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To keep this thread open for discussion, please READ THIS BEFORE POSTING:The following types of posts are banworthy: - Nation bashing. - Significantly disrespectful posts toward any of the parties involved. Please familiarize yourself with some of the basics on the use of force in the United States before posting in this thread. If you feel the need to post a reaction to the news, post a comment on the youtube video. Don't bring it here. This thread is for a discussion on the topic, and your post better have substance to it. Low content posts will be met with moderator action. Here is a good post by someone with experience in escalation of force training. Read that too. This post might change your opinion of in the incident. |
On January 25 2012 11:41 OsoVega wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:37 MidKnight wrote:On January 25 2012 11:09 Kukaracha wrote:On January 25 2012 11:02 MidKnight wrote:On January 25 2012 10:55 Kukaracha wrote:On January 25 2012 10:49 MidKnight wrote:
The first 5 shots are obviously fine. The other 5 with basically no pause are not. If he had a gun, sure, kill him before he can respond. But he was obviously incapitated, he didn't even have the time to fall down to the ground when they shot another 5 "to make sure". He's not a fucking terminator, they don't know they can BACK OFF for a couple of seconds until he falls down?
Someone on YT video mentioned cops fear NOT killing their victim for the fear of revenge, that would make a lot of sense. I don't think you have the time to sit back and think about the consequences. You probably feel fear and an adrenaline rush and shoot until you're calm again, and this happens when you're sure that the threat is no more. Seriously. Stop playing FPS. They are supposed to be trained professionals tho, that's the difference. They should know the consequences of what happens when you shoot someone 5 times.There was no one around in the 20 meter radius and his only weapon was a crowbar. I see the case of trigger happy dumb-ass cops overreacting. The problem I see with this, and with r.Evo's reaction, is that you assume that the police can get the training given to special intervention forces. Really? Do you know how many cops there are out there? How much money it would cost to extensively train every single officer in martial art theory and crisis management? How many cops there would be if you only hired people with balls of steel and an impeccable self-control? Seriously, the guy is a cop. Low salary, just doing his job. Give him a break. If you want higher standards, find the money, and find suitables candidates. So how does it work? They just had a gun to every cop and say "Here, use this to protect and serve, gl hf"? I know shooting people in USA is not a big deal, but come on. Are cops really supposed to shoot anyone to death who shows any sign of aggression with any kind of weapon? I mean, I obviously do not know the exact details, the mental state of the cops or their previous experiences in these type of situations, but to say they didn't overreact is a bit silly. It's not in the slightest bit silly. A blow to the head with a metal bar can easily kill someone and can happen in less than a second.
By "Are cops really supposed to shoot anyone to death who shows any sign of aggression with any kind of weapon?" I obviously mean the fact that they made sure the guy would die with 5 additional shots which were fired so fast that suspect's body didn't even have the time to fall after the 5 initial ones.
I can understand the other 5 shots if the guy managed to lift up the weapon again or something and got shot instinctively, but he was blown away like 3 meters away from them from the first 5 shots and was clearly about to fall down, he had no long range weapon and there were no civilians in danger anywhere even close.
Yeah, it's understandable why would someone do this due (adrenaline etc.), but it's definitely not an example anyone should set.
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On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.-
dude this guy is not trained in the use of a warhammer. From his stance, can you not see that he could swing that thing in one motion? It certainly wouldnt take 1-2 seconds. It might not be the optimal way to swing that thing for lethal damage, but that hardly matters.
About your knife scenario. They certainly wouldnt have to shoot at that point. They are not within the range of the weapon. Now if one officer was like 5 meters away, and the suspect says "ill kill you" then goes into the motion of throwing the knife, shooting him would be justified. Yea its pretty far fetched to think this guy is a ninja or something, but there is a possibility of injury to the officer and the suspect is obviously not complying at that point.
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It really seems that the western Europeans don't have a clue how bad some areas are in the U.S, which makes sense because in the end they don't have as many areas that has the extreme dangers like we do. Anyways Monterey Park is one of the deadlier districts of Los Angeles county and I know through personal experience as I live in L.A county. The "thugs" here have such a low value on other human life that its disgusting. These armed and unintelligent animals that are most of the time, under the influence of hardcore drugs,aren't out to just to pose like a bad-ass, their out for blood. And in the end of the day, especially in these places its you or the other guy. And I'll tell you one thing if I was one of those cops, no way in hell would I take a hammer to the face in hopes of the asshole trying to harm me could be detained without the discharge of the firearm. I have parents, friends and a family too, there is no reason why I should disregard my personal safety in hopes of the suspect's non-lethal detainment. If you live in an area like this were danger is extremely abundant, you will learn very fast that when someone attempts to harm you, you put him to the fucking ground by any means necessary. Don't do that your dead, end of story. And if you say "He could have shot him in the leg," or "Wrestle him to the ground" well you sir should seriously stay out of the U.S and the Inner city as you wouldn't survive very long with that mentality.
