Shocking footage - US Cops take down man...
Discussion
I've noted La Liga's reasoned responses throughout the thread, being as opposed to most of the gung-ho responses as they are:
Two officers. One can try the less lethal option, the other a lethal one if that fails.
1) Taser (if they're armed with one).
2) Spray / baton (neither are that good).
3) Hands-on.
I expect 3 would be the most likely. I'd probably take 3 over 2.
La Liga said:
Pesty said:
Good shoot he lunged.
What should they do let him stab them?
Don't want to get shot don't lung at a policeman with a weapon in your hand. Yes it's very sad and the guy had issues. But don't blame cops for protecting themselves.
There's a very high probability of them working at that proximity unless you miss. What should they do let him stab them?
La Liga said:
The man's movement isn't quite captured at 00:25 as in, 'does he lunge forward at the second officer'?
Regardless of the threat or perception of the threat, one of them must have been able to draw their Taser rather than their sidearm.
Tazers don't always work.Regardless of the threat or perception of the threat, one of them must have been able to draw their Taser rather than their sidearm.
Don't want to get shot don't lung at a policeman with a weapon in your hand. Yes it's very sad and the guy had issues. But don't blame cops for protecting themselves.
Two officers. One can try the less lethal option, the other a lethal one if that fails.
La Liga said:
skyrover said:
I can assure you that if UK police were armed they would take similar action.
An unknown assailant will always be dealt with the minimal risk to yourself...
I think it's exceptionally improbable UK armed police would have taken similar action. An unknown assailant will always be dealt with the minimal risk to yourself...
La Liga said:
Hugo a Gogo said:
so what would unarmed UK cops do?
You may send a Taser resource if you have information beforehand he has possession of a weapon / potential weapon. If not it'll most likely be a resource without one, and it could well be a single-crewed resource. 1) Taser (if they're armed with one).
2) Spray / baton (neither are that good).
3) Hands-on.
I expect 3 would be the most likely. I'd probably take 3 over 2.
La Liga said:
I still can't imagine ever using a firearm in this situation. We'd end up scuffling over here.
130R said:
Yeah it's not exactly easy to hit someone who is moving in the leg. Police are trained to shoot to kill.
Shoot to stop. p1stonhead said:
irocfan said:
and you miss, there's a ricochet and an innocent person is hurt or killed...
They didn't miss and an innocent person was killedHilts said:
popeyewhite said:
Juanco20 said:
Why not shoot him in his leg. It'll still take him down but at least you won't kill him
Look, sorry but THAT DOESN'T WORK IN REAL LIFE!!where do you draw the line, popeye?
any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
Hugo a Gogo said:
where do you draw the line, popeye?
any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
Exactly. Our cops dont have guns. Amazingly people are not being shot every day nor are police being attacked with 'deadly' weapons. any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
Base your whole culture around guns, people get shot - a hell of a lot.
for those who think that tasers are the answer to everything
http://www.policeone.com/off-duty/articles/8354615...
quite an amusing article - interesting too
http://www.policeone.com/off-duty/articles/8354615...
quite an amusing article - interesting too
p1stonhead said:
Base your whole culture around guns, people get shot - a hell of a lot.
It certainly seems to be the case that the US police face a higher risk of having deadly force used against them. If we had the same rate of cop-killing with firearms in the UK per head of population, we would be looking at 6-10 officers shot and killed per year. It's a more dangerous job, and that has to feed back into the attitude of police to suspects.CTO said:
Which medical issues do the police deal with that the NHS can't manage?
There is much asked from you in terms of executing warrants, iffy 136 requests and the like and I can understand the police's frustrations at this.
I'm not being critical of the staff. I have good experiences with the NHS mental health teams (on the whole) and have done work with the joint triage cars.There is much asked from you in terms of executing warrants, iffy 136 requests and the like and I can understand the police's frustrations at this.
It's things like a lack of personnel at A&E for people who present themselves. A lack of people who can make more immediate decisions around capacity. There are occasions where we are called to use powers like 136 in A&E (as you alluded to, although this has decreased). Or the patient becomes bored of waiting so walks out and becomes a missing person, often of a higher risk category.
The national 'bed' capacity appears to be always stretched, resulting in people with mental health issues being in police cells.
There's are many incidents at peoples' homes. If someone rings up and says they are feeling suicidal, that's a medical issue, but it usually ends up with the police attending (obviously there are circumstances where the police will need to go).
There often aren't easy answers, but the College of Policing are trying to assess the demand more accurately, but their analysis so far shows mental health incidents increasing for the police. The source and specificity of those needs clarifying, but I imagine some of the demand / resource issues around the NHS's mental heath services will account for some.
Wills2 said:
La Liga, are you a police officer? If so I would be interesting to hear your views on how that situation would have been/is handled over here?
