[A buddy of mine, who is a veteran police officer from Texas, texted this to me. He said I can post it because he's still on the job so he can't post himself.]
"The only thing I would mention about the taser is that it is not the end all cure all. I’ve seen the taser fail so many times. I’ve also seen people fight through a taser deployment and that’s a scary sight.
"A taser in the Columbus incident wouldn’t have been appropriate being that this was an active and in progress assault with a deadly weapon on a 3rd party. Had the taser been deployed she could have fought through it or it could have failed and she would have had the ability to administer some lethal stabs are slashes to the other girl.
"Thank you for having the foresight and speaking what many of us have been saying since the video came out."
Here it is. 32 years LEO experience, a local cop, not a Fed.
What else does the public not understand about OIS?
The decision to use deadly force or not has to be made in a split second most of the time. The public has hours, days to analyze it. The public has no understanding that in situations like that, it’s not the officer dictating what is going to happen.
What do they need to know about your daily jobs?
It’s not a profession many want to do any more. Morale in the ranks is low, across the board. Already many places are feeling the heat from this. The anti-cop crowd seem happy about this, saying the bad cops are leaving, but the truth is that the best cops are leaving. Those with options, skills. Some in academia say this is a chance to redefine and reshape the force, but they do not understand what it takes to fight the hard criminal element. There are people who you do not counsel. There are people who you must not negotiate with. Some criminals need a strong and mean person to take them on.
What are the consequences for an officer who has to shoot?
The psychological impact is immediate. There is always second guessing and terror of being imprisoned unjustly, and for political reasons. The officer is in shock, and is very much a victim in the shooting event. Celebrities and politicians make things worse, almost always.
What are the mental health problems facing career officers?
Career officers almost always suffer from depression and effects like insomnia, alcoholism. I have had insomnia for the last 20 years of my career. And it’s very difficult to receive help for these things as getting mental health treatment is grounds for removal from the police force. Marital problems abound in policing. Suicide rates are bad, and in any OTHER profession all these leftists would call for helping those people, but police are hung out to dry by the public.
What else do I need to write about that the media gets wrong so the public has a bad image of police?
Police inner ranks have a deep dislike for the media. The media love to do hit pieces on police because it’s sensational. The media need to go learn, do shoot don’t shoot scenarios, learn about weapons, learn about real criminals and what they would do if given the opportunity, if police weren’t there. And media need to stop writing hit pieces on police just for ratings. Sensational headlines with actual facts buried.
But this will never happen. MSM is liberal and hate cops.
Truth is, most police can see America is in a deep decline, and once WE are dwindled down to nothing, maybe then what will happen and what will be rebuilt will be worth sacrificing for. Right now, it’s not.
First off, great job Emily, and keep doing what you are doing. You are on point. So let’s look deeper into this whole subject.
I could talk about this for hours, probably days.
To begin with, the media could stay home and study court cases, such as Tennessee v. Garner, Johnson v. Glick, Graham v. Connor, and others, until they understand that L.E. Use of Force must be judged by objective reasonableness, based on the totality of ALL the circumstances known to the L.E. officer at the time force was used, and without hindsight 20/20. A 5 second video, no matter how compelling, does not provide that.
The media could attend a Citizen's Police Academy. That alone provides a lot of insight into various topics such as Use of Force Training, Judgmental Training, Firearms Training, and Force on Force Training.
I’m sure larger agencies that have Judgmental Training equipment such as MILO (Multiple Interactive Learning Objectives), would be willing to provide training sessions to media groups in their community. This equipment provides the students with the opportunity to interact with video scenarios in which the student must communicate and take appropriate action depending on the circumstances provided.
To thoroughly understand the shooting in Center Mass question vs. shooting the arm or leg, several things come into play. To begin, look at it from the marksmanship stand point. Students learn the basics of their weapon and how to shoot. They are then tested in a relatively stress free environment, at a piece of paper that doesn’t move or shoot back. That doesn’t equate to making accurate shots in a real life lethal force situation.