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On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.-
@r.Evo I appreciate what you're trying to point out. But this is just how it is in the States. Especially in big cities like LA where there is lots of gang violence and in general violence. The majority if not all police officers are taught to take any threat to their life seriously. I get you say he was just threatening and his posture states he wouldn't have gone through with it and if he had there'd of been enough time to react. This just isn't how officers are trained in the US.
We as citizens also are aware that you listen to police officers when they tell you to do something, if you don't you risk injury or death. If you resist arrest when handcuffs are being put on you then you risk dislocating your shoulder or breaking something as the officers will try to get you into the cuffs. If you start a high speed chase you can expect they will do what they can to take your vehicle out while minimizing the damage to others. This could involve death as well if they take you out and your car goes out of control.
These are regular police. There's not enough money to do the training for every police officer. We are trillions of dollars in debt. You really think we have the money to give sophisticated and advanced training to every police officer? It's just not a reality.
If this was a situation where SWAT was called or anyone with more advanced training I'd of probably expected a different outcome. It wasn't though, these were regular police officers just doing their job to try to minimize any more damage and keep themselves/every innocent person around them safe. If you threaten a police officer, who has a gun pointed at you, with a weapon of your own. Prepare to get shot. It's something everyone in the US knows.
This may not be the way it is in Germany but this isn't something as shocking as it seems and I don't think most people in the States would expect a different outcome.
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On January 25 2012 11:57 callahanftw wrote:
It really seems that the western Europeans don't have a clue how bad some areas are in the U.S, which makes sense because in the end they don't have as many areas that has the extreme dangers like we do. Anyways Monterey Park is one of the deadlier districts of Los Angeles county and I know through personal experience as I live in L.A county. The "thugs" here have such a low value on other human life that its disgusting. These armed and unintelligent animals that are most of the time, under the influence of hardcore drugs,aren't out to just to pose like a bad-ass, their out for blood. And in the end of the day, especially in these places its you or the other guy. And I'll tell you one thing if I was one of those cops, no way in hell would I take a hammer to the face in hopes of the asshole trying to harm me could be detained without the discharge of the firearm. I have parents, friends and a family too, there is no reason why I should disregard my personal safety in hopes of the suspect's non-lethal detainment. If you live in an area like this were danger is extremely abundant, you will learn very fast that when someone attempts to harm you, you put him to the fucking ground by any means necessary. Don't do that your dead, end of story. And if you say "He could have shot him in the leg," or "Wrestle him to the ground" well you sir should seriously stay out of the U.S and the Inner city as you wouldn't survive very long with that mentality.
Agree with this. The "we don't do this in my country" people really don't understand the extent of the violence in certain places in the US. These are really not nice places with not nice people. If you live there and deal with these people, you want a serious police force that fights on level ground with criminals, not a volunteer watch brigade.
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On January 25 2012 11:56 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:47 OsoVega wrote:On January 25 2012 11:40 Deadlyhazard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:36 OsoVega wrote:On January 25 2012 11:28 Deadlyhazard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:26 plogamer wrote:
As a poster above mentioned, there was no re-evaluation of the situation after the initial shots. 10 shots, 3 seconds. I can't get over how rapidly and how much the cops shot. This too. Even if the taser situation didn't work out for whatever reason, there was no need to deliver that many shots to a bluff charge that the officers had time to react and get away. It should have been a shot to the knee cap or really anywhere else I'm sure this officer was trained to shoot towards. I don't care about the whole 'heat of the situation' argument, the officer shot to kill for whatever reason. This wasn't to take the suspect down, it was to kill him. You will never meet anyone who is trained in firearms to fire anywhere other than the center of mass with a handgun. Expecting anyone to shoot someone in the knee to defend themselves is fantastic. I imagine it would be very very difficult to aim a handgun in a situation like that for something specific. A knee was just an example. The training just sounds like its designed to make officers think poorly and not dynamically. Any other sane being would shoot anywhere else that isn't life threatening to disable the suspect, and if that suspect HAD ACTUALLY been pursuing the other officer rather than doing that turn around (he wasnt even charging at the officer at that point) THEN shoot to kill. And ten shots at the center of a large mass to take a guy down? REALLY? Ten shots? Anyone who was handling a gun in a situation in which they would have to defend themselves would know that specifically aiming at any point of the body at all is basically impossible, let alone somewhere that would be non-fatal. That is why people are taught to aim for the center of mass and nowhere else. Let me ask, have you ever handled a hand gun? Someone can close the distance between the suspect and the officer in less than two seconds and the suspect was clearly beginning an attack with his weapon. Two seconds are AGES in a situation like this. It's a LOT of time for all the parties involved. The suspect was not "clearly beginning an attack". You are interpreting, not observing. If you'd simply observe the situation you'd come to the conclusion that he was threatening to attack, not attacking. Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:50 askTeivospy wrote:On January 25 2012 11:40 Deadlyhazard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:36 OsoVega wrote:On January 25 2012 11:28 Deadlyhazard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:26 plogamer wrote:
