Citizens perspective after an Officer's Use of Force

After a week of incidents around Western Washington that have involved four Officer Involved Shootings and two deadly Taser Applications, there are a lot of questions coming from citizens, who may have good intentions, but are mostly uninformed about how use of force by a law enforcement officer actually works.

A quick synopsis of the incidents:

Monday, August 30, 2010 – Seattle Police Officer shot and killed a man after he ignored commands to drop a knife.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 – Pierce County Sheriff Deputy used a Taser on an unruly man, who later stopped breathing and died.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 – Federal Way Police Officer shot and killed a man after the Officer perceived that the driver of the truck was attempting to back the truck up towards the Officer.

Friday, September 3, 2010 – Tacoma Police Officers killed a man who was threatening people with a knife, then raised the knife and approached the Officers as they attempted to contact him.

Friday, September 3, 2010 – Seattle Police Officers shot a man who pointed an AK-47 at them. This man was wounded, but not killed.

Saturday, September 4, 2010 – Snohomish County Sheriff Deputy used a Taser on a man, who stopped breathing and died.

Let me begin by stating that I do not have any direct knowledge of any of these incidents as I was not there. This posting is not to discuss the tactics used or whether or not the incidents were justified or not. This posting is to discuss the publics reaction to these incidents and how they perceive what happened and what should have happened.

I do understand that there are some who comment on news articles with ignorance, there are also those who speak intelligently and with reason.

Tennessee v. Garner (471 U.S. 1)


http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=471&invol=1


Tennessee v. Garner was a major U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1985 that clarified the “fleeing felon” rule that was law stemming from the beginnings of our country. Basically, prior to the ruling, deadly force could be used for any “fleeing felon” in any felony situation, whether it is Murder, Bank Robbery, Check Fraud, or Stealing a Horse. The U.S. Supreme Court Justices decided that there needed to be some guidelines for when it was reasonable for a Law Enforcement Officer to use deadly force.

There are two prongs to the Tennessee v. Garner decision:

1. Officers are authorized to use deadly force against any person as necessary in self-defense or the defense of another, when they have reason to believe they or another are in immediate danger of death or serious physical harm.

2. Officers are authorized to use deadly force to capture or seize a dangerous suspect when there is probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, and there is no reasonably safe means of preventing the suspect's escape.

What is Deadly Force? (as defined by the Revised Code of Washington)
Deadly Force is the intentional application of force through the use of firearms or other means reasonably likely to cause death or serious physical injury. (RCW 9A.16.010)

What is a Deadly Weapon? (as defined by the Revised Code of Washington)
Deadly Weapon means any explosive or loaded or unloaded firearm, and shall include any other weapon, device, instrument, article, or substance, including a vehicle as defined in this section, which, under the circumstances in which it is used, attempted to be used, or threatened to be used, is readily capable of causing death or substantial bodily harm. (9A.04.110)

What is Substantial Bodily Harm? (as defined by the Revised Code of Washington)
Substantial Bodily Harm is bodily injury which involves a temporary but substantial disfigurement, or which causes a temporary but substantial loss or impairment of the function of any bodily part or organ, or which causes a fracture of any bodily part. (9A.04.110)

Here are a few comments left by citizens on various news forums reference the recent incidents:


“Didn't police used to have some sort of guideline about not using their gun unless they were confronted with one?”

“Ok, I have a six shooter, so I will put a couple rubber bullets in for the guy with a knife if he is acting funny, bean bags if he advances on me, a real bullets encased he pulls a gun. Then I will just select the one I want as I need them.”

“Even a Rubber bullet is much more useful when confronting someone with a knife instead of killing people!!!”

“Two cops with tasers and other non-lethal things couldn't subdue someone with a knife several feet away?”

“Disabling the victim would of been a lot more humane than firing up to 7 shots from 10-15 feet away. One shot can kill a person from fifteen away. “

“Cops train to fight off knife suspects, and nearly every other tactic does not include shooting them.”

“I think these two cops (once they're cleared of wrong-doing and off their paid vacations) should be disarmed and given only pepper spray and tasers until they can learn the difference between a real threat and a dumb__s waving a knife. Seriously, this guy probably could have been knocked down with stick.”

“I stand with the justifiable force for the stolen truck coming at them, but this one. why not shoot his hand or knee?”

“The man obviously had a mental problem. He attacked no-one in the store or outside. 7 shots ...1 shot would have stopped him. Who, has been training these Tacoma Police Officers.....do they get their training in Bagdad,Kabul or Takuhr?”

“7 shots. I received extensive training while in the military. It doe's not take 7 shots to take down a guy with a knife.”

“I can't imagine how 2 highly trained officers with a myriad of weapons and backup available could feel as though their lives were endangered by one man holding a dollar store kitchen knife they had cornered in a bus stop.”