Switch to a real life situation in which information is obtained prior to arriving on scene, stress level may be going up just driving there. The L.E. then arrives on scene and finds a chaotic scene. The stress level is going up fast. Something must be done. The threat must be stopped, BUT, several more things then come into play. The L.E. is accountable for every round fired. A suspect doesn’t care, although in this case the suspect had a knife.
Now let’s look at the physiological response to the human body under stress. Things like auditory blockage, tunnel vision, binocular vision, blood feeding the vital organs and leaving the extremities to preserve ones life. What does that have to do with anything? Well, on the stress free range, to deploy accurate rounds, the student is trained to be in a good shooting stance, have a good grip, obtain a good sight picture, proper sight alignment, focus clearly on the front sight, and then make a good trigger press with the tip of their index finger.
In real life, there is unlikely a good shooting stance. The threat is moving. The L.E. is moving. The physiological response is causing both eyes to open to take in more information. The eyes are now focused on the threat, not the front sight. Blood is leaving the extremities (tip of the trigger finger). All these things are now making it more difficult for the L.E. to make accurate shots.
In addition, as others stated, the threat must be stopped. Deploying rounds to center mass of available target is the best option to stop the threat as quickly as possible. There are three ways to stop a threat for sure. Psychological - The suspect decides they don’t want to die, therefore they stop. Loss of oxygen due to loss of blood flow, which can take a few minutes, in which the suspect can continue to be a threat. The famous 1986 bank robbery in Florida involving Michael Platt is a prime example. Finally, severe the brain stem, which would only be complete luck in a shooting situation.
I could add more, but I'm out of time right this minute.
I had considered writing a post similar to yours. I was thinking of this after hearing the "shoot the arm/leg/non fatal area" one time too many. I used to be an NRA pistol instructor and taught martial arts including knife defense. I've taught law enforcement officers knife defense. But I won't need to now.
You did a great job of answering and explaining the situation and much better than I ever could. Keep up the great work and thank you.
My last comment on this thread. I promise. It's kind of off topic from this particular incident, but still a good time to address it I believe. I saw a comment the other day that I didn't have time to address, and wanted to address. I don't see it here now, so maybe it was on the Zuckerberg platform, so maybe no sense responding on that platform anyway.
The comment mentioned targets not having arms and legs for a reason, and something to the effect that law enforcement is trained to fire at the torso, and that it's a federal and state mandate that officers only fire at the torso, or something along those words. That would lead the unknowing to believe that law enforcement are only trained to fire at center mass of a human torso, and that the arms and legs are not to be fired at.
WRONG! Now don't blow a gasket. Please read all the way to the end.
Yes, Law Enforcement fire at torso targets for qualification, and those targets typically have some type of lines drawn on them for scoring purposes, whether it be X, 10, 9, 8 rings, or a box, or various size silhouette lines, etc. For example, in MD, it must be a scoring zone of no larger than 725 square inches. That does NOT mean an officer cannot fire at the arms or legs. This is done for two reasons. And by the way, the targets, although it doesn't have lines between the torso and where the arms would be, are every bit as wide as the average human, to include the arms hanging at their sides, but I digress.
1. A law enforcement officer must show proficiency in handling their weapon, and proficiency in marksmanship. That would be difficult to do with a human body target with arms and legs. It would be impossible to determine marksmanship skills if a student were directed to fire at the legs for certain sequences of fire, and fire at the head during other sequences of fire. Short of scoring every hit as it occurs, how would one know if rounds striking the lower leg were intended for the legs or the head, and vice versa. That's no marksmanship test.
2. All training should be completed as close to real as possible, so while a bullseye target could be utilized for the marksmanship testing, it's not real life. Firing at torso targets, at least trains the law enforcement officer through kinesthetic awareness, of the proper sight picture desired to obtain center mass hits on a human target. That is, after all, the most common target they will have, albeit, unlikely standing still waiting to take incoming rounds.
