Aurora, Colorado police, responding to a 911 call reference to a home invasion, encountered an armed man in the home. At least one of the officers shot and killed him; the victim was a Vietnam vet. The officer is on paid administrative leave because the victim seemingly was also either a resident or the homeowner himself. More at the source.
There is almost zero doubt, in my mind, that the officer will be found to have been justified to shoot the man. Now, I am not saying I will agree if such a finding is made - I am just saying that is what I believe will happen because of certain aspects of this case such as: an armed homeowner (egad can you imagine how that makes leftists' skin crawl), the man was not a minority and therefor there will be little public and politically motivated pressure for the conviction of the officer, the "chaos" at the scene when police arrived (they are supposed to control chaos not cause more but shit happens), that the officer heard a shot just as he arrived - apparently the one by which the homeowner/resident dispatched (as in shot & killed) the REAL bad guy. The officer may or may not have been justified. I am eagerly awaiting the statements from the other residents in the home who were present during the altercation.
This was a tragedy and not knowing the facts, I cannot lay any blame on the officer nor on the homeowner. There is a lesson to be learned from this though - if you call 191 and you give a description of the bad guy - make sure you also give a description of the god guy(s) and that they understand the difference between both. It may or may not have prevented this tragic shooting and death.
On another note: I also believe that there will not be any marches by black or white activists or by black or white lives matters types nor even by all lives matters types if only because the victim was white. If he had been another particular race, I think you could safely bet there would have been allegations of racism against the police; calls for the officer to be arrested, tried and convicted; protest marches and maybe even violent rioting. I base that surmise on past events just like this one but wherein the victim was not white.
The city of Dallas, TX wants a wall, erected on private property but without a permit and then adorned with a scene to honor the five police officers shot dead at a Black Lives Matter rally last year, torn down. More here at the source.
You know, sometimes you have to say fuck the permit system and let things go but if you cannot do that then at least arrive at some sort of compromise that will allow this wall of honor to remain standing. Heck, put it in another location or keep where it is in modified form to suit the city. I mean, after all, we are talking about something that honors five police officers killed in the line of duty!
Something tells me though that in this Bizarro World in which we live, the leftist loon power mongers in charge probably would choose to honor the killer or BLM and then frame it as them being concerned that someone may find such a wall of honor offensive.
...before the suspect who is confronting a law enforcement officer (LEO) seriously wounds or kills the officer or an innocent bystander. Restraint may be seen as the politically correct thing, the religious or moral high ground, the compassionate thing to do. However, when it comes to someone unlawfully threatening a person with imminent serious bodily harm or death, and if that person believed there was virtually no chance for escape from the threat, that person (in my opinion) should not hesitate to shoot or otherwise incapacitate the attacker by use of another form of deadly physical force.
I can understand that law enforcement officers are second guessing themselves and second guessing the intentions of the bad guys. If it is true though that the officer in this particular case would have been fully justified to shoot the suspect, then he probably should have done so in my estimation. As per Police Chief Randy Harvey that was the case:
"This video footage, it eliminated all doubt that this officer would have been justified if in fact it came to a shooting."
But the officer said:
"I wanted to be absolutely sure before I used deadly force."
Sadly, the only way to be absolutely sure that someone is going to use deadly force against you is to allow them to actually do so. So what the officer said, in my judgment, is that he possibly would wait until he is actually harmed, or at least shot at or attacked in some manner, before he fired back. The law (here in NY and in most states of which I am aware of self defense laws) does not require anyone to be absolutely sure before defending themselves with deadly force. You usually need to have a reasonable belief or probable cause (or something similar depending on how the law is written) to believe that you are being threatened with imminent serious bodily harm or deadly force - no law I have ever seen relative to use of deadly force in self-defense or defense of a third party states that you must be absolutely sure of anything.
It's nice that the officer did not get hurt, it's nice he did not have to shoot anyone; its nice he has a clear conscience and does not have to live with weighing his decision whether he was right or wrong, to maybe have killed a man, for the rest of his life; it's nice the suspect was not injured or killed. It's all wonderful this time because this time the officer's guess, that flew in the face or reason, was right. God bless him for making the right call and let's hope it was because something indicated the suspect was not really about to attack and not because of being hesitant to use deadly force for no good reason.