“I have been deer hunting and the good hunters take down their deer with one shot. They don't use a machine gun. I once shot a charging boar with one shot.”

“Our murderers in blue strike again. They were 15 feet away from him. Could they not have kept him contained, called for back up that had a tazer and then waited? Or, are they so filled with bloodlust that they can't wait to kill a man? Hell, even their pepper spray can shoot a fairly long stream.”

“Too many CHERRY officers out there with itchy trigger fingers. Something needs to be done! Better training, education, and proper equipment (tazers, pepperspray, and other non-lethal methods.)”

“Shoot them in the arm, shoot them in the shoulder, shoot them in the leg, just to slow them down - to stop them. But I don't think they have to take their lives.”

“Perhaps the police need advanced training in Krav Maga so they can disarm suspects with their bare hands just like Israeli Commandos or maybe they can shoot the weapon out of the suspects hand just like they do in movies.”

“Why even have a taser anymore?? The only cop who tried to spare a life by using the taser had his victim die anyway!!! Maybe if the cops could actually try to communicate with these victims in a non-threatening manner, they might get better results!”

“I would like to know why do officers shoot to kill every single time?Do the police officers not do target shooting while in training?why can you not shoot too disable,ya know a knee,the leg,that always drops them."

Here are my thoughts of some of the misperceived notions that some citizens have about what the Officers “should have done”. Note: I am not perfect and I do not know all of the facts of the above mentioned incidents. Whether each of the incidents was justified or not will have to be determined through the course of investigation. However, I would like to provide some education to those who do not fully understand the law and/or what the life of a Law Enforcement Officer is really like.

Chuck Norris and Hollywood
Chuck Norris is an American Icon. There are web pages devoted just for him and how great he is. I have never met Mr. Norris, but I am sure he is a nice guy and one hell of a man’s man. However, Mr. Norris’ characters do not live in the real world and he has not been cloned in his Hollywood state to protect the rest of the world.

Many citizens believe that what they see on the big screen or their television is truth. Hollywood portrays horrible firearms handling skills, but that is for another day. Many times Hollywood portrays a suspect being shot in the hand and he gives up or that one shot will kill a man instantly. Are these possibilities? Absolutely. Is this reality, not really.

Enter the CSI effect. This is slightly off-topic, but it will help to paint a picture for you. The CSI effect is what we in Law Enforcement call what typically happens during a trial and how the jury perceives how the investigation should have happened. Pick a CSI episode, whether it be Vegas, Miami, New York, wherever. A murder happens and within minutes of the incident, the cops are standing guard while the armed forensics technicians are conducting the full investigation. Granted, there is usually a Detective Sergeant over watching them, but the forensics techs are the ones doing all of the “real” work. The forensics techs gather the evidence, process the evidence, find the suspect, interview the suspect, and solve the case. This all happens within an hour. Again, is this reality? No, it is not.

Same thing goes for use of force situations. Normal citizens will rarely if never have a real interaction with a police officer. The only law enforcement that they interact with is either on the news or on some television drama or movie. The citizens will typically believe what they see is the truth of how it should be done and except nothing else.

Shoot to wound or shoot to kill?
“Why didn’t the officer shoot to wound the suspect?” The officer should have shot the suspect in the arm, or the leg. That would have definitely stopped him, right? If you have ever shot a handgun or rifle in the past, you probably have shot at a round bulls-eye target. Most civilian ranges will not allow life-like targets that depict humanoid features. I don’t understand this, but it is the way it is. I bet that for those of you who have done some target practice, you were taught to shoot at the middle of the target? It is human nature to always look for the center of an object.

Here is a little test that you can do anywhere: Point your thumb up in the air like you are hitching a ride and extend your arm out in front of you. Pick an object around you, whether it is a doorway, window, television, whatever. Now point your thumb at that object before you read on. You aimed your thumb at the middle, didn’t you? It is human nature to find the middle of any object you are pointing at. The same goes for aiming a firearm, it is human nature to aim at the center of mass of whatever you are shooting at. During stressful situations, you primarily rely on your basic human instincts and your extensive training and experience.

“But what about the arms and legs?” Most people who have done some sort of target practice shot at a non-moving paper target. If you have never shot at a moving target before, it takes a great deal of training to become efficient. If you are shooting at a moving target, I can guarantee that you are going to pick the largest portion of that target (center of mass) to hit and not even think about the arms or legs. If you want to try this theory out, make a rubber band gun with your finger and have someone stand 10 feet away from you. Have them move around and shoot them in the chest (center of mass), then try to shoot them in the arm as they are flailing their arms around. Oh, and don’t forget that there may be someone standing behind your target that you cannot hit with a stray round. If you think that this is easy, give them a straw and tell them to try to stab you before you can accurately hit them in the arm. This is a watered-down version of reality, but hopefully it will give you a better understanding without actually having to shoot somebody.