BUT, once an officer has displayed proficiency in the ability to continually pass the marksmanship portion of firearms training, the officers are, or sure should be, trained to fire center mass of available threat. If they aren't cutting targets in half, or placing them in manners that they are only partially exposed, and conducting drills, they are shorting themselves. Same with moving targets, and so on.
Why?
Has a suspect never fired over a knee wall? Hood of a car? Bed of a pick up truck? In those cases there will likely only be top of the shoulders and head available. Do I not fire because I don't have center mass of torso?
If an active shooter in a school hallway peers around a corner and all that's available is a slice of head, a right shoulder, and maybe some right leg, do I not fire?
If a law enforcement officer gets pinned down behind a vehicle but can observe a suspects lower legs as the suspect approaches from the opposite side of a vehicle, does the officer not fire under the vehicle at the lower legs?
In all of these instances, my hope is officers are training to fire center mass of available threat. It's not ideal, but taking out an ankle will at least slow the suspect down when time is of the essence. I'm not going to remain pinned down because I don't have a torso to fire at center mass.
Just some thoughts to archive for future incidents that we know are going to occur.
Excellent explanation Emily! I’ve tried to explain this to so many people recently. I think they watch too many movies and TV shows where a shot to the leg immediately stops the bad guy and renders him incapable of hurting anyone. I can tell you after 35 years on the streets as a paramedic, it just doesn’t work that way. Journalists that report on police use of force issues should go to a citizens police academy sponsored by a local law enforcement agency or at the very least spend some time at the local or state police academy educating themselves on the use of force continuum LEOs must abide by.
All great stuff Em! I hope you're thinking about human reaction time, reactionary gap ( for your own safety ), the old 21 foot rule for a knife fight, and everything interconnected to the above.
This entire incident, from arrival to fatal shots, is less than 15 seconds.
HOW QUICKLY can you expect someone to react? This guy is both a hero and a saint. He couldn't have possibly performed any better. No one could. There simply wasn't time to make any other decision. Had he hesitated at all the victim would be seriously wounded or dead, and he'd still have an armed aggressor to deal with. Imagine the outcry if he hadn't reacted fast enough " WHITE POLICE OFFICER allows black to be killed right in front of him"
It's just an attitudinal shift that has to stop. When did the criminals start to get the benefit of the doubt? In the media, the courts, and the minds of Americans?
One other note on the TASER: when I was trained with it at my former PD, TASER itself says not to use it against a knife. We decided not without a barrier between us and lethal cover in case it doesn't work which it sometimes doesn't.
You know the Tuller drill. If the TASER fails and there isn't a barrier between the subject and the officer the subject can close and stab or hit with a contact weapon before the officer can draw and fire. An average person can cover 21ft in 1.5 seconds. An average person can draw and fire from an open top holster in 1.5 seconds. Thumb breaks and other retention features slow that down.
Great reporting and breaking it down for the TV viewers and for breaking it down even further in your Post here. Sadly, many in the media don't have a clue when it comes to guns, tasers, batons etc. - let alone understand the "Force Continuum," It's great that you are able to ask the RIGHT questions at Pressers with the Police. Kudos Emily.
Many years ago when I worked at the Sheriff Dept. a woman asked me the same thing: "Why don't Police just shoot people in the leg and injure them instead of killing them like they do ?" It was a baited question and I looked at her and said: "If a perp is attempting to kill you, would you shoot to STOP the threat or shoot to injure the perp ?" She mumbled something under her breath and walked away. About a week later I saw the woman again and she said: "You are right."
Sometimes common sense is not common when someone already has a pre-disposition against Police to begin with. Yet, once you make it personal - they often times will think about it from that perspective and some come around to seeing the WHOLE picture, not just their narrow opinion.
