your turn.
BBB,
Did you read my last post before you posted?
BIL,
Once civility departs, I do the same.
A couple of examples from Former Federal Leo:
“Your reasoning is sometimes beyond strange” Followed by nothing to support his position.
“Or are you a just a legalistic gadfly?”
I take offense to his remarks.
What Former Federal LEO is attempting to do is qualify or disqualify my comments by giving them personal attributes. I refuse to play his game. Either what I have to say has merit, or it does not. My gold-plated GED isn’t going to change that.
BBB,
You just answered my question. Thank you.
While I have respect for LEOs, I often find myself increasingly condemning them, as I do it the video situation. Yes, a knife or other edged weapon can be a lethal weapon against an armed officer when there is a distance of about 21 feet, known as the Twenty-one Foot Rule. However, that does not apply to a person in a wheelchair, even if the person was able to stand up—at which point an officer could then elevate force.
On several threads recently, you have automatically (and prematurely in this case) championed/defended all the LEOs. That is why I inquired about your LEO status—past, present, or future (cop in training).
Since you have had no LE training, are you a prosecutor or…? It helps here to know if you have specialized training in some area, whatsoever that might encompass. You do not have to shed your anonymity.
BBB,
FFLEO. Insulting?
Really.
I’ve had literally hundreds of interactions with FFLEO over the years and not once found him insulting. I read almost all of his posts and it’s almost only because I do miss a few from everyone here and there. I’ve never found him insulting. He has been in my experience actually one of the most gentlemanly posters here.
And I know insulting. Ask anyone. I’m known to have a mouth full of honey and razor blades.
What I’m getting at is this:
I’m not really sure where asking if you’ve had police training is insulting, BBB. Nor why the answer is that big a deal.
I’m curious as to what FFLEO said to you that you found insulting in the first place since it’s obviously a post I missed.
I’d like to see what that looks like.
Former Federal LEO,
You’ll have to interrogate someone else. This is the fourth time that you have addressed me or insulted me. Do you wish to rebuke something I said? If you don’t I have no reason to engage you in further discussion.
Tom Wood said:
“Notice that there were only 2 shots and seven or eight cops. So most cops realized there was no danger, that the guy was surrendering his weapon.”
Illogical assumption, amigo – “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.”
With the evidence we have, it is simply not possible to connect the two statements.