Cop orders man to put legal OC gun on ground. Kills him when he tries to comply.

[HoughMade]

If you don't see a gun, why tell him to drop it?

So when the police get a call about someone threatening the BK employees with a gun, they're supposed to assume he already ditched the gun when they find him crouched down beside a car- not his, hiding?

Why are we acting like there was no context to the police being there?

 

[Denny347]

How have I condemned her? Because I think she did not handle that interaction well? I'm not calling for her to be jailed. The system will determine if what she did was legal and just.

Telling someone to drop a gun when you do not see a gun is not the same as telling someone to show me your hands. I think that giving clear concise instructions could have avoided what happened here. Yelling drop the gun, when they could not see a gun, did nothing to resolve the encounter. Imagine what might have happened if instead the officers said, "Let me see your hands." And asked, "where is the gun?" Maybe then he doesn't pull the gun out to drop it and get shot.

You describe her as having "panicked and shot him" which is how bad shootings are described. Not sure I've ever heard a good shoot described as coming from a panicked decision. I have not seen the transcript of the shooting officer's account? How would I know WHAT they saw or didn't see? The camera is at sternum level, MUCH different line of sight than the officers. Do not assume that what YOU saw on the video is what the OFFICER saw. Because it rarely is.

 

[Dead Duck]

According to the media and his family, that dude was the holiest of saints. Loving father, neighborHOOD hero, great basketball player, had a great future, always came back stronger after falling down, etc... etc...

(I can't wait for their shoe to drop) Tox screen? Anybody?

He might have even out-sainted Michael Brown.

 

[chipbennett]

If you don't see a gun, why tell him to drop it?

Two reasons:

1) Dispatch told them they were dealing with someone suspected of assault with a deadly weapon
2) The bystander saying to them, "He has a gun"

Maybe if the officers had told him to show them his hands, he would have. Maybe then he wouldn't have had the gun in his hand, and she would not have panicked and shot him.

On what basis do you conclude that the officer panicked, as opposed to reacted appropriately to a reasonable belief based on facts as she knew them at the time?

You seem to want to defend their actions to the bitter end. The officers did not appear to handle this well.

I am merely trying to apply facts dispassionately. If it appears that I am defending the actions of the officers, that may be due to my evaluation being in such stark contrast to this thread's original post (and several subsequent comments). I don't think that I have rendered judgment the officer's actions or the righteousness of the use of deadly force?

 

[chipbennett]

And you have condemned them to the end. Time will tell who is right I suppose. I think Chip is being more pragmatist than defender but many see that as the same thing.

Exactly. I try to adhere to the maxim that The Truth Has No Agenda. I don't have a pro-cop or anti-cop bias or agenda, and believe that incidents should be evaluated on their own merits.

 

[chipbennett]

So when the police get a call about someone threatening the BK employees with a gun, they're supposed to assume he already ditched the gun when they find him crouched down beside a car- not his, hiding?

Why are we acting like there was no context to the police being there?

That's rhetorical, right?

 

[chipbennett]

For a potentially interesting/useful comparison to the justification of use of force in a police encounter, consider the ongoing trial of former officer Mohammad Noor for the shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk (Damond) in Minneapolis. Blogger and former police officer Mike McDaniel has been following the case, and recently discussed the trial's use-of-force considerations (by both the prosecution and the defense). He writes, in part:

[FONT=&amp]Wednesday (via MPR and Powerline):
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[FONT=&amp]Use of force expert Lt. Derrick Hacker, who according to Scott Johnson has an “incredible” resume, testified first. Unsurprisingly, he testified, without the slightest variance, that Noor’s use of deadly force was unjustified. There was no justification to shoot an unarmed woman, barefoot and in her pajamas, who was merely trying to speak with the police she called for help. Johnson:

[/FONT]​

After Hacker the prosecution called Timothy Longo, Sr. Longo is a nationally renowned expert. I was impressed that the prosecution found him to work on this case. He served, most recently, as the chief of police of the city of Charlottesville. He is now creating a master’s degree program on police issues for the University of Virginia while teaching as an adjunct professor teaching the police use of force at the University of Virginia Law School. You can get a glimpse (and I mean a glimpse) of his background at his law school page here.