As a reference, the YouTube channel @Active Self Protection is a great resource, reviewing video footage of real life violence and after all the evidence, @John Correa will say “taser work all the time 50% of the time”
Just search “active self protection taser” and you get lots of good evidence of how tasers are not magic fight stoppers and they fail all the time
There's a video on YouTube that shows why you don't do that. Dude bled out in about 1:30 - 1:45 (that's minutes not hours). Just like LTC Fairbairn said you would.
Unfortunately, it seems as though most of the media is ignorant when it comes to the use of deadly physical force and have no interest in learning what the reality is or in the truth.
Thank you for trying to get the truth out there. You are in the minority.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that has been brainwashed. I'm not exaggerating, either.
Our public schools, the MSM, and politicians still talk about the Jim Crow south as if that was yesterday, and as if the last 50 years haven't happened and no change has come.
But let's be honest here, police corruption and brutality is a real thing. If you're unfamiliar with Joe Campos Torres, you should look it up. He was beaten and thrown into Buffalo Bayou. The two officers who were convicted got 1 year probation and a $1 fine. It was disgraceful.
Torres was a veteran who was "general discharged" out of Army Ranger training, which was a result of alcoholism and anger issues. He was violent and dangerous, and his mood swings were legend. It would take 4 officers or more to bring him under control when he would go on his rampages. I understand why officers might grow weary of this, and want to take the law into their own hands.
What I don't understand is why they would actually do it.
The system failed Joe Campos Torres, his family, the VA, the mental health community, the justice system, and ultimately, law enforcement. Had those officers simply shot Torres while he was on a violent binge, little would have been mentioned of the incident. But they handcuffed him, beat him severely, and took him to jail. His injuries were so severe, the commanding officer at the jail ordered them to take him to Ben Taub Hospital. Instead, they pushed him headlong into a large bayou. His body was found two days later.
His case was similar to George Floyd's, in that he was trouble. Unlike Floyd's death, however, there was no doubt that these officers used criminal methods to murder Torres. Chauvin, in my opinion, was guilty of negligence, and should not have been convicted of murder. The cops who killed Torres were guilty of 1st degree murder (again, that's my opinion).
Torres was almost a black belt in karate. You can't get into Ranger school unless you have some skills. He was a badass, and when he was drunk, he was a threat to everyone around him. That does not give the power of life and death to the police, however. This happened in 1977, and tasers didn't even exist.
What is the answer to dangerous criminals who are killed in police custody? Would Torres have lived much longer at the rate he was going, and the path he was on? Therein lies the problem when ne'er-do-well's like Floyd and Torres meet their demise. Some believe we need better mental health solutions. Some believe that violent criminals get what they deserve for the protection of law-abiding citizens.
I believe in God, and the resurrection, through his son, Jesus Christ. God is a Righteous Judge, and any wrongs will be made right in his courtroom. He will ultimately provide the solution to the problem of sin and death. Until then, we must find the right balance in law and order. Leftists have hijacked the conversation, with the MSM and politicians complicit in the deception of the public. As conservatives, we have to keep taking the high ground, and not let our arguments devolve into mud slinging and name calling. We are in a spiritual battle, with the devil leading the charge for chaos and division and misinformation.
Great summary. Many LEOs are willing to give their lives to save others, but I don't understand why so many armchair investigators expect that to be SOP. Officers train to use the level of force necessary to stop the threat. That doesn't include hurling themselves at a weapon-wielding aggressor.
As if this isn't absurd enough some liberal a-holes (that's a redundancy, ain't it?) also called for LEOs to try to shoot the weapons out of the perpetrator's hands. SURE! Just like the Lone Ranger used to do. Then have Tonto rope n tie the varmint, throw 'em on the back of the horse then go a-ridin' into town to deliver 'em to the Sheriff. Yeah, the dumbassedness is that strong
[A buddy of mine, who is a veteran police officer from Texas, texted this to me. He said I can post it because he's still on the job so he can't post himself.]
