A lot of factors come in to play to determine if a cop shooting someone running at him/or her is justified lethal force.

On a basic level, somebody charging you is a demonstration of active aggression. That person clearly has intent to do you harm. How much harm is going to depend on the aggressor's size and ability, the officer's size and ability, and environmental factors. If you reasonably believe that that person's actions are going to cause you serious bodily injury or death, shooting would be justified.

I'm 6'5" 200. 230 with a vest and gear on. If a 100lb drunk female comes at me kicking and swinging it's pretty hard to justify shooting her. If the assailant is a 250lb MMA fighter, that changes things quite a bit. If that guy gets within reach he's very capable of maiming or killing me. Obviously those two examples represent the extremes, and there's a broad range of scenarios in between.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Why would anyone run at a cop?

That just goes against any normal thinking.

Precisely.

are they 21 feet or less from the cop or more, you know, there is a rule....

quote:

If a complete stranger charges me, my wife, my kids kids, or grand kids, the mother fucker is going to get shot. End of story.

Bingo, why should it be different for a cop

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
are they 21 feet or less from the cop or more, you know, there is a rule....


[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/clgNsC48ln0?si=I4T52ekRZSlT2Y-8&start=140" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

21 feet was the gold standard for critical distance WITH a weapon. Not unarmed

quote:

if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.

Bob?

quote:

Originally posted by cajunmuscle:

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:

quote:

Originally posted by cajunmuscle:
Isnt it sometimes necessary to just kick the crap outta someone and not use a gun?

So, if YOU are a LEO, would you be confident to defeat all criminals in hand to hand combat, 100% guaranteed? Without injury to yourself?

No way. But again, that’s why you’re given DT training. Intermediate tools. A radio. Feet to disengage. You can’t say what if and think that justifies deadly force . What if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.

DT is a joke for the most part, Gracie Survival Tactics are good but it depends on how much training and time you have drilled in them. Pulling and using an intermediate tool is next to impossible within 20 feet or so, and most are not effective when dealing with crazy dangerous person (I think we can classify the person who is charging an armed cop as that). Pepper Spray has blowback if they are too close to you when used and has very limited immediate effect, lots of videos showing people fighting through pepper spray. TASER, limited frontal area targets, best used on back area. with again many videos showing failures to stop. No one really carries nightsticks anymore and ASP Baton training usually consists of reviewing the Use of Force General Order and swinging at a pad for 5-10 swings each year. Yes, I have a problem with this, as I have trained extensively in Filipino Martial Arts and have instructor certification in two Filipino Martial Arts. The ASP baton should be taught similar to the Kali/Escrima Stick, same light weight and quick use. Since Saint Michael Brown, I have ALWAYS carried a blade on my weakside (non-pistol side) both on and off duty. One of the arts I am an Instructor in encourages everyone to carry a blade on each side and a emergency neck knife.

A radio????????? WTF????? You mean maybe something like this:


"Hey Dispatch".." By that point they have tackled you to the ground, and you are either working on a concussion or other serious physical injury. You DON"T get on the radio in the middle of a gun fight or fight, you take care of business first. If there is a lull, hit panic button on radio or broadcast situation.

Yeah, running away works really well, just look at all the UK copper videos. Try out running a meth head or other hopped up insane person.

This is the short video of the officer getting killed by a guy charging him:

PO Jonah Hernandez Murder

Here is a longer video:


Now for a serious response, it is called the totality of the circumstances. Size, age, sex, and demeanor of suspect vs size age, sex of officer. A 17-30 strong male charging me is more of a threat than a 105 female. Also, what have they said prior to and during attack (yes by charging at me, they are attacking me), for example, "I be taking your gun and killing you mutha fucker." There is at least one pistol on every scene with a cop, the one they are carrying. The cop gets incapacitated, bad guy now has the pistol and very bad things happen at that point.

So there is at least one pistol at this incident, of course no one at this point knows WHAT the bad guy has; pistol, knife, box cutter, small hammer, etc.

Getting tackled by a bad guy is a freaking nightmare, you are going to pick up an injury getting thrown to the pavement. During that initial mad scramble on the ground, anything can happen (see Mixed Martial Arts fights for some great ground fighters losing because they ended up in a bad position during the take down and scramble). There is no weight class, referee, soft pad out in the real world. Once you are down on the ground, that is where his buddies start curb stomping you.



There is another video out there where cop and bad guy are on the ground when bad guy's friends and family join in on the cop.

The Jonah Hernandez murder was what I referenced in my earlier thread.

There’s no peaceful innocent reason to charge a cop. The time to fight the law is in court.

quote:

Originally posted by jsbcody:


There is another video out there where cop and bad guy are on the ground when bad guy's friends and family join in on the cop.

But but but…….

They were unarmed.

