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If you watch the video carefully you'll see he quickly rounded the corner with the golf club above his head. According to reports, they approximate the distance between the guy and the officer was about eight feet. If the average man extends his arm you'll see it's somewhere between two and three feet long. Add the extension of a golf club and you're looking at another three to four feet. That means a man who swings a golf club could get a 5-7ft reach. If he stepped forward then the officer would've been within striking range. Considering how quickly he appeared on screen, he had movement towards the officer at a speed faster than a walk, and his stance was threatening because that's the stance someone takes when they're about to knock your damn teeth out with a golf club. (Yep, same stance a batter takes in baseball, if you notice.) Just because the police officer is somewhat covered by body armor doesn't mean he can't feel threatened? That club could've hit him in the face and it would've been just as lethal.

Now, how much time is needed to say, "Drop your weapon?" Two seconds? An assailant in motion towards an officer at that distance could clear the gap in a fraction of a second if we're following the studies done on the 21ft. rules. (This is where they study how an attacker can close the gap and kill an officer with a knife before the officer draws his weapon and unloads. In fairness, the officer has his gun drawn already but the gap was considerably shorter with a longer weapon. I think I might have the name of the rule or study wrong...) Again, when you're clearing a house you act against the reaction time of those within the house. You have to be quick and make split-second decisions. Likewise, the addict made a split-second decision and, unfortunately for him, it was the wrong one.

The placement of the shots is irrelevant. You shoot to kill if you're threatened. You don't try to dead-eye two hands gripped tightly around a golf club as they're in motion. You aim and hit center mass. You shoot until the threat is neutralized.

Two other points: 1) The man wasn't clearly dead until they checked vitals. 2) They yelled "Get on the ground" in case he wasn't down.

He was not a lethal threat and they could have handled it with non-lethal force, like TACKLING. Or blunt force to his cranium through the medium of his fist.

If you can't differentiate between a rifle and a golf club in a split second, you have no place enforcing the law with lethal weapons.

The cop failed at situation awareness, and so did the criminal, but one of them isn't around to reflect on their mistake now.

Even in the military, where we use rifles, we were thought this simple little technique:

Right. The officer said he thought it was a sword, not a golf club or a rifle. A sword is considerably more letal than a golf club, so the Officer, in that split second, found himself in a more threatening and lethal situation. In hindsight, it may have been the wrong decision to unload on that guy but neither of those people had the luxury of hindsight.

PS: That officer didn't have a rifle. He had a pistol in hand. He obviously didn't think he had time to get another defensive means so he used what he had at his disposal.

So it was a human mistake, in hindsight does he think it was justified, in contrast of what the court thinks?

If you kill a motherfucker, realize that you made a mistake or your senses fooled you, and not only not feel bad about it, but feel justified, you're a f'ing sociopath.

And yeah I saw that he didn't have a rifle. I'm just saying that even in a theatre of war we're thought that when possible, non-lethal force is preferable to spreading guts everywhere.

But we don't know if he feels bad about it. We're assuming that. It could haunt that guy every night when he closes his eyes...


Only because someone has to clean it up

That's my argument - from my understanding, police are taught to use lethal force as a last resort. Even if the cop thought he had a sword...wouldn't idk...shooting him in the knee pretty much eliminate that threat?

Aren't cops trained to shoot to disarm/disable/injure, and only shoot to kill when it's absolutely necessary? Or did i make that up?

You have a gun in your hands. I run in front of you from a side room and I'm holding what appears to be a sword in a position that precedes swinging a weapon. I'm clearly within striking distance, or I could be within striking distance by taking a step forward. You know that a sword could kill you if it hits you right. You know you don't have time to get a non-lethal means of taking him out other than putting your body closer to harm.

What do you do, Azelma?

Shoot you in the balls, obviously.


No, I see your point, it was a split second decision -- the cop reacted instinctively because he felt threatened. I just wish we had more training in place to prevent these kinds of things from happening. Cops should be exposed to more mock situations where they are instructed to use non-lethal force. There will always be human error, but working to lower it should be one of the top priorities.

I remember a local story when i was in high school. A cop in a well-to-do suburb (meaning Cops in that county never have shit to do and aren't exposed to much) pulled over a pizza delivery guy for speeding. The guy moved to get his license and registration, apparently a little too fast, so the cop thought he was going for a weapon and straight up shot him dead.

These needless deaths need not occur is my point, and there needs to be more accountability for the officers. Suspensions, extra training classes, something. I just don't accept "oh it was a split decision" "oh the cop thought he was a threat" as acceptable excuses for avoidable deaths.

Cops are trained to fire center mass. the logic behind this is if you have to fire your weapon, it is a lethal force situtation and you SHOULD shoot to kill.

Azelma, go to a shooting range, have soemone run across it and try to hit them in the knee, and then you'll learn how ridiculous that statement is.

It would've been avoidable if the guy didn't run out into the room with a golf club, ya know...


Whenever I get pulled over I ALWAYS tell the cop where my license and registration is at and that I am reaching for my license and registration before I make the movements. Am I the only one that does this out of consideration for the cop?

Except that if they followed firearms safety (even used by the Marines), his safety would have been on until situation awareness is established (split second to a few seconds) and he has acquired a target to poke holes in. It specifically prevents mistakes because of instinct.

Glocks have three safeties (two internal, one external), but it's not your standard switch safety you see on other weapons. If I remember correctly, the safety is on the trigger and you need to squeeze the trigger for it to engage fully. The officer used a Glock 22 in the shooting.

Edit:


Ya, this video shows the 'Safe Action Trigger System' that Glocks use.

Edit 2:

The reason cops use Glocks and guns with this type of trigger is because an officer that forgets to take off his safety is a dead officer.

Interesting. This is the only one I've ever handled:



Arguably, an officer who forgets to turn off his safety shouldn't be an officer carrying a weapon.

It is unfortunate that this man died, and we should definitely do whatever we can to minimize tragedies like this in the future. However, there are probably a lot of factors that we're not aware of that make it impossible to judge either the officer or the man he shot. While the man's death is unfortunate, from what I saw on the video, the officer acted according to the sort of procedures I suspect would govern his behavior in such a situation. The police identified themselves loudly and repeatedly, yet the man was armed with what could potentially be a hazard to the officers on the scene.

Where drugs are involved, violence and weapons are also. I'm sure every one of those officers went into that raid knowing that violence against them was a possibility. That makes most people a little anxious. Put yourself in the officer's shoes. I don't want people shot for peddling pot (that rhymes, like it?), but I also hate the "Captain Hindsight" bullshit...


I'm pretty certain the one person beating that cop up over what he should have done or not done more than any other person on the planet is that cop. Sometimes life hands you lemons...then pisses in your lemonade. It was a shitty situation, and the poor man that got shot made at least as many bad decisions as the officer(s) did.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Yeah, but I have a drawer half full of multicolored fun substances and no gun!!

Then again I live in Canada, probably less violent crime here than on one street in Detroit.