"The only thing I would mention about the taser is that it is not the end all cure all. I’ve seen the taser fail so many times. I’ve also seen people fight through a taser deployment and that’s a scary sight.
"A taser in the Columbus incident wouldn’t have been appropriate being that this was an active and in progress assault with a deadly weapon on a 3rd party. Had the taser been deployed she could have fought through it or it could have failed and she would have had the ability to administer some lethal stabs are slashes to the other girl.
"Thank you for having the foresight and speaking what many of us have been saying since the video came out."
Here it is. 32 years LEO experience, a local cop, not a Fed.
What else does the public not understand about OIS?
The decision to use deadly force or not has to be made in a split second most of the time. The public has hours, days to analyze it. The public has no understanding that in situations like that, it’s not the officer dictating what is going to happen.
What do they need to know about your daily jobs?
It’s not a profession many want to do any more. Morale in the ranks is low, across the board. Already many places are feeling the heat from this. The anti-cop crowd seem happy about this, saying the bad cops are leaving, but the truth is that the best cops are leaving. Those with options, skills. Some in academia say this is a chance to redefine and reshape the force, but they do not understand what it takes to fight the hard criminal element. There are people who you do not counsel. There are people who you must not negotiate with. Some criminals need a strong and mean person to take them on.
What are the consequences for an officer who has to shoot?
The psychological impact is immediate. There is always second guessing and terror of being imprisoned unjustly, and for political reasons. The officer is in shock, and is very much a victim in the shooting event. Celebrities and politicians make things worse, almost always.
What are the mental health problems facing career officers?
Career officers almost always suffer from depression and effects like insomnia, alcoholism. I have had insomnia for the last 20 years of my career. And it’s very difficult to receive help for these things as getting mental health treatment is grounds for removal from the police force. Marital problems abound in policing. Suicide rates are bad, and in any OTHER profession all these leftists would call for helping those people, but police are hung out to dry by the public.
What else do I need to write about that the media gets wrong so the public has a bad image of police?
Police inner ranks have a deep dislike for the media. The media love to do hit pieces on police because it’s sensational. The media need to go learn, do shoot don’t shoot scenarios, learn about weapons, learn about real criminals and what they would do if given the opportunity, if police weren’t there. And media need to stop writing hit pieces on police just for ratings. Sensational headlines with actual facts buried.
But this will never happen. MSM is liberal and hate cops.
Truth is, most police can see America is in a deep decline, and once WE are dwindled down to nothing, maybe then what will happen and what will be rebuilt will be worth sacrificing for. Right now, it’s not.
Where to even start?????????
First off, great job Emily, and keep doing what you are doing. You are on point. So let’s look deeper into this whole subject.
I could talk about this for hours, probably days.
To begin with, the media could stay home and study court cases, such as Tennessee v. Garner, Johnson v. Glick, Graham v. Connor, and others, until they understand that L.E. Use of Force must be judged by objective reasonableness, based on the totality of ALL the circumstances known to the L.E. officer at the time force was used, and without hindsight 20/20. A 5 second video, no matter how compelling, does not provide that.
The media could attend a Citizen's Police Academy. That alone provides a lot of insight into various topics such as Use of Force Training, Judgmental Training, Firearms Training, and Force on Force Training.
I’m sure larger agencies that have Judgmental Training equipment such as MILO (Multiple Interactive Learning Objectives), would be willing to provide training sessions to media groups in their community. This equipment provides the students with the opportunity to interact with video scenarios in which the student must communicate and take appropriate action depending on the circumstances provided.
To thoroughly understand the shooting in Center Mass question vs. shooting the arm or leg, several things come into play. To begin, look at it from the marksmanship stand point. Students learn the basics of their weapon and how to shoot. They are then tested in a relatively stress free environment, at a piece of paper that doesn’t move or shoot back. That doesn’t equate to making accurate shots in a real life lethal force situation.