Perhaps all that gives some people that warm fuzzy feeling all over and that is all well and good. Bear in mind though, it is all well and good until the same officer, or another, is faced with the same decision, in a very similar set of circumstances when the suspect attacks and maims or kills the officer or an innocent third party because the officer hesitated or outright decided not use deadly force when it was justified. Using deadly force is a tough decision to be able to make but you must be able to make it when it is justified and called for and you must be able to arrive at that decision based upon probable cause or reasonable belief (whatever is required by law) if you want to survive. If you cannot base your decision upon probable cause, you should find another career. I am not saying this officer needs to seek new employment - please read what I wrote and not what you want to think I wrote. I am saying if you cannot do such - then you are not fit for LE work. This officer has to think about what happened and decide that for himself.
I am dead set against the excessive use of force by police or civilians. Yet, I also think it less than responsible not to use deadly force when it is justified. Why? Because, sooner or later, some other officer will probably do likewise and wind up regretting he did so, that is if he lives long enough. Not every suspect who charges you yelling "kill me" is trying to commit suicide by cop, some are taunting, some are daring, some are psychos, some are going to be trying to get you to second guess yourself to give themselves that split second advantage, due to your hesitation to defend yourself, that is all they need to kill you. I do not look forward to reading the story where that happens. So, if deadly force would have been absolutely justified in this case, as the police chief indicates, then I think it should have been used. The officer's decision though was his own, he is lucky he guessed right. Had I been in that situation as a LEO, I in all likelihood would have acted in another manner had I believed my life or the life of another innocent was in imminent danger. Remember, you do not need to wait until knowing for sure that deadly force is about to be used against you in order for you to use deadly force to defend yourself. You usually need reasonable belief or probable cause that such is imminent (and in some instances for civilians you also need to reasonably believe you cannot escape - check the laws of your state or locality on what is required). Of course, if you do know for sure, you had best act quickly to defend yourself and any others so threatened. As it turned out the officer in question is being patted on the back and has been given high praise; sadly though, had he guessed wrong, he would have been carried on his back and given high praise too - at his funeral. It is a tough call to make but it has to be made if you want to live to see another day with any amount of certainty.
I foresee more stories like this one coming out since as of late LEOs have been under fire for excessive use of force. I think more of them are going to become trigger shy, at least the good ones who truly live up to their oaths of office and who do their jobs ethically and with respect for the law and the public at large. Note, I am not saying they should be trigger happy but an LE needs to be able to make the decision to use deadly force and needs to know that such a decision should almost always be based upon reasonable belief or probable cause as required by the law and not upon absolute certainty. The courts need to realize that too. Every time LEOs shoot someone they need to be held accountable under the law and rightly so but lately they are held accountable to a much higher degree than even the law provides for because they are being held accountable to the whims and second guessing of the political correctness of: politicians seeking to use anything they can to their own advantage, race baiters, malcontents, police-haters, anarchists, ambulance and hearse chasing lawyers, and other opportunists of the moment who are more than ready and willing to take advantage of an LEO shooting a suspect even if it was undeniably justified. You only have to look the recent events of Fergusson, MO to see that.
Of course, there are also way too many cases of police involved shootings wherein the officers use excessive force and were not justified in using doing so. Prudent and just application of the law though is what is required to address those situations after the fact; there is no call for the lynch mob mentality that we have witnessed all too often. BUT - there must be prudent and just application of the law in each and every case and it must be transparent and completely open to public review. If we hung the bastards who resort to deadly force when not called for under the law, whether a LEO or not, and praised and rewarded those who use it, LEO or not, to justifiably stop a deadly threat, we would be much better off as a society.