As a poster above mentioned, there was no re-evaluation of the situation after the initial shots. 10 shots, 3 seconds. I can't get over how rapidly and how much the cops shot. This too. Even if the taser situation didn't work out for whatever reason, there was no need to deliver that many shots to a bluff charge that the officers had time to react and get away. It should have been a shot to the knee cap or really anywhere else I'm sure this officer was trained to shoot towards. I don't care about the whole 'heat of the situation' argument, the officer shot to kill for whatever reason. This wasn't to take the suspect down, it was to kill him. You will never meet anyone who is trained in firearms to fire anywhere other than the center of mass with a handgun. Expecting anyone to shoot someone in the knee to defend themselves is fantastic. I imagine it would be very very difficult to aim a handgun in a situation like that for something specific. A knee was just an example. The training just sounds like its designed to make officers think poorly and not dynamically. Any other sane being would shoot anywhere else that isn't life threatening to disable the suspect, and if that suspect HAD ACTUALLY been pursuing the other officer rather than doing that turn around (he wasnt even charging at the officer at that point) THEN shoot to kill. And ten shots at the center of a large mass to take a guy down? REALLY? Ten shots? I'd shoot where it wasn't life threatening to my partner, ie in the suspects chest to take him out If I was in the officers position, I'd do the exact same thing. This is the guy I work with and he's right in front of someone who is gesturing to not injure him, but kill him. What kind of person would you be if you told your partner that you didn't shoot the guy because you theorycrafted that he couldn't hit him properly. Shoot not to kill? He is shooting to stop the threat like that guy with experience (ie he is a relevant authority on the matter) said he was. He stopped the threat, and he saved his partners life I don't trust or like the police at all, but this video clearly shows that the officer was justified in taking action that he deemed necessary to stop the threat. If it was anyones fault that the suspect got shot it was the suspect for being a total idiot and gesturing like he's going to kill the officer Where? How? You make statements without backing them up. Someone who gestures to kill someone is hugely different from someone who is acting to kill someone. There is also a huge difference between "theorycrafting" and proper training for a high-stress situation like this. This should never be about theorycrafting, but about having such a situation internalized and reacting properly. This is not about some flaw in someones thoughtprocess, this is about a flaw in his personal "panic button", which was pushed too early.
btw if the suspect is threatening to kill, the officer can shoot. How many times has someone died because they reached into their pocket. Even if they had no guns, the officer percieved it as a threat. They certainly would not wait until they absolutely see a gun pulled out and aimed at them. Thats idiotic. Same case here. They dont have to wait until there is an attack motion. Gesturing in that way is absolutely asking to get shot.
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On January 25 2012 11:57 gameguard wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.- dude this guy is not trained in the use of a warhammer. From his stance, can you not see that he could swing that thing in one motion? It certainly wouldnt take 1-2 seconds. It might not be the optimal way to swing that thing for lethal damage, but that hardly matters.About your knife scenario. They certainly wouldnt have to shoot at that point. They are not within the range of the weapon. Now if one officer was like 5 meters away, and the suspect says "ill kill you" then goes into the motion of throwing the knife, shooting him would be justified. Yea its pretty far fetched to think this guy is a ninja or something, but there is a possibility of injury to the officer and the suspect is obviously not complying at that point.
Don't LOOK at it. Take a similar object, take a similar stance as he does. It is physically impossible to hit someone from that position without further movement. In fact I'm willing bet that most people who want to hit from that position will try to lunge out further behind their back.
(To be completely precise I just found a way of hitting properly from that position which would involve shifting your weight to your right foot, moving your left foot next to your right foot and using your right foot as an angle for the strike in that moment. Now THAT would mean he's a trained Ninja who's gonna dissappear in a smoke screen right after though. Not to mention that switching from his "im a big scary boxer"-movement into that would look kinda funny if he managed to pull that off. =P)
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My only question is, why the hell did the cops get so close in the first place? They had a freaking dog, stay at range and then USE IT if the suspect doesn't cooperate. Society functioned just fine for decades with trained K9's subduing suspects. Just seems like the cops were idiots and decided to put themselves DIRECTLY in harms way and then obviously had to shoot the guy when he became aggressive. I don't blame them at all for shooting, but I do blame them for putting themselves in what seems like the worst position to allow that to occur.