Switch to a real life situation in which information is obtained prior to arriving on scene, stress level may be going up just driving there. The L.E. then arrives on scene and finds a chaotic scene. The stress level is going up fast. Something must be done. The threat must be stopped, BUT, several more things then come into play. The L.E. is accountable for every round fired. A suspect doesn’t care, although in this case the suspect had a knife.
Now let’s look at the physiological response to the human body under stress. Things like auditory blockage, tunnel vision, binocular vision, blood feeding the vital organs and leaving the extremities to preserve ones life. What does that have to do with anything? Well, on the stress free range, to deploy accurate rounds, the student is trained to be in a good shooting stance, have a good grip, obtain a good sight picture, proper sight alignment, focus clearly on the front sight, and then make a good trigger press with the tip of their index finger.
In real life, there is unlikely a good shooting stance. The threat is moving. The L.E. is moving. The physiological response is causing both eyes to open to take in more information. The eyes are now focused on the threat, not the front sight. Blood is leaving the extremities (tip of the trigger finger). All these things are now making it more difficult for the L.E. to make accurate shots.
In addition, as others stated, the threat must be stopped. Deploying rounds to center mass of available target is the best option to stop the threat as quickly as possible. There are three ways to stop a threat for sure. Psychological - The suspect decides they don’t want to die, therefore they stop. Loss of oxygen due to loss of blood flow, which can take a few minutes, in which the suspect can continue to be a threat. The famous 1986 bank robbery in Florida involving Michael Platt is a prime example. Finally, severe the brain stem, which would only be complete luck in a shooting situation.
I could add more, but I'm out of time right this minute.
I had considered writing a post similar to yours. I was thinking of this after hearing the "shoot the arm/leg/non fatal area" one time too many. I used to be an NRA pistol instructor and taught martial arts including knife defense. I've taught law enforcement officers knife defense. But I won't need to now.
You did a great job of answering and explaining the situation and much better than I ever could. Keep up the great work and thank you.
My last comment on this thread. I promise. It's kind of off topic from this particular incident, but still a good time to address it I believe. I saw a comment the other day that I didn't have time to address, and wanted to address. I don't see it here now, so maybe it was on the Zuckerberg platform, so maybe no sense responding on that platform anyway.
The comment mentioned targets not having arms and legs for a reason, and something to the effect that law enforcement is trained to fire at the torso, and that it's a federal and state mandate that officers only fire at the torso, or something along those words. That would lead the unknowing to believe that law enforcement are only trained to fire at center mass of a human torso, and that the arms and legs are not to be fired at.
WRONG! Now don't blow a gasket. Please read all the way to the end.
Yes, Law Enforcement fire at torso targets for qualification, and those targets typically have some type of lines drawn on them for scoring purposes, whether it be X, 10, 9, 8 rings, or a box, or various size silhouette lines, etc. For example, in MD, it must be a scoring zone of no larger than 725 square inches. That does NOT mean an officer cannot fire at the arms or legs. This is done for two reasons. And by the way, the targets, although it doesn't have lines between the torso and where the arms would be, are every bit as wide as the average human, to include the arms hanging at their sides, but I digress.
1. A law enforcement officer must show proficiency in handling their weapon, and proficiency in marksmanship. That would be difficult to do with a human body target with arms and legs. It would be impossible to determine marksmanship skills if a student were directed to fire at the legs for certain sequences of fire, and fire at the head during other sequences of fire. Short of scoring every hit as it occurs, how would one know if rounds striking the lower leg were intended for the legs or the head, and vice versa. That's no marksmanship test.
2. All training should be completed as close to real as possible, so while a bullseye target could be utilized for the marksmanship testing, it's not real life. Firing at torso targets, at least trains the law enforcement officer through kinesthetic awareness, of the proper sight picture desired to obtain center mass hits on a human target. That is, after all, the most common target they will have, albeit, unlikely standing still waiting to take incoming rounds.
