So you are fine with an onnocent person being shot & kilked for non compliance? Just because a bad shooting is deemed legal doesnt mean it wasnt a bad shooting. People make mistakes I get it, but a mistake of non compliance w/o a true instance of self defense should not be a death sentence. Ccw & leo should be treated the same under the same laws.
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Actually, the general rule of law as to actual self defense, leaving aside the consideration of LE authority that impact the
other lawful uses of deadly force, is in fact the same. A good discussion of it is in the amicus brief I cited, and part of it can be found in
New Orleans & Northeastern R. Co. v. Jopes, 42 U.S. 18 (1891) and
United States v. Brown, 256 U.S. 335 (1921).
To some extent, as harsh as it sounds, yes, I am ok with it. (I've spent more than 30 years in the LE and prosecution fields. Most dogs, cats, and wild animals are far more valuable to me than most people, and I am not a fan of stupid behavior being rewarded.) While in retrospect the man was, as I very clearly stated above, almost certainly a decent human being with no criminal intent, he, and only he, created the apparent need to use the force by his own bad judgment. The fact that in retrospect the perfectly reasonable perception of the officer was shown to be incorrect is unfortunate, but not one shred of ANYTHING in law or ethics makes the officer's actions unreasonable, unlawful, or a mistake. It sucks, and the poor cop will live with it the rest of his life. Most likely, he will leave police work in less than 5 years.
As Dave and I said in the brief regarding a similarly unfortunate event: "While there is no doubt that from a Fourth Amendment viewpoint, this was a "seizure", it was first and foremost a matter of self-defense under long established legal standards. The standard of "reasonableness" applied to the use of force under the Fourth Amendment is indistinguishable from that applicable to self-