quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
We don’t deploy any of those on someone who is agitated and holding a gun.

What about someone who's agitated and not holding a gun, but has one within reach? (Similar in concept to the the guy's weapon in the video, at the time of the initial less lethal shotgun deployment.)

And are you saying you always, 100% of the time, have full eyes on a barricaded subject inside a building to ensure that they are not armed before you deploy tear gas into the building?

I'm not trying to be argumentative; I'm trying to understand your statement, and see if you perceive there to be a similar potential for a bad guy to get an easy payout for claiming to have mistaken other "scary" less-lethal law enforcement tools.

quote:

We especially wouldn’t do it standing out in the middle of the open using really poor tactics.

I definitely believe that.

Was that an Ithaca 37 police shotgun on the right side of the line? It had a dangling sling.

You are conflating the use of those tools as an option with forcing it to be an option.

Example- my client thought the police were going to murder him after they shot gas in the house. So he starred shooting through the wall.

What did he hit?

Trees and an armored vehicle. He gave up a couple of hours later.

Why didn’t you shoot him?

Because we had a plan B.

And compare it to this where you’ve got at least four officers (standing out in the open mind you) all yelling at him, yelling amongst one another, and shooting the armed suspect with a shotgun. They basically said “fuck it” at that point.

I’ve yet to be at a training class, any training class, that says stand out in the open, yell a whole bunch, shoot a guy armed with a handgun with a LL shotgun, and then shoot him when he raises the gun because you are standing out in the open and did not create yourself an out of the LL plan went bad. Have you? As a trainer, can you get on the stand and say without a doubt that was textbook how it should be done and cite references? Of course not. I get that no use of force is ever pretty. It never goes as planned, and sometimes it just plain goes bad. But, no one here had a plan if it failed. All they had was the likelihood he would be forced to raise the gun. They had no where to go and no other option but to shoot him.

That whole thing is nothing like tossing a bang into a house with an armed subject or shooting gas inside a house. We always have a plan B and C and D when we do that type of stuff. We don’t throw a bang in the house and then stand right square in the middle of the threshold with no where to go.

I don’t blame the officers here. This is either a training or supervisory failure. I doubt these officers got together and said “heck with it, we’re going to forgo following training and do this”.

You never know how someone will react to less lethal force options until deployed. I do discuss with folks that one way or another you are forcing action when deploying them, be it fight or flight. An issue I sometimes see with less lethal is it can sometimes be shoehorned by people who don't understand it, into a situation that it does not fit.

Also sometimes it is good to atleast try something and see if it works in the crazy chance that it might work while having lethal cover. Lethal cover being the imperative operative word.

Going to lean towards jljones thought process on this one. Not ever haven been in y'all's situation, my opinion is Monday quarterback at best.

I think we all know the right action would have been to shoot him in the leg.

This scene is a tactical CF. Too many people with too many options and not enough cover. You absolutely can stack too many force options up and the firing line that they created with one of everything in the inventory ends up creating problems. Every time the suspect moves, the entire line has to reset itself. Everybody in the line has to be aware of where everybody else is and try to manage their position relative to several other people and the suspect. And perhaps the worst things; if one officer fires they likely all will whether they individually perceive a threat or not, AND each individual officer's relative perception that it is not time to shoot is influenced by the other six guys there (or whatever) not shooting.

What if two of those officers had held him at gunpoint while the others brought car(s) up to use for cover? What did anybody do at any time to improve their position?

Like Jerry, I don't want to sound like I'm Monday Morning Quarterbacking these guys based just on this video, but I can take what I see here and relate it to similar things that I've been involved with at work and recognize the dynamics and how they develop.

When the Bean Bag round was first being touted the brass wanted to know if we should adopt them. I said that rubber bullets are just as effective with more range. I was the voice of experience as I actually took a rubber bullet to the thigh during my teenage years. But the argument against them was they could be lethal at close range. So we went with the bean bag round. And I am with Jones on this. If your perp has a firearm, then you counter with your firearms. Its deadly force versus deadly force at this point. Bean Bag is for people armed with clubs or other impact weapons.