BUT, once an officer has displayed proficiency in the ability to continually pass the marksmanship portion of firearms training, the officers are, or sure should be, trained to fire center mass of available threat. If they aren't cutting targets in half, or placing them in manners that they are only partially exposed, and conducting drills, they are shorting themselves. Same with moving targets, and so on.
Why?
Has a suspect never fired over a knee wall? Hood of a car? Bed of a pick up truck? In those cases there will likely only be top of the shoulders and head available. Do I not fire because I don't have center mass of torso?
If an active shooter in a school hallway peers around a corner and all that's available is a slice of head, a right shoulder, and maybe some right leg, do I not fire?
If a law enforcement officer gets pinned down behind a vehicle but can observe a suspects lower legs as the suspect approaches from the opposite side of a vehicle, does the officer not fire under the vehicle at the lower legs?
In all of these instances, my hope is officers are training to fire center mass of available threat. It's not ideal, but taking out an ankle will at least slow the suspect down when time is of the essence. I'm not going to remain pinned down because I don't have a torso to fire at center mass.
Just some thoughts to archive for future incidents that we know are going to occur.
Be safe!
Excellent explanation Emily! I’ve tried to explain this to so many people recently. I think they watch too many movies and TV shows where a shot to the leg immediately stops the bad guy and renders him incapable of hurting anyone. I can tell you after 35 years on the streets as a paramedic, it just doesn’t work that way. Journalists that report on police use of force issues should go to a citizens police academy sponsored by a local law enforcement agency or at the very least spend some time at the local or state police academy educating themselves on the use of force continuum LEOs must abide by.
All great stuff Em! I hope you're thinking about human reaction time, reactionary gap ( for your own safety ), the old 21 foot rule for a knife fight, and everything interconnected to the above.
This entire incident, from arrival to fatal shots, is less than 15 seconds.
HOW QUICKLY can you expect someone to react? This guy is both a hero and a saint. He couldn't have possibly performed any better. No one could. There simply wasn't time to make any other decision. Had he hesitated at all the victim would be seriously wounded or dead, and he'd still have an armed aggressor to deal with. Imagine the outcry if he hadn't reacted fast enough " WHITE POLICE OFFICER allows black to be killed right in front of him"
It's just an attitudinal shift that has to stop. When did the criminals start to get the benefit of the doubt? In the media, the courts, and the minds of Americans?
One other note on the TASER: when I was trained with it at my former PD, TASER itself says not to use it against a knife. We decided not without a barrier between us and lethal cover in case it doesn't work which it sometimes doesn't.
You know the Tuller drill. If the TASER fails and there isn't a barrier between the subject and the officer the subject can close and stab or hit with a contact weapon before the officer can draw and fire. An average person can cover 21ft in 1.5 seconds. An average person can draw and fire from an open top holster in 1.5 seconds. Thumb breaks and other retention features slow that down.
Great reporting and breaking it down for the TV viewers and for breaking it down even further in your Post here. Sadly, many in the media don't have a clue when it comes to guns, tasers, batons etc. - let alone understand the "Force Continuum," It's great that you are able to ask the RIGHT questions at Pressers with the Police. Kudos Emily.
Many years ago when I worked at the Sheriff Dept. a woman asked me the same thing: "Why don't Police just shoot people in the leg and injure them instead of killing them like they do ?" It was a baited question and I looked at her and said: "If a perp is attempting to kill you, would you shoot to STOP the threat or shoot to injure the perp ?" She mumbled something under her breath and walked away. About a week later I saw the woman again and she said: "You are right."
Sometimes common sense is not common when someone already has a pre-disposition against Police to begin with. Yet, once you make it personal - they often times will think about it from that perspective and some come around to seeing the WHOLE picture, not just their narrow opinion.
