What if you felt threatened by an LEO?

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  • Ggreen

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    This is purely hypothetical. I am not anti authority just posing a question..

    LEO's are people, people can make bad decisions. Is there an acceptable situation to draw on a uniformed leo, if so what? What if an UC LEO made you feel threatened? In general I do not trust people, and I think most of us law abiding citizens who carry have a similar sentiment. Dirty cops make up the slimmest of margins, but there will always be a bad actor in any populous.

    I am not talking about being lawfully detained, or being noncompliant here. I am thinking at what point does it go from law enforcement to endangerment by a law enforcer? What would the aftermath be even if it were legal self defense? I would never want to be in such a situation, but these are the weird things I think about while trying to block out the smell of the deuce i'm laying down on the the $hi**#&.

    Bad example I know, but in 2006-2008 I was stationed at Holloman AFB in New Mexico, we would go to Juarez, Mexico on a regular basis. My friends and I were regularly detained by federali. They would grab us just after walking off of the bridge, put us on the wall at gunpoint, grab our wallets, and put them back with less money in them than when they grabbed them. We took it in stride and joked it off as the Reverse Immigration Tax. Looking back we were idiots to just visit the murder capitol of the world so nonchalantly on top of getting blacked out stupid and hoping that our stumbling would lead us back to the "safety" of El Paso. I do not foresee our society taking a nose dive into those types of deplorable conditions, but if I were carrying would I/Should I put up with getting mugged by uniformed LEO's?

    Again I am not anti police. I am compliant with traffic stops and I appreciate the hard work our LEO's do.
     

    BehindBlueI's

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    Well, let's work this through. If we assume your goal is survival, does drawing a gun on a uniformed officer, even one who's outside the bounds of his authority, increase or decrease the odds of you surviving? If the hypothetical cop is so dirty you need to draw, will that not be the hook to justify murdering you?

    The absolute closest thing I can think of in Indiana of a uniformed cop "mugging" someone was David Butler: https://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/07021501jgb.pdf

    Note he took their wallet but took the money while not in their presence. I think you'd have a tough time justifying pulling a gun in the circumstances described, despite the fact Butler was committing a crime at the time. Also note that in both cases OTHER cops showed up pretty quickly. Think for just a second what it's going to look like to officers not involved in the crime. Even plain clothes police have been shot because an officer sees them with a drawn gun and thinks they are threatening the uniformed guys they actually are helping. As the observing officer, you've got a split second to decide, and if you're wrong to not shoot you let your fellow officer get shot or if you're wrong to shoot, you shoot someone who doesn't deserve it. You don't have the luxury of time to gather additional facts, and you know that a warning may still let the "suspect" get a shot off even if they aren't in auditory exclusion and don't hear you. That's the situation you're in if you decide to have a gun out around a uniformed cop when other cops are responding. Plain clothes officers are trained to mitigate the risk but to recognize the risk is never eliminated and to be judicious about when and where to get involved.

    So, I'm not a big fan of "never", but it's a very desperate and very last ditch option.
     

    Ggreen

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    Well, let's work this through. If we assume your goal is survival, does drawing a gun on a uniformed officer, even one who's outside the bounds of his authority, increase or decrease the odds of you surviving? If the hypothetical cop is so dirty you need to draw, will that not be the hook to justify murdering you?

    The absolute closest thing I can think of in Indiana of a uniformed cop "mugging" someone was David Butler: https://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/07021501jgb.pdf

    Note he took their wallet but took the money while not in their presence. I think you'd have a tough time justifying pulling a gun in the circumstances described, despite the fact Butler was committing a crime at the time. Also note that in both cases OTHER cops showed up pretty quickly. Think for just a second what it's going to look like to officers not involved in the crime. Even plain clothes police have been shot because an officer sees them with a drawn gun and thinks they are threatening the uniformed guys they actually are helping. As the observing officer, you've got a split second to decide, and if you're wrong to not shoot you let your fellow officer get shot or if you're wrong to shoot, you shoot someone who doesn't deserve it. You don't have the luxury of time to gather additional facts, and you know that a warning may still let the "suspect" get a shot off even if they aren't in auditory exclusion and don't hear you. That's the situation you're in if you decide to have a gun out around a uniformed cop when other cops are responding. Plain clothes officers are trained to mitigate the risk but to recognize the risk is never eliminated and to be judicious about when and where to get involved.

    So, I'm not a big fan of "never", but it's a very desperate and very last ditch option.

    The way the federali robbed us there would be no chance of pulling or drawing on them. I imagine it would be the same type of situation in most urban environments.
    Like I said, very hypothetical. Growing up in rush county there was a story of a man going around in a retired police car with a fake uniform pulling people over. I can easily see impersonators as an issue or cause for alarm for those of us with wives or daughters in very rural areas. I've also seen quite a few surveillance tapes of people disguised as police involved in robberies. So going beyond the very limited possibility of a dirty cop and going into the impersonator scenario opens up a whole other set of what if's... I am a big proponent of comply comply comply but what about when the line is crossed and compliance becomes the pathway to becoming a victim?

    I do not want to bash any LEO nor do I want to implicate that enough bad ones are on active duty to even allow this scenario.
     