I've seen more and more stories where cops put themselves "in the action" where they use to stay at range until they knew the exact situation to act accordingly. This wasn't some guy with an AK47 mowing people down needing to be taken down ASAP. He had a pipe and everyone seemed to have been staying at a safe distance EXCEPT for the freaking cops. It's reported the guy has a pipe and you then get within fucking Pipe Swinging Range? Too many freaking Rambo's these days.
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On January 25 2012 12:05 Hrrrrm wrote:
My only question is, why the hell did the cops get so close in the first place? They had a freaking dog, stay at range and then USE IT if the suspect doesn't cooperate. Society functioned just fine for decades with trained K9's subduing suspects. Just seems like the cops were idiots and decided to put themselves DIRECTLY in harms way and then obviously had to shoot the guy when he became aggressive. I don't blame them at all for shooting, but I do blame them for putting themselves in what seems like the worst position to allow that to occur.
I've seen more and more stories where cops put themselves "in the action" where they use to stay at range until they knew the exact situation to act accordingly. This wasn't some guy with an AK47 mowing people down needing to be taken down ASAP. He had a pipe and everyone seemed to have been staying at a safe distance EXCEPT for the freaking cops. It's reported the guy has a pipe and you then get within fucking Pipe Swinging Range? Too many freaking Rambo's these days.
The guy was out and moving - they couldn't secure the entire area so they had to be close to make sure they could stop him if he decided to start attacking random people.
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Whenever people talk about real guns as opposed to games, they say that it is really heavy, hence using both hands to shoot and you can't really spray shoot without shooting all over the place. This cop shot the guy by holding the gun with only 1 hand and he didn't seem to have alot (or any) recoil. Maybe the gun he used was like a weaker-than-standard model, which would explain why he took alot of shots, although the last 5 shots is still unwarranted.
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On January 25 2012 11:59 Xinder wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.- @r.Evo I appreciate what you're trying to point out. But this is just how it is in the States. Especially in big cities like LA where there is lots of gang violence and in general violence. The majority if not all police officers are taught to take any threat to their life seriously. I get you say he was just threatening and his posture states he wouldn't have gone through with it and if he had there'd of been enough time to react. This just isn't how officers are trained in the US.We as citizens also are aware that you listen to police officers when they tell you to do something, if you don't you risk injury or death. If you resist arrest when handcuffs are being put on you then you risk dislocating your shoulder or breaking something as the officers will try to get you into the cuffs. If you start a high speed chase you can expect they will do what they can to take your vehicle out while minimizing the damage to others. This could involve death as well if they take you out and your car goes out of control. These are regular police. There's not enough money to do the training for every police officer. We are trillions of dollars in debt. You really think we have the money to give sophisticated and advanced training to every police officer? It's just not a reality. If this was a situation where SWAT was called or anyone with more advanced training I'd of probably expected a different outcome. It wasn't though, these were regular police officers just doing their job to try to minimize any more damage and keep themselves/every innocent person around them safe. If you threaten a police officer, who has a gun pointed at you, with a weapon of your own. Prepare to get shot. It's something everyone in the US knows.This may not be the way it is in Germany but this isn't something as shocking as it seems and I don't think most people in the States would expect a different outcome.
If the parts I just bolded are what every US citizen agrees with then there is indeed no need for further discussion. I, as someone who finds the officers behavour excessive, amateurish (see my previous posts for my argument on those two things) and absolutely intorable in any kind of society which claims to respect their people, have yet to see any argument regarding the points I brought up besides "Well, that's just how we roll 'cause our gouvernment doesn't have money to train our police better. This is good and we like it that way!"
I'd actually say that I'm pretty damn disappointed if that's the general consens on something that's supposed to protect citizens and not harm them.
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On January 25 2012 12:12 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:59 Xinder wrote:On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.- @r.Evo I appreciate what you're trying to point out. But this is just how it is in the States. Especially in big cities like LA where there is lots of gang violence and in general violence. The majority if not all police officers are taught to take any threat to their life seriously. I get you say he was just threatening and his posture states he wouldn't have gone through with it and if he had there'd of been enough time to react. This just isn't how officers are trained in the US.We as citizens also are aware that you listen to police officers when they tell you to do something, if you don't you risk injury or death. If you resist arrest when handcuffs are being put on you then you risk dislocating your shoulder or breaking something as the officers will try to get you into the cuffs. If you start a high speed chase you can expect they will do what they can to take your vehicle out while minimizing the damage to others. This could involve death as well if they take you out and your car goes out of control. These are regular police. There's not enough money to do the training for every police officer. We are trillions of dollars in debt. You really think we have the money to give sophisticated and advanced training to every police officer? It's just not a reality. If this was a situation where SWAT was called or anyone with more advanced training I'd of probably expected a different outcome. It wasn't though, these were regular police officers just doing their job to try to minimize any more damage and keep themselves/every innocent person around them safe. If you threaten a police officer, who has a gun pointed at you, with a weapon of your own. Prepare to get shot. It's something everyone in the US knows.This may not be the way it is in Germany but this isn't something as shocking as it seems and I don't think most people in the States would expect a different outcome. If the parts I just bolded are what every US citizen agrees with then there is indeed no need for further discussion.