What is a LL plan or LL shotgun?

LL= Less Lethal

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

And compare it to this where you’ve got at least four officers (standing out in the open mind you) all yelling at him, yelling amongst one another, and shooting the armed suspect with a shotgun. They basically said “fuck it” at that point.

Yeah, looking at this, there's 4-5 officers kinda bunched up out in the open. Increased the odds of someone getting an extra hole in them. All the badguy needs to do is pop off a round or two in that general direction. Split up! 2 officers go to the right or left (90Degrees), where ever there's better cover.

The Officer with the LL Shotgun after he shot, should have backed the hell off and switched to lethal.

He went looking for the (presumably) still armed offender with a less lethal option? Oooooohh, not good.

When even amateurs with no tactical training look at that and “hmmm, that doesn’t seem like a good way to do things” perhaps something is missing in the training program.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
When the Bean Bag round was first being touted the brass wanted to know if we should adopt them. I said that rubber bullets are just as effective with more range. I was the voice of experience as I actually took a rubber bullet to the thigh during my teenage years. But the argument against them was they could be lethal at close range. So we went with the bean bag round. And I am with Jones on this. If your perp has a firearm, then you counter with your firearms. Its deadly force versus deadly force at this point. Bean Bag is for people armed with clubs or other impact weapons.

The beanbag rounds are also dangerous at close range. It is not unheard of for them to penetrate and at least one very large agency has pulled all of theirs recently due to this concern. 40mm or similar direct impact munitions are safe from a closer distance and deliver more energy.

I have two beanbag deployments and both were effective but neither involved a person armed with a firearm.

quote:

I’ve yet to be at a training class, any training class, that says stand out in the open, yell a whole bunch, shoot a guy armed with a handgun with a LL shotgun, and then shoot him when he raises the gun because you are standing out in the open and did not create yourself an out of the LL plan went bad.

Well, when you put it like that I have a hard time disagreeing . I definitely question why they all bunched up like they did. There weren't a lot of cover options from their direction of approach, but they could have at least spread out. Like DaBigBR, said, they could have brought cars up as well, but cars make for shitty cover, and while I wouldn't want to be hiding behind one hoping it'll stop rounds, I'll still take that option over open air. That said, if he raises a gun at me while I'm behind a car, it's not going to change my response compared to standing out in the open air...I'm still shooting him. I've shot enough bullets through vehicles to be able to confidently articulate why they're not adequate cover and incoming rounds still pose a lethal threat.


My biggest concern in this situation is his proximity and access to the public. They absolutely could not allow this armed and dangerous guy to get into that business full of people. They had a very limited window in which to operate, as all he had to do was duck between those vehicles and they no longer had a shot. I'm not sure if they had the time or access to get somebody behind him to cover the entrance or start evacuating people out the back, but based on what I saw it's likely they did not. Negotiating wasn't working, and while the guy wasn't actually pointing the gun at anyone at the moment, he'd already demonstrated a willingness to discharge it, he wasn't complying with commands and kept reaching around in the area where it was, he's just one motion away from being able to discharge it at officers, and only a couple more from getting inside that business.

From my perspective, the outcome was forced by the suspect. He was clearly non-compliant, negotiating wasn't working, and there was no reason to believe at this point that he was going to voluntarily comply or surrender. His volatile behavior and proximity to the public removes the option of waiting him out, and allowing him to continue to act was very likely to result in injury or death to an officer or member of the public. The beanbag gun was a last ditch effort to try to take him into custody without using lethal force, and it didn't work (and I'll show my personal bias here by saying that's because they're a shitty tool, or at least a tool with a very limited envelope of effectiveness). This guy had already made up his mind to get shot (at one point he even yelled "I'm not going back"), and demonstrated it through his actions and failure to comply despite multiple opportunities to do so...getting beanbagged was just a step in the process.