As a reference, the YouTube channel @Active Self Protection is a great resource, reviewing video footage of real life violence and after all the evidence, @John Correa will say “taser work all the time 50% of the time”
Just search “active self protection taser” and you get lots of good evidence of how tasers are not magic fight stoppers and they fail all the time
https://youtu.be/Ee63sWK0lN4
There's a video on YouTube that shows why you don't do that. Dude bled out in about 1:30 - 1:45 (that's minutes not hours). Just like LTC Fairbairn said you would.
Unfortunately, it seems as though most of the media is ignorant when it comes to the use of deadly physical force and have no interest in learning what the reality is or in the truth.
Thank you for trying to get the truth out there. You are in the minority.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that has been brainwashed. I'm not exaggerating, either.
Our public schools, the MSM, and politicians still talk about the Jim Crow south as if that was yesterday, and as if the last 50 years haven't happened and no change has come.
But let's be honest here, police corruption and brutality is a real thing. If you're unfamiliar with Joe Campos Torres, you should look it up. He was beaten and thrown into Buffalo Bayou. The two officers who were convicted got 1 year probation and a $1 fine. It was disgraceful.
Torres was a veteran who was "general discharged" out of Army Ranger training, which was a result of alcoholism and anger issues. He was violent and dangerous, and his mood swings were legend. It would take 4 officers or more to bring him under control when he would go on his rampages. I understand why officers might grow weary of this, and want to take the law into their own hands.
What I don't understand is why they would actually do it.
The system failed Joe Campos Torres, his family, the VA, the mental health community, the justice system, and ultimately, law enforcement. Had those officers simply shot Torres while he was on a violent binge, little would have been mentioned of the incident. But they handcuffed him, beat him severely, and took him to jail. His injuries were so severe, the commanding officer at the jail ordered them to take him to Ben Taub Hospital. Instead, they pushed him headlong into a large bayou. His body was found two days later.
His case was similar to George Floyd's, in that he was trouble. Unlike Floyd's death, however, there was no doubt that these officers used criminal methods to murder Torres. Chauvin, in my opinion, was guilty of negligence, and should not have been convicted of murder. The cops who killed Torres were guilty of 1st degree murder (again, that's my opinion).
Torres was almost a black belt in karate. You can't get into Ranger school unless you have some skills. He was a badass, and when he was drunk, he was a threat to everyone around him. That does not give the power of life and death to the police, however. This happened in 1977, and tasers didn't even exist.
What is the answer to dangerous criminals who are killed in police custody? Would Torres have lived much longer at the rate he was going, and the path he was on? Therein lies the problem when ne'er-do-well's like Floyd and Torres meet their demise. Some believe we need better mental health solutions. Some believe that violent criminals get what they deserve for the protection of law-abiding citizens.
I believe in God, and the resurrection, through his son, Jesus Christ. God is a Righteous Judge, and any wrongs will be made right in his courtroom. He will ultimately provide the solution to the problem of sin and death. Until then, we must find the right balance in law and order. Leftists have hijacked the conversation, with the MSM and politicians complicit in the deception of the public. As conservatives, we have to keep taking the high ground, and not let our arguments devolve into mud slinging and name calling. We are in a spiritual battle, with the devil leading the charge for chaos and division and misinformation.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis, Emily.
Great summary. Many LEOs are willing to give their lives to save others, but I don't understand why so many armchair investigators expect that to be SOP. Officers train to use the level of force necessary to stop the threat. That doesn't include hurling themselves at a weapon-wielding aggressor.
Good article Emily, police do things they have to do everyday to protect us and themselves. Sometimes it is devastating to them also.
As if this isn't absurd enough some liberal a-holes (that's a redundancy, ain't it?) also called for LEOs to try to shoot the weapons out of the perpetrator's hands. SURE! Just like the Lone Ranger used to do. Then have Tonto rope n tie the varmint, throw 'em on the back of the horse then go a-ridin' into town to deliver 'em to the Sheriff. Yeah, the dumbassedness is that strong