Pretty much yeah.
Especially in Los Angeles County. Cop tells you to put your hands up you friggin' do it.
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Why would a crowball be killing police? GOtta be carefull out there officers
User was temp banned for this post.
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Excessive?
Better safe than sorry. I would have done the same.
Edit: Assuming I judged my life or the life of someone I cared about were in danger.
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On January 25 2012 12:12 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:59 Xinder wrote:On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.- @r.Evo I appreciate what you're trying to point out. But this is just how it is in the States. Especially in big cities like LA where there is lots of gang violence and in general violence. The majority if not all police officers are taught to take any threat to their life seriously. I get you say he was just threatening and his posture states he wouldn't have gone through with it and if he had there'd of been enough time to react. This just isn't how officers are trained in the US.We as citizens also are aware that you listen to police officers when they tell you to do something, if you don't you risk injury or death. If you resist arrest when handcuffs are being put on you then you risk dislocating your shoulder or breaking something as the officers will try to get you into the cuffs. If you start a high speed chase you can expect they will do what they can to take your vehicle out while minimizing the damage to others. This could involve death as well if they take you out and your car goes out of control. These are regular police. There's not enough money to do the training for every police officer. We are trillions of dollars in debt. You really think we have the money to give sophisticated and advanced training to every police officer? It's just not a reality. If this was a situation where SWAT was called or anyone with more advanced training I'd of probably expected a different outcome. It wasn't though, these were regular police officers just doing their job to try to minimize any more damage and keep themselves/every innocent person around them safe. If you threaten a police officer, who has a gun pointed at you, with a weapon of your own. Prepare to get shot. It's something everyone in the US knows.This may not be the way it is in Germany but this isn't something as shocking as it seems and I don't think most people in the States would expect a different outcome. If the parts I just bolded are what every US citizen agrees with then there is indeed no need for further discussion. I, as someone who finds the officers behavour excessive, amateurish (see my previous posts for my argument on those two things) and absolutely intorable in any kind of society which claims to respect their people, have yet to see any argument regarding the points I brought up besides "Well, that's just how we roll 'cause our gouvernment doesn't have money to train our police better. This is good and we like it that way!"I'd actually say that I'm pretty damn disappointed if that's the general consens on something that's supposed to protect citizens and not harm them.
I guess it's just a situation of never had anything different so why expect something different now. Also just because of how one situation appears doesn't mean that our law enforcement is awful. They do they best job they can given the training they are provided with. Expecting more of them is unfair.
Now maybe we should be expecting more of our government to train them better to avoid less deaths, but with the way our debt is now to do something like that would likely cause taxes to be raised so we wouldn't have to increase the debt another few trillion. This is also something that most people would not be in support of. So we view it as "hey this stupid mother fucker threatened a cop with a deadly weapon and got shot." "Meh guess he shouldn't have threatened a cop who had a gun pointed at him."
It's just reality in the US and I don't think there are that many people that feel unsafe because of it. I mean if you live in a shady neighborhood to begin with I'm sure you're nervous but at the same time you also know that if you need help you can call the cops and they'll show up to protect you day or night no matter what.
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That was absolutely NOT an unnecesary amount of bullets... looks completely and relatively standard to me. And it does seem like the suspect was acting suspicious.
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If the parts I just bolded are what every US citizen agrees with then there is indeed no need for further discussion. I, as someone who finds the officers behavour excessive, amateurish (see my previous posts for my argument on those two things) and absolutely intorable in any kind of society which claims to respect their people, have yet to see any argument regarding the points I brought besides "Well, that's just how we roll 'cause our gouvernment doesn't have money to train our police better. This is good and we like it that way!"
I'd actually say that I'm pretty damn disappointed if that's the general consens on something that's supposed to protect citizens and not harm them.
First off, I am a german-american and I have been to Germany and just love the country and people so much love to you sir <3. Anyways I am a U.S citizen and I do agree with the points you have bolded. If you are armed and have the intent to harm others, and you joke around with a police office who has his gun drawn, then you deserve to get shot. You gotta understand this is a pretty dangerous place, the officers want to get home to their wife and kids and they are not going to play games with someone. They are going to do what it takes to subdue the suspect through ANY MEANS NECESSARY! Had it been some place where crime isn't nearly as common, then yes I would have to agree with you it was excessive. That suspect was out to hurt people, you don't just go out in public and break windows with a war hammar for shits n gigs. This is good and we like it that way!"