In hindsight were there other ways they might have approached it? Absolutely, and that's why we analyze the video, in hopes of learning and applying them if we ever get handed a similar CF. But these were patrol cops responding individually to an in-progress shooter in a public place, and they had to make a plan on the fly immediately as they arrived on scene. They definitely did some things right...I heard good communication between officers calling out to each other where the gun was. Somebody mentioned the likelihood of officers in large groups all discharging their weapons at the sound the first gunshot, and the beanbag guy did a good job of mitigating this by calling out "beanbag beanbag beanbag" before he fired. The other officers didn't shoot until the suspect raised his gun.

Yes the beanbag was the final step before the suspect reached for his gun, and taking that snippet alone I can see how the claim could be made that the officers forced the shooting. But given the totality of the circumstances throughout the entire event, I believe their actions were justified.

After 31 hrs. I have seen good plans go bad, surprisingly bad plans work well. Sometimes people died. I have my thoughts on this particular incident , which I would preface with, “Well I wasn’t there, but…”. In the end, it is a damn hard job. I am glad I don’t do it anymore.

Sadly, police have been conditioned over the last several years to make actions more “fair” for thugs by politics, thug communities, civil liability, etc. even though the standard for deadly force hasn’t been changed by the Supreme Court, it has within the court of public opinion. Every cop knows the threshold, but we see lots of vids where they “show amazing restraint” that flies in the face of long standing training to the point of endangering lives of officers and civilians alike. I’m happy to be retired.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
...I'm still shooting him.

Then how about this. Just schwack him at the beginning and be done with it? In a 1000 words, you just made the case for shooting him. And you hit every articulable reason out there. Based upon your articulation, shoot him.

I think you may think that in this case I’m against shooting this guy. If he needs shot, articulate it out and shoot him. Don’t fumble fuck around and muddy the waters in the post shoot investigation that could be used to get yourself indicted. People that are generally pro-cop on this right leaning forum have looked at these videos and said, “Yeah, got a picture? I bet it don’t look like this”. Imagine what the make up
Of the jury might b

If he needs shot, shoot him.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
...I'm still shooting him.

Then how about this. Just schwack him at the beginning and be done with it? In a 1000 words, you just made the case for shooting him. And you hit every articulable reason out there.

I think you may think that in this case I’m against shooting this guy. If he needs shot, articulate it out and shoot him. Don’t fumble fuck around and muddy the waters in the post shoot investigation that could be used to get yourself indicted. People that are generally pro-cop on this right leaning forum have looked at these videos and said, “Yeah, got a picture? I bet it don’t look like this”. Imagine what the make up
Of the jury might be.

If he needs shot, shoot him.

I posted a whole thing about what I thought you meant, and then ended up rambling at the end so I deleted it.

Very succinct. I love it.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
Sadly, police have been conditioned over the last several years to make actions more “fair” for thugs by politics, thug communities, civil liability, etc. even though the standard for deadly force hasn’t been changed by the Supreme Court, it has within the court of public opinion. Every cop knows the threshold, but we see lots of vids where they “show amazing restraint” that flies in the face of long standing training to the point of endangering lives of officers and civilians alike. I’m happy to be retired.

.

Yeah. And if you've actually done it you don't think first about saving the life of the suspect. You don't think about the other officers who may have been hurt. You don't think about any innocent bystanders who may have been collateral.

The thought that runs through your mind is "Holy fuck, and I going to prison?" It doesn't matter how right/justified/righteous you are. ALL you can think is if you career, and life, is about to be over.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

Then how about this. Just schwack him at the beginning and be done with it? In a 1000 words, you just made the case for shooting him. And you hit every articulable reason out there. Based upon your articulation, shoot him.

I think you may think that in this case I’m against shooting this guy. If he needs shot, articulate it out and shoot him. Don’t fumble fuck around and muddy the waters in the post shoot investigation that could be used to get yourself indicted. People that are generally pro-cop on this right leaning forum have looked at these videos and said, “Yeah, got a picture? I bet it don’t look like this”. Imagine what the make up
Of the jury might b

If he needs shot, shoot him.

Gotcha...I see your point now and agree. Tactically, their approach was unsound. Legally, they muddied the waters by attempting the less-lethal approach. In light of today's climate, and the last line of Kevin's post above, I can understand and sympathize with why they tried it...but they potentially just made things worse for themselves by doing so.