Hugo a Gogo kindly brought all my posts together to answer you, but I'll expand a little more, too. There's a limitation to making a clear judgement based on a short clip (unless it's absolutely clear). We don't know what information they had before attending. I presume the overall circumstances (mental health, not taking medication) would be known as that was what the call was for, as oppose to it being an ancillary issue. There's the unknown of the man's previous record (if he has one), and any other information they had to hand we aren't aware of. There's also information on scene. Did they see / hear anything going up to the address? An extreme example would be seeing / hearing the man make threats to them through the window. I presume that didn't happen given the way they approached the front door, but it's just gives an example of things that can go into the decision-making pot.
A lot of using force is based around perception and feeling. One person may see a threat, whilst another may not (or see a lesser / greater one). There's no doubt a threat is perceived from all three people. Officer one draws his weapon, and look at the subconscious, instinctive reactions from both officer two and the mother.
Officer two's subconscious, defensive reaction leaves him unable (at the time it would take the subject to be within striking distance) to do anything with his equipment. Hand / arms protecting the vital head area aren't able to draw a weapon.
At that point you could argue (strongly, IMO) the shooting was lawful as I'd say at least the two officers believed officer two's life was in danger. Whether or not officer one should have drawn a Taser rather than a firearm, or taken another route is up for debate. Clearly that transfers some risk from the subject to the officers. People will have different opinions as to what degree should be transferred and what risk the officers should take.
So the next part is, 'were there any opportunities prior to the lunge to prepare less lethal options?' I think there were. You could argue that having the Taser out whilst approaching the address isn't appropriate, but then again that would depend on what information they knew, and what had occurred prior to the clip. There's also this part I think is significant:
The man is stood, having paused to stand where he is, twiddling with the screwdriver and holding it. We'd call that a 'danger sign' (a 'warning sign' being lesser). Officer two is doing two things:
1) Officer presence.
2) Verbal commands.
Neither of those (on their own or together) are a suitable level of 'force' or response at that point. Especially when he ignores the first verbal command. Any escalation from there requires a reactionary approach, which is likely to default to training and repetition, which is what occurred.
Now whether or not it was reasonable for officer two (whose perception / filtering will naturally focus upon the weapon - auditory / visual exclusion) to have pulled his Taser during this brief period is another matter. The point is there was the opportunity to do so. Officer one is of a similar distance between himself and the subject and the same applies to him. Could he have drawn his Taser at the point the man was stood at the door?
I expect this will be found to be a lawful shooting, but I think there were opportunities to have made it a non-deadly outcome.
In terms of answering your question around the UK. It'd be highly unlikely armed officers would attend. Even if they did, I wouldn't envisage a fatal outcome. Regardless of whether they managed the situation like was seen here or not, I expect they'd take on some of the risk and get hands-on / look for the less lethal options first.
It would depend on the information beforehand, but even if the screwdriver / aggression / mental health issues were mentioned, you'd likely be sending two officers with standard kit and Tasers, so they'd have to manage with what they had. It could be completely possible, again, depending on the information beforehand, to have a single-crewed officer attend with just standard kit. Again, they'd have to manage with what they had.
We deal with a lot of people with mental health issues who present varying degrees of risk and threat and manage not to shoot them. There are of course large differences between the US and here in terms of training, culture and expectations.
Rarely are these things black and white.
Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 19th March 19:07
Cant believe the number of people siding with the police here. Seemed totally unreasonable to me to use that level of force.
Then again I see the shooter looks like a barrel on legs, so I would guess physically incapable of dodging out the way of a many with a screw driver...therefore the only option for the fat b
d is to blast away.
As La Liga has said, this will probably be a lawful shooting. However, with 20/20 the whole thing could have been handled better with a better outcome.
Some american coppers seem dangerously thick in the head to me. Not the kind of people you want to be giving that kind of power to IMO.
Then again I see the shooter looks like a barrel on legs, so I would guess physically incapable of dodging out the way of a many with a screw driver...therefore the only option for the fat b
d is to blast away.As La Liga has said, this will probably be a lawful shooting. However, with 20/20 the whole thing could have been handled better with a better outcome.
Some american coppers seem dangerously thick in the head to me. Not the kind of people you want to be giving that kind of power to IMO.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Cant believe the number of people siding with the police here.
You can't believe people siding with the police?Otispunkmeyer said:
As La Liga has said, this will probably be a lawful shooting.
Oh you are also siding with the police. Makes sense, given they appear to have acted totally lawfully.Otispunkmeyer said:
However, with 20/20 the whole thing could have been handled better with a better outcome.
Hey everyone. Gather round and please meet today's Captain Obvious.Hugo a Gogo said:
where do you draw the line, popeye?
any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
The deceased was told to drop the screwdriver, quite clearly, three times. Not only did he not comply with the orders of armed police (and his mother), he then moved towards them.any number of objects can be deadly, even bare hands, or a concealed object, do you suggest anyone who doesn't immediately follow a shouted instruction should be shot and killed? (6 seconds from walking out the door to being shot)
a car is a pretty deadly object? should they shoot all drivers who appear to be not stopping? 6 seconds after the flashing lights go on?
The officers will be strictly following police guidelines for this kind of situation. Your argument should be with the Dallas P.D.
What do I consider a deadly object? Anything I think someone else is trying to attack me with, balanced with whether the object in their possession is actually capable of harm.
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