Honesty we don't like it, but its the way it has to be. It would be nice if inner city Los Angeles was a utopia where everything is perfect and safe, but its not... It's filled with countless amounts of scumbags that want to take your life for their own pleasure. Its unfortunate but its just the way it is here. The training employed to our officers is to ensure their own personal safety as well as others. An armed scumbag out in public causing terror among others and screwing around with armed policemen gives up his right to live and to be subdued in a non-lethal fashion.
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1. Is this information accurate for 100%? Because it kinda looks like a gas gun + guy is cuffed after that.
If that is truth and they indeed had live rounds then I don't consider shooting 5 rounds at a guy with a hammer (who btw. did not swing it even once despite what they wrote) and then 5 another rounds after he already was on the ground as neccesary, or adequate in this situation.
Don't say they're trained for this. If a guy with a hammer will come to your home at night, where your wife and kids sleep, you shot him with 10 bullets, we can say it's justified.
But this is police action, I see at least 3 cops, open space, guy comes out from shop with a hammer. So what I think they should be trained for is: stay out of range of 2m???, paralyze him(tried), shoot him once?twice?
No, he fired 5 rounds and then after that, another 5. Guy was overwhelmed after 2 first. This is just too much.
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I feel he could have just released the dog. They're trained to go for a suspects arms, and then they could have used their nightsticks to subdue him while distracted.
I do not agree with either the police training, or the individuals decision.
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On January 25 2012 12:12 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 11:59 Xinder wrote:On January 25 2012 11:46 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:37 gameguard wrote:On January 25 2012 11:27 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 11:11 Tula wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:On January 25 2012 06:25 sMi.EternaL wrote:
I very rarely post in these types of threads. Emotions usually run high and opinions are always fickle beasts. That being said, since this is actually an area in which I am very familiar I will try to shed some light on the situation for those saying this is an unjustified shoot.
A little background first. I am a former Marine weapons instructor and am now a private sector weapons instructor. As someone that teaches officers what to do in this situation I can say that this is an absolutely justifiable shoot.
In the Law Enforcement/Military world you are taught to shoot to stop the threat. Stop the threat means exactly that. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. This officer did exactly what he should have done and fell back on his training and by doing so potentially saved the life of his partner. His initial burst did not drop the suspect, as you can see he's still standing, they have no way of knowing what kind of weapons systems he is carrying on his person other than the object in his hand. You either put the threat down and know you're safe or gamble with your life and the lives of those around you. How horrible would you feel if you were this officer, you shot your initial rounds and then stopped giving the suspect time to pull his pistol from his waistband and kill your partner? It happens, and so we train to make sure that does NOT happen.
I personally teach every student I've ever trained that his main priority is to make it home safe. Your wife/kids/husband/partner are expecting you & counting on you. If someone is coming at you/friend/family, you drop them absolutely. You never shoot to kill but you always shoot to stop the threat, in most cases this will kill the individual but that is never our intention. Hindsight and outside perspective is extremely skewed in these types of situations.
As far as being able to justify a shooting you have to be able to say to yourself, DAM! DAM is Desire, Ability and Means. This suspect displayed desire, he was well within range/had the capability to end that officers life and he definitely had the means.
Food for thought: In most states if a person puts their bare hand into their pocket/paper bag/anything and even IMPLIES that he has a gun, you are well within your rights to shoot that person in self defense. If a person walks into a bank and tries to rob it in this manner he still gets assault with a deadly weapon/armed robbery etc charges. And those cases happen more frequently than you might think. In this case the suspect very obviously had a weapon and displayed an attempt to use it. Training kicked in and that was all she wrote. Hi there. I kinda feel the need to respond to your post since it's being quoted as high quality and therefore supposedly the highest post from the "this shoot is justified" position. I am no weapons instructor or ex-marine. However, I am training in various martial arts since about 8 years total, I have trained with several police officers and had instructors with a background ranging from ex-military to ex-special ops. I have also received training on small arms and the topic of "When does which situation call for a complete escalation?" is something everyone in this sector should be familar with. Coming from a martial arts and no military background I am able to use weapons like swords, knives or baseball bats (which is probably the best comparison to the suspects crowbar) and I therefor know how they work and how they don't work. There is no sugar coating a threat engagement, in high intensity situations like this your brain stops and your training takes over. This is called a "Body Alarm Response," your previous highest level of training literally takes over and often times you don't even realize what was happening until after the fact. I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer. He holds the crowbar at the bottom end. While this part is technicly "correct" for a blunt weapon like this (think baseball bat) he has the weapon in one line with his body, the right hand above and behind his left hand, the heavy point of the weapon at neck height. If