Friday, December 9, 2016

Stabbed Officer Gets Up And Chases Her Attacker...

...but for the life of me, I do not understand why she did not shoot him instead of chase him. The guy just tried to kill her but luckily her body armor helped deflect several stabs; yet, she received two stab wounds one in an arm ad the other in a shoulder (source). Did she not shoot him because both arms were disabled from the wounds; I doubt it since she was treated and released from the hospital - so again - why did she not shoot him. He was an escaped violent felon - a lifer. He had just stabbed her. He was fleeing and to anyone except maybe an ultra-liberal - he should have been seen as posing an imminent threat of loss of life or serious injury to anyone he encountered. Hell, he even tried to enter a school shortly after stabbing the officer - imagine what mayhem could have taken place had he taken refuge therein with children inside! Luckily he did not run over to the school's playground, where children were at the time, and take any hostage.

What was the officer thinking. Her boss calls her brave to have chased him and I guess that is so but I also wonder - was she afraid of shooting him and the outcome she might have to face had she done so. I believe that the leftists and lawyers (pretty much one and the same) in this country have police second guessing what they should do in such situations and sooner or later the outcome will be a chilling one. I also believe that may be the case (second guessing and uncertainty on the officer's part) here but that is just my guess. For all I know, she may not have fired because the children were in the path of any shot she could have taken. I hope that is the reason and not the other I just more or less surmised.

All the best,
Glenn B

3 comments:

Old 1811 said...

Maybe she had the same thought processes as the Chicago PD officer who was beaten almost to death before she was saved by fellow officers: She did not want her family or her department to go through the hell that comes these days when an officer shoots a felon.
We can sneer at her actions and call her names (you didn't, I'm just saying), but the OSU copper who killed the terrorist is now being vilified by activists, and the city of Minneapolis's plan to hire fifteen police officers is being protested as an "act of violence against the [you know which] community."

B said...

If he is running away, then can she use lethal force? I mean, he is no longer a threat.......

Glenn B said...

He is still threat, he poses an imminent threat to her if she catches or gets close to him and she was chasing him. He also poses an imminent threat, in the mind of any reasonable law enforcement officer (based on training and or experience) to anyone he approaches since he is armed and just tried to kill the officer by stabbing her repeatedly. He is not only a fleeing felon but an escaped violent felon (and that last just adds the icing to the cake, so to speak, but is not necessary in making the decision to shoot him). If she last saw him in possession of a weapon that even adds more to the officer's justification to shoot him. This is not a case of a driver being pulled over and being shot in the back for no reason - this in not even a case of a mere fleeing felon - this is the case of an escaped convicted violent felon - who just attempted to kill a police officer to avoid arrest - who is armed and who is desperate - who still poses an imminent treat of great bodily harm or death to others and who is attempting to evade arrest. Sure he wound up in essence giving up from the sound of it but as he was fleeing, probably refusing to obey commands to stop, still possibly armed as far as the officer knew, just tried to kill her, and headed toward other people - a school with children there no less - he posed (in the mind of a reasonable person with proper training or knowledge of such) an imminent threat of serious bodily harm and or death to others.

An officer does not have to be certain he is going to harm someone but needs reasonable suspicion or probable cause (depending on jurisdiction) to use deadly force against him and there was more than enough of both to do so. It is not easy shooting someone, let alone killing them, and it is quite possible she had other reasons for not taking aim at him - like children in the playground being in the line of fire BUT had she shot him, she would have in all likelihood been found completely legally justified to have done so.

All the best,
GB