One Shot, One Kill
“It only takes one bullet to kill a suspect, right?” Maybe. It all depends on where they are shot. Do they have on body armor? It is possible to shoot someone in their torso and completely miss all vital organs. I have seen victims on the street get shot in the head and lived. Not only did they live, they were walking and talking when we arrived.

“Ok, maybe it takes more than one bullet, but they shot 10-15 times. That is way too excessive.” Is it? As a Law Enforcement Officer and as a Firearms Instructor, we are not trained to kill. Period. We are taught to stop the threat. If I can stop the threat in one shot, great. If it takes me 10-15 shots to stop the threat, that is what it takes.

“But why would it take so many shots to stop the threat?” There are a lot of factors. The ammunition used, the clothing the suspect was wearing, if the suspect is wearing body armor, the placement of the shots, what type of drug the suspect is on, the mental state of the suspect, and the list goes on and on of possible reasons that one round may not stop the threat.

The one shot, one kill adage should be reserved for snipers.

Less Lethal Options
Sure there are plenty of less lethal options. The Taser, the wooden baton, the extendable baton, pepper spray, PepperBall, rubber bullets, drag stabilized bean bag rounds, and the list goes on.

If a suspect has a knife and is 50 feet away, he is not an immediate deadly force threat. If the suspect has a knife and is 10 feet away, he is. More about that in the next section.

Less lethal options should be reserved for actively resistant or assaultive (non-deadly) suspects, or in situations where the responding officer has the advantage of cover, distance, and appropriate lethal backup on scene.

Bottom line: Deadly force threats should be met with a deadly force response.

They were 21 feet away and he only had a knife, they should have used a Taser.
There is an exercise called the Tueller Drill which quantified the “21 foot rule”.

The Tueller Drill is a self-defense training exercise to prepare against a short-range knife attack when armed only with a holstered handgun. Sergeant Dennis Tueller, of the Salt Lake City Police Department, showed that it was not that simple.  A common test of handgun skill was to start with one’s hands at shoulder level with a holstered gun and place two shots on a target 7 yards (21 feet) away within 1.5 seconds. Typically, those trained with handguns can complete the drill in 1.3–1.4 seconds, although some have managed the task in less than one second.  Tueller wondered how quickly an attacker with a knife could cover those same 21 feet. So he measured as volunteers raced to stab the target. He determined that it could be done in 1.5 seconds. A defender with a gun has a dilemma. If he shoots too early, he risks being charged with murder. If he waits until the attacker is definitely within striking range so there is no question about motives, he risks injury and even death. The Tueller experiments quantified a "danger zone" where an attacker presented a clear threat. (Source: Wikipedia)

Though shooting and killing a man, armed with a knife, at the range of 21 feet to a normal citizen may not seem reasonable, the mass majority of Law Enforcement Officers know of the real danger of the loss of life potential.

The “21 foot rule” is more of a theory, not a rule, but provides great insight to how serious of a threat a person can be at a range of under 21 feet.

But a Taser is a less lethal tool, why did they die?
I do not know all of the facts of the above mentioned incidents, but the first thought that came to my mind was the potential for Excited Delirium. Instead of attempting to describe something so complex in my own words, here is an excerpt from ExcitedDelirium.org:

”Over the past decade, increased attention has been paid to the sudden and seemingly inexplicable deaths of some highly agitated subjects being held in police custody. In most of these cases, the force required to restrain or incapacitate the suspect was not sufficient to cause death.

Our colleagues in Miami-Dade County, Florida, first described the syndrome of excited delirium associated with cocaine abuse. The symptoms of excited delirium include bizarre and/or aggressive behavior, shouting, paranoia, panic, violence towards other people, unexpected physical strength, and hyperthermia. Throughout the United States and Canada, these cases are frequently associated with psychostimulant abuse, representing the extreme end of a psychiatric continuum of drug abuse effects. However, reports of acute exhaustive mania, physical restraint, Pepper Spray or TASER and sudden death also have been reported that are not related to abused drugs, suggesting further that an underlying central nervous system disorder was the precipitating cause of lethality. Such victims of excited delirium have provoked allegations of police misconduct, unnecessary force and improper TASER deployment.

Medical examiners often have extreme difficulty in identifying the cause of death, but frequently drug intoxication is considered as a contributing factor or cause of death. While the precise cause and mechanism of these deaths remain controversial, we have demonstrated abnormalities in brain that define and confirm the occurrence of the excited delirium syndrome.”

I know that there are still and will always be questions about what Law Enforcement Officers do and why they do it. The job that we do and the split second decisions that we have to make are sometimes difficult ones. We rely on our training and experience to keep ourselves and the innocent citizens that we have sworn to protect alive.

I welcome comments and questions to this post. I will attempt to respond to each of them as completely and as honestly as I can.