​

[FONT=&amp]Longo was even more impressive and compelling than Hacker, and his testimony even more damaging to the defense:
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]

[/FONT]​

He emphasized that Harrity’s startled reaction to the alleged slap on the squad and silhouette to his left could not have warranted the use of deadly force by Harrity or Noor. Peter [defense] was unable to dent this judgment.
​

[FONT=&amp]
The defense made the neophyte mistake of asking a question to which they did not know the answer:

[/FONT]​

Peter tried to make the point that Longo had never had to make the split-second life or death decision that Noor had to make. Longo went into impressive detail on three such incidents in which he had chosen not to shoot.
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[FONT=&amp]
Thank God, competent officers take the time to be sure before shooting. Were Noor the reasonableness standard, the death toll of innocents would be astronomical.From MPR:
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[FONT=&amp]

[/FONT]​

A police use-of-force expert testified Wednesday that Mohamed Noor violated his police training the night he shot 911 caller Justine Ruszczyk and that ‘no reasonable police officer’ would have perceived Ruszczyk as a threat as she approached the squad in her pajamas.
Ruszczyk ‘did nothing wrong’ that night in the alley by her home, Crystal police Lt. Derrick Hacker told the court as he testified for the prosecution. ‘Police are approached daily. This happens routinely.’

Longo described it [Noor’s actions] as a ‘shoot first, ask questions later mentality.’

Hacker said he believes from his analysis of evidence that Noor had his gun out as he and his partner, officer Matthew Harrity, drove through the alley and that Ruszczyk was 4 feet from their squad vehicle when she was shot.
​

[FONT=&amp]
This too is damaging to the defense:

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Hacker told the court Wednesday that being startled doesn’t justify deadly force, and that an officer must first have to identify an actual threat.
‘The most reasonable force in this situation would have been no force at all,’ he said. [skip]

Longo, the prosecution’s second use-of-force expert called Noor’s use of deadly force ‘unreasonable, unnecessary and disproportionate to any perceived threat.’

Longo dismissed the idea that Rusczcyk was somehow at fault for approaching the police vehicle.

‘At the end of the day,’ he said of Ruszczyk, ‘this is a citizen who called the police seeking a public service, who has every right to go out (to the squad) and be sure that her community is safe.’
​

​

Note: Scott Johnson has also been covering the trial, via PowerLine Blog. (There may be a related INGO thread? Not sure.) But, it is a good place to start/catch up, in case you're not familiar with the incident or the trial.

I will also speculate that Mike McDaniel (someone with whom I have blogged, interacted via comments, and corresponded) and I might agree or disagree regarding Danquirs Franklin. He ends the above-linked blog post with an anecdote from his own experience as a police officer:

[FONT=&amp]I’ll provide an example I’ve used in the past to illustrate that competent officers do not shoot people without cause. One night I was sent to a call where a woman’s estranged husband was at her home, trying to get in and refusing to leave. When I arrived, he was sitting in his car in the driveway, the door locked, the window up. I took a position at, and slightly behind his door, and asked him to roll down the window and provide identification. He did neither, but sat there, pretending not to hear me. He was clearly aware of my presence, but strangely calm. I had no doubt he was working up to something; I just wasn’t sure what.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]After a few minutes of this, he leaned forward, reached behind him with his right hand, and pulled out a black object. He did it exactly as one would if fast-drawing a handgun, and he held it as though gripping a handgun as he thrust it forward as though pointing a handgun.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]While simultaneously leaping back and closer to the vehicle to make his firing angle worse, and simultaneously drawing my handgun, I yelped, an octave higher than usual, “gun!”to my back up officer. I went to low ready so I could clearly see what he was doing, and took the extra fractions of a second necessary to clearly identify what he had in his hand: a black wallet.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]I started breathing again, and in my normal register I told my back up, who was also approaching at low ready—he had been speaking with the wife at her front door—and we finally got the guy out. He was trying to commit suicide by cop. He knew exactly what he was doing, and expected me to shoot him. I took him in on an involuntary mental health commitment.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]If I fired, I would have been entirely justified. Any reasonable officer in that situation would have believed he was facing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death. But because I was highly skilled with my handgun, because I was intensely aware of my surroundings, because I had many years of experience, and because I used good tactics, I could afford to take those fractions of a second necessary to determine the man was no threat. That, and long before, I decided I’d rather take a bullet than wrongfully kill an innocent. Death is light as a feather, living with even a justified killing is forever debilitating to those with a conscience. He wanted to end his life; I saved it.
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[FONT=&amp]Consider that–and the professionalism and restraint of thousands of other police officers, who, unlike Noor, could have lawfully fired, but needed to be sure–in comparison to Mohamed Noor.