this was a Katana (which would be balanced right above his right hand), he could instantly strike and hurt someone. Since this however is a crowbar, to swing it at the officer he would have to: a) lunge out behind his back (backwards motion) to then swing at the officer (think baseball-batter). b) tilt the crowbar to the (from him) right side and then turn his body to swing it from right to left. c) apply pressure with his right hand to swing it downwards. a) and b) are easy to spot (we're talking 1-2s+ reaction time each) and are imo the correct moment to shoot at him. c) is (remember, we're talking crowbar and not katana here) incredibly slow, even for someone with huge strength (his right hand would have to be higher up the crowbar to do this with speed since the balance point is at the other end of that thing) and, in case he actually moves the right hand up in preparation, (hint: again a sign to shoot at him) incredibly short range compared to the distance the officer has to him at that point. What I'm seeing from this video, concerning the officers responses is that both are badly trained and overreacting.The officer who is "under attack" (let's call him A) misses his taser shot, walks towards the suspect while fiddling around in his pocket and not looking at the suspect, then looks up and his first reaction is not drawing his weapon. It's not stepping outside of range. It's not evading a potential fatal blow. It is making a jump backwards and ducking because he's afraid (if the suspect would have swung his crowbar while turning, his head would be right in its way. Good job, well played). His reaction is not that of a person trained in close combat. It's the same reaction any untrained civilian would show. B sees the suspect getting into a position from which he is not able to take action against his partner (see above), but a position that looks scary - I completely agree. If his Body Alarm Response is to shoot the second something LOOKS threatening then he is either horribly trained or mentally not fit for the job. He does not understand or realize that the suspect was threatening to hit his partner, but not (yet) intending to do so. If he WANTED to smack his face in while having a gun pointed in his face he would have hit the second he turned around, WITHOUT getting his weapon in the above mentioned "ready position". (He could have easily just turned around while swinging the weapon, most likely hitting A pretty damn hard and without any handgun in the world stopping him from doing so. Remember: A wasn't even looking at him because he was busy with getting his taser back into his pocket.) Not realizing or understanding this crucial difference as officer B makes shooting the suspect a horrible call. As someone who has been in fights before and has seen fights before, I am absolutely certain that the suspect in that video did not intend to hit the officer at the moment shots were fired, he intended to threaten him. Was it stupid? Yes. You don't fucking threaten someone while his buddy has a gun in your face. Was his threat a justification to open fire on him? No way.PS: If anyone comes up with "yeah but you can't analyze that in the moment while it's happening" - THAT is what good training is about. As someone who is carrying a weapon you have to be able to make very close calls within a very short time frame under high stress. If you aren't able to do that, you are not fit for the job. It's that simple. My initial reaction while watching the video was pretty much "wtf he didn't want to hit anyone" when the shots were fired. Yes, I needed to rewatch the video multiple times to understand WHY this was my initial reaction, however it is still the reaction of someone who is trained to correctly read such a situation and to avoid anyone involved getting hurt more than they should be. Even if I take the training I recieved when it comes to actual bodyguarding into account this is still NOT the situation where you have to go all out to save someones ass. PPS: I would love to hear what the police officers actually said to the suspect. If I missed any kind transcript in the thread, please tell me so. Two points of note regarding your post: 1) For all intents and purposes you are vastly more trained and qualified to discuss hand to hand combat and weapons than the cops in question. Aside from a fairly basic training most police officers are not trained for hand to hand or close quarter combat. That might be a mistake which leads to situations such as this, but it is also a fact. In point of fact, they will most likely not need such extensive hand to hand training throughout most of their job either. Spec ops or even military operators are trained with a certain amount of hand to hand in mind, police officers not really. 2) I'll bow to your superior knowledge regarding his stance, but i must let you know that my reaction to the video was fairly different to yours. Granted i finished my service nearly 10 years ago, but if the situation had happened to me, i most likely would have shot to cover my partner as well.
Threatening to strike is exactly what we were trained to look for, simply because we are NOT trained to the level you seem to have been. A lurch towards the officer coupled with raising a weapon is pretty much more warning than you ever expect to receive.Maybe you are correct, as i said you seem to know more about hth than I do, but by any handbook i know what he did was more than enough to justify a shot (and VERY stupid to boot). Honestly, just try it out. (I just took a wooden katana I've got lying around here and held it the wrong way around to make sure im not spewing out complete bullshit) - copy the way he's standing (left foot in front, right behind), knees slightly bent and then hold an object that's similar to that crowbar or a baseball bat like he does. You will, most likely, notice that it's incredibly awkward if you actually want to HIT something or someone from that position. It's kinda similar to someone raising his chin and having his fists to the side of his body instead of his front. It's a threatening gesture, not an attacking one. On January 25 2012 11:12 Jaso wrote:
^
Basically what you're saying is that the cops should've waited until AFTER the officer was hit/killed until they started firing? I believe that goes against every part of "self defense"...