    ATM

    will argue for sammiches.
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    Double check the address before you kick down my door in the middle of the night, I don't care who you work for. ;)
     

    Cameramonkey

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    The first problem is equating the federali to rank and file USLEO.


    Personally, I think it goes off the rails at that point.

    Unless.....................................................................................WALLET!!!!!
     

    Ggreen

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    I never compared the two. In fact I started that I could not imagine or society deteriorating to that. But every great society eventually falls.
     

    Brad69

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    So my daughter had just turned 16 I sent her to grab some food one Sunday morning.
    Shortly thereafter I received a panicked call about a car with steam coming out and would not run.
    grabbed my keys and ran out the door when I arrived she was in the middle of a very busy intersection in Lawton,Ok.
    A uniformed police officer was directing traffic my wife had called a wrecker which had arrived.
    As I walked up the officer turn and came at me in a run I thought WTF?
    He proceeded to begin yelling about why did your daughter stopped in the intersection wrong move at the time I was a Senior Drill Sergeant and quite high strung. I went straight back at him we were nose to nose till a Detective stepped in it almost went south.
    So yes it can happen if it went bad I would be at fault no matter what.
    But when a police are shooting reporters for setting up tripods?
     

    IndyDave1776

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    The way the federali robbed us there would be no chance of pulling or drawing on them. I imagine it would be the same type of situation in most urban environments.
    Like I said, very hypothetical. Growing up in rush county there was a story of a man going around in a retired police car with a fake uniform pulling people over. I can easily see impersonators as an issue or cause for alarm for those of us with wives or daughters in very rural areas. I've also seen quite a few surveillance tapes of people disguised as police involved in robberies. So going beyond the very limited possibility of a dirty cop and going into the impersonator scenario opens up a whole other set of what if's... I am a big proponent of comply comply comply but what about when the line is crossed and compliance becomes the pathway to becoming a victim?

    I do not want to bash any LEO nor do I want to implicate that enough bad ones are on active duty to even allow this scenario.

    This reminds me of Bumperjack. He was a sergeant with the Department of Correction who had (mid-90s) a Caprice complete with lights and a radar device, and a hobby of stopping people and lecturing them about their driving issues. He stopped the wrong person one day who was observant enough to notice that he was wearing a DOC uniform rather than a LE uniform and proceeded to beat the living hell out of him with a bumper jack (hence the nickname). After he got out of the hospital he had to report to work in his street clothes and change into his uniform at work, then change back into his street clothes before leaving the institution.
     

    Fargo

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    Well, let's work this through. If we assume your goal is survival, does drawing a gun on a uniformed officer, even one who's outside the bounds of his authority, increase or decrease the odds of you surviving? If the hypothetical cop is so dirty you need to draw, will that not be the hook to justify murdering you?

    The absolute closest thing I can think of in Indiana of a uniformed cop "mugging" someone was David Butler: https://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/07021501jgb.pdf

    Note he took their wallet but took the money while not in their presence. I think you'd have a tough time justifying pulling a gun in the circumstances described, despite the fact Butler was committing a crime at the time. Also note that in both cases OTHER cops showed up pretty quickly. Think for just a second what it's going to look like to officers not involved in the crime. Even plain clothes police have been shot because an officer sees them with a drawn gun and thinks they are threatening the uniformed guys they actually are helping. As the observing officer, you've got a split second to decide, and if you're wrong to not shoot you let your fellow officer get shot or if you're wrong to shoot, you shoot someone who doesn't deserve it. You don't have the luxury of time to gather additional facts, and you know that a warning may still let the "suspect" get a shot off even if they aren't in auditory exclusion and don't hear you. That's the situation you're in if you decide to have a gun out around a uniformed cop when other cops are responding. Plain clothes officers are trained to mitigate the risk but to recognize the risk is never eliminated and to be judicious about when and where to get involved.

    So, I'm not a big fan of "never", but it's a very desperate and very last ditch option.

    There was this one:

    POWELL v. STATE | FindLaw
    While on duty as a police officer, sworn to “protect and serve,” Powell entered a house on the pretext of serving a search warrant.   While present he participated in killing the resident and seriously injuring two innocent bystanders.   And he did so for the sake of stealing drugs and money.   We are not persuaded that a sixty-five year sentence for Powell's crime is manifestly unreasonable.
     

    2A_Tom

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    Does 10 and 2 ring a bell. "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Thank you Sir, have a nice day".
     

    ATM

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    Does 10 and 2 ring a bell. "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Yes Sir", "Thank you Sir, have a nice day".

    What if I don't have a steering wheel in front of me and/or don't particularly feel like answering questions?

    dont_know_what_to_do.jpg
     

    Dean C.

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    [video=youtube;YSNb6NPoCy0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNb6NPoCy0&feature=youtu.be[/video]

    No badge or other identifying markings on the "officer" just saying
     

    Brad69

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    I would guess there is a group of individuals attracted to law enforcement for the perceived "power"?
    It seems that drawing a pistol when not necessary is common with some law enforcement agencies?
    In Indiana a plainclothes officer would think twice before running up on anyone with a drawn pistol right?
     
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