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I would be interested in Mike's take on the Franklin incident - though I imagine that it would be similar to Denny's take. Ultimately, the point is that certainly not all police uses of force are justified (and even when they are, the vast majority of good police officers will, for multiple reasons, hold themselves to an even higher, personal standard, sometimes even to the point of taking legally unnecessary personal risk).

Some incidents, such as the one involving Noor (or the one in Texas where the officer mistakenly entered the wrong house, thinking it was her own, and shooting the rightful homeowner while he sat in his own living room), are unquestionably beyond any rational discussion of reasonableness. Others, such as the one involving Franklin, are in what I, not being a police officer, would consider to be legally justifiable based on information, facts, and evidence at hand - but perhaps still in a "gray area" where there she use of force perhaps did not need to happen. And I, not being a police officer, am extremely reluctant to second-guess the officers involved, especially based on 20/20 hindsight and details not available to the officers in the moment.

Also, as a proponent of personal liberty and personal responsibility, I see an incident such as the one involving Franklin, and default to placing the blame primarily on his shoulders, because he chose to use his gun to threaten people (assault with deadly weapon without injury). Without his actions, the officers involved never would have been present - much less, arrived reasonably perceiving him to be a threat.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

Exactly. I try to adhere to the maxim that The Truth Has No Agenda. I don't have a pro-cop or anti-cop bias or agenda, and believe that incidents should be evaluated on their own merits.

Really? What the hell is wrong with you?
You can't inject REASON into this...

 

[chipbennett]

Really? What the hell is wrong with you?
You can't inject REASON into this...

I know, right?

 

[WestSider]

Do not assume that what YOU saw on the video is what the OFFICER saw. Because it rarely is.

You mean there is a difference between being there in the actual incident and sitting in a lazyboy recliner sipping coffee watching the body cam video multiple times at different speeds? Pssshhh...... sure thing buddy.....

 

[Xrage]

WOW, i usually give the police the benefit of the doubt. But she literally executed him while he was following her commands.

 

[VUPDblue]

 

[littletommy]

WOW, i usually give the police the benefit of the doubt. But she literally executed him while he was following her commands.

I heard he had recently turned his life around, as well.

 

[CPT Nervous]

WOW, i usually give the police the benefit of the doubt. But she literally executed him while he was following her commands.

WOW, if you call that "following commands" I would hate to see what you think non-compliance looks like.

 

[HoughMade]

I heard he had recently turned his life around, as well.

he was down to threatening people with guns only every other week.

 

[IndyTom]

Watching the unredacted video, once the cops showed up, I don’t know there is much he could have done physically if the gun wasn’t in his hand.

From that crouched position, it doesn’t look like raising his empty hands would have yielded a different result. I’m also not sure he could have gotten a word in edge-wise with the flurry of commands.

“My hands are empty and I am raising them,” might have been his only chance after spreading his fingers and making them visible. That would have required clarity of thought that he clearly didn’t possess before threatening someone in BK.