A police officer is seen to stop a suspect (of an assault) on a bridge by way of the view from his dashboard camera. The suspect does not obey the commands of the officer and the officer is starting to back away and finally shoots the suspect with a TASER. The TASER shot is ineffective and the suspect then attacks the police officer. They go off camera, and you can hear the police officer struggling and taking punishment as he does so. Then an off duty police officer from another state arrives on scene and renders aid to the uniformed officer. As he renders aid, the uniformed officer is able to draw and fire his service weapon fatally injuring the suspect - all off camera - but from the looks of the uniformed officer when he comes back into view I would have to think the shooting had been justified. Of course I am taking a few other things into consideration. The suspect was much bigger than the police officer, he attacked failed to comply with the legal orders of the officer, he attacked the officer violently, the officer was heard to be gasping and struggling, one of the officers after arrival of the off duty one was heard to command the suspect to cease his attack repeatedly, the audible leads one to believe the suspect kept on attacking, an officer is heard to say something to the effect if you don't stop I'll shoot, shots are fired, the suspect comes back into view of the camera and is now compliant to the commands of the officers. One would probably think, as did I initially, that the off duty officer fired the shots but this article explains how it came to be that the uniformed officer, the one who was being attacked, actually fired the shots that killed the suspect. The article also explains that the shooting was found to have been justified and gives some more info about how savagely the officer was being attacked saying one of the officer's eyebrows had been bitten off by the suspect.
Imagine what would be the case had there been no video and audio footage of this event. I can assure you there would be marches, there would be tons of accusations or racism against the police officers, Al Sharpton and his gang (or those like him) likely would be protesting (they may be anyway for all I know), there would possibly be race riots. I don't know what is happening as a result of this shooting - maybe all that is taking place despite the video but I don't know one way or the other because this is the first I have heard of this event. Of course, this took place at the end of July this year so if it bad things happened in reaction to the shooting they may have calmed down already. I would hope though that anyone who saw this video realized that the use of deadly force by the officers was in all likelihood necessary and justified. Now imagine another thing, no matter what else takes place, both of these officers will live with this for the rest of their lives. Because of what they did a man died. Because of what that man did they were forced to do what they did and the suspect died as a result. One of the officers lost his eyebrow because it was bitten off of his face. My bet is that you would not give a second thought to his returning to work - but do exactly that for a moment. Think about having all of that stuff happen to you - your weapon not doing the trick (the TASER), a guy taking control away from you and beating you like a mad man then biting off part of your face, it all probably seeming helpless, then help arriving and still the guy keeps attacking you , then you having to shoot him, then the guy dying. Would you be able to go back to that same job? Man oh man that has got to be a tough thing to do. Remember this is not the army during war - this was just another ho-hum day on the streets of Davenport, IA. My bet is he goes back to the job and does it until he can retire. Don't forget the other officer, it cannot be easy for him either. Yeah they both did right, they were both justified, but I'd be willing to bet my pension both have ethics, morals and an upbringing that told them killing another human is bad. They will live with that forever, hopefully they will be able to come to terms with it. They both did damned good. A Side Note: Being an LEO for virtually 30 years (my 30th anniversary is on the 28th of this month) I find myself compelled to point out what I think was one mistake, but a big one, that the uniformed officer made in his handling of the suspect (my opinion). He had the suspect climb over the railing and he was between his cruiser and the suspect when the suspect came over the rail. I think it would have been better for the officer to have climbed over toward the suspect from a good distance after he first had him kneel. This way the officer could not have wound up basically pinned between his cruiser, a moving lane of traffic, the rail and the bad guy. Sure the officer could have arranged it so the suspect would have been in that pinned spot, but the officer still would have been in danger from oncoming traffic had the suspect then attacked him. Just look at it again and imagine the suspect had pushed the officer in the other direction and that cars had kept coming. On the other hand, had the officer gone over to the side of the rail on which the suspect had originally been standing there would have been much less potential for the officer to be pinned with moving traffic on one side of him. I am not making note of this to fault the officer but rather to give him and others something to think about when handling a suspect in the future - don't let yourself get boxed in - you need to be able to get away and get some maneuvering room should things go bad.
Of course, as I see it, both of the officers acted in exemplary fashion. I know some may find fault with the big bad officer who used politically incorrect words and cursed at the suspect. To them I say - great a life - that officer was saving one and I don't care what he said while doing it the right way. All the best, Glenn B