(I'm aware of r.Evo's post which stated the guy had no intention of actually attacking the officer, but the guy wasn't a professional. There's the chance he was holding that like a blind fool. Even if he wasn't planning to, the fact that he turned towards the officer is a pretty big risk to take.) Well, the plain fact that he did what he did while having someone point a gun to his face isn't exactly what I'd call clever in the first place. =D I'm pretty sure that guy is by no means a "professional", but here's another point: He is NOT jumping AT the officer. He is kinda hopping towards him (like a boxer would) - which makes no sense at all if you want to hit him. A crazy person who wants to smack your head in with a crowbar simply won't move like that. (Imagine yourself in that situation. Try out how you would act when you want to be like OMG GET OFF MY BALLS YOU MOTHER**** and how you would act when you are GOING TO SMASH THAT GUYS HEAD IN RIGHT NOW. Those are highly different mindsets and they result in highly different movements. The ability to spot that difference should be what someone who works in law-enforcement should be capable of. Thats all theoretical. Why would the officer risk injury to his partner for the chance that he might be gesturing? Even if everything you say is true, there is no reason for him to wait until the suspect is in swinging motion. It could be too late by then. Personally, the stance pretty much looks like a baseball bat swing. He could have swung it diagonally quite easily and fast. 10 shots might seem like its alot, but they were within the range of the suspect's weapon. He was likely coked the fuck up so a couple shots might not drop him. I never once said to wait for the swinging motion. Also, no, it doesn't look like a baseball bat swing. From his current position he HAS to make a 1-2s long move to get into a position from where he can swing. If his action until that point is just a threat you have still time to wait for him getting into position. Baseball bat swing: + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAUxyoisdk As I said earlier, try it out for yourself. On January 25 2012 11:37 Skullflower wrote:On January 25 2012 10:58 r.Evo wrote:I completely agree. This should be the goal of any physical training in this departement. However the suspect in this short film is by no means displaying the intention to attack the policeman. He turns. He jumps towards the cop like a boxer, having his weapon in a position ready to strike. As scary as that might look, he is in no position to actually swing that weapon properly against the officer.
It doesn't matter at all if he was in no position to swing at the officer. He turned around and threatened the officer with a deadly weapon and the other officer responded in kind. If a police officer can't distinguish between a threat with a deadly weapon and the upcoming use of a deadly weapon he is not fit for the job. If the police officer is 20m from a subject, he pulls a knife and shouts "I'LL KILL YOU!!" while jumping 1m forward this would also not be a scenario where shooting the subject would be appropriate since he wouldn't be able to actually hurt the officier. You sound as if "Well, I kinda felt threatened by him shouting so I shot at him" would be a solid argument as well. PS: Is the fact that like 4 people in the last 10 posts are commenting on things I analyzed pretty in-depth in my wall of text like 2 pages ago a sign for people not reading the thread or for people just wanting to vent randomly without actually caring about the what & why? -.- @r.Evo I appreciate what you're trying to point out. But this is just how it is in the States. Especially in big cities like LA where there is lots of gang violence and in general violence. The majority if not all police officers are taught to take any threat to their life seriously. I get you say he was just threatening and his posture states he wouldn't have gone through with it and if he had there'd of been enough time to react. This just isn't how officers are trained in the US.We as citizens also are aware that you listen to police officers when they tell you to do something, if you don't you risk injury or death. If you resist arrest when handcuffs are being put on you then you risk dislocating your shoulder or breaking something as the officers will try to get you into the cuffs. If you start a high speed chase you can expect they will do what they can to take your vehicle out while minimizing the damage to others. This could involve death as well if they take you out and your car goes out of control. These are regular police. There's not enough money to do the training for every police officer. We are trillions of dollars in debt. You really think we have the money to give sophisticated and advanced training to every police officer? It's just not a reality. If this was a situation where SWAT was called or anyone with more advanced training I'd of probably expected a different outcome. It wasn't though, these were regular police officers just doing their job to try to minimize any more damage and keep themselves/every innocent person around them safe. If you threaten a police officer, who has a gun pointed at you, with a weapon of your own. Prepare to get shot. It's something everyone in the US knows.This may not be the way it is in Germany but this isn't something as shocking as it seems and I don't think most people in the States would expect a different outcome. If the parts I just bolded are what every US citizen agrees with then there is indeed no need for further discussion. I, as someone who finds the officers behavour excessive, amateurish (see my previous posts for my argument on those two things) and absolutely intorable in any kind of society which claims to respect their people, have yet to see any argument regarding the points I brought up besides "Well, that's just how we roll 'cause our gouvernment doesn't have money to train our police better. This is good and we like it that way!"I'd actually say that I'm pretty damn disappointed if that's the general consens on something that's supposed to protect citizens and not harm them.
It's not a matter of not harming your citizens. If you obey the police, they will not fire. If you disagree with what they are doing, take it up in court. Its a basic premise that a lot of citizens follow, but violent ones often do not, and are dealt with accordingly.
Still, the officers do appear untrained, and the dog should have been used after the taser proved ineffective,
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