I do not believe that this thread is going like the OP was hoping.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by jsbcody:


There is another video out there where cop and bad guy are on the ground when bad guy's friends and family join in on the cop.

But but but…….

They were unarmed.

I do not believe that this thread is going like the OP was hoping.

Yeah but they still had legs.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jsbcody,

I'm OK with it. Cause meet effect.

I have no idea of the context, nor do I own a bunny with a pancake on it's head.

But, in my worldview.

If anyone is advancing toward a "cop", or any "not a fucking cop" in a threatening manner, kill that SOB, graveyard dead, right there, right now, and walk away.


Lemme cite.

George Zimmerman vs Trayvon Martin.

Everything up to point when George was on his back on the ground, and Travon was on top and slamming George's head on the concrete, George had every legal right as an American to defend himself, which he did.
Full stop. Hard Pass. George 1, Travon 0.

Then there is Kyle Rittenhouse vs Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber & Gaige Grosskreutz

Kyle 3, 0

And there are may others...


I do not want to kill anyone. But if anyone wants me to kill them, well the want is on them.

Same for cops. I suspect...

Blue has a life and family.

I back the Blue.

Don’t start none, won’t be none.

If I’m on a jury evaluation a situation where an LEO smoked someone who charged him you’re going to have a challenge to convince me it wasn’t justified.

Don’t play stupid games and your chances of winning stupid prizes goes way down…

There is always a gun present. If the officer has their weapon out already then most likely absolutely appropriate. If holstered, it depends on the circumstances. Police DT training is a joke and does not train people to actually fight much mess be ninjas. Security holsters are great, but not perfect. One effective blow can render an officer unconscious and totally helpless. From personal experience, I can reliably say all intermediate weapons can fail. Pepper spray works about 50% of the time, and 0% of the time against a motivated assailant. The collapsible baton is next to worthless and the taser requires effective shot placement for two probes, which is damn near impossible against a charging person. The idea that a radio is somehow effective is ridiculous. Try grabbing a radio or radio microphone while rolling around on the ground fighting. Useful tip, you can’t. Even if you get on the radio, it doesn’t magically teleport additional people to you

As somebody else mentioned the totality of circumstances is critical. The size of the assailant, the size and ability of the officer the number of officers on scene the existence of bystanders that could help the assailant or officer are but a few of the criteria that would impact an officers decision whether or not to use deadly force. Just because they dont have a weapon in their hand does jot mean they are unarmed. Add some drugs or an emotionslly disturbed person to the mix and that is a whole other level.

Any of you macho men that think you just scrap it out have never rolled around in a parking lot fighting over a loaded gun with somebody that is hell bent on murdering you. I am not saying if you haven’t been a coo you cannot have an opinion. I am just saying that to those of us that have, your opinion means little to nothing.

It depends.
Too many variables to make a blanket statement.

This isn’t a yes or no question. It is pretty easy to describe a fact pattern where it would be justified to shoot somebody who is charging you, but it is also very easy to describe a fact pattern with the justification does not exist.

There are a lot of factors that would go into an evaluation of this such as relative size of the participants in the fight, any articulation of intent to disarm or kill the officer, the underlying crime that the arrest would be made for, how many officers are on scene, etc.

A couple of examples of situations where an unarmed person was shot while charging at the police, and it was found to be justified can be found in cases such as Milstead v Kibler or the 2014 shooting at Michael Brown in Ferguson Mo.

https://law.justia.com/cases/f...upp2/91/895/2510822/

https://www.justice.gov/sites/..._michael_brown_1.pdf

Again, there is no blanket justification available to use deadly force in response to the threat of non deadly physical force. The cops get in thousands of fights with resistive or aggressive offenders where no deadly force is used that you will never hear about.

The unarmed suspect shooting is really an extraordinarily rare event that happens less than 10 times per year out of the hundreds of millions of citizen-police interactions in the US annually.

As you originally said....'what if..'

This question has so many variables that ultimately, it can only be answered on a case by case basis by the courts.

But all things being equal. Charging a cop causes presumed intent and self defense would be appropriate. Or to summarize, FAFO.

quote:

Originally posted by car541:
[T]he hundreds of millions of citizen-police interactions in the US annually.

In addition to the totality of the circumstances that must be considered, this is the other thing that someone will ignore when trying to attract clicks by “terrifying”* his viewers:

“OMG! That poor man was just minding his own business and when he was contacted by the police over some trivial violation of the law and he responded by refusing to obey her commands and by charging at her in an aggressive manner, she shot him for no reason. Beware. It could happen to you if you do the same thing: Defund the police!!!”

If these sorts of things happened even a tiny fraction of the times that some “advocate” would have us believe, they would be in the news every day. But don’t worry. One day soon all the police will be AI-driven robots, and all such incidents will be over forever.

* My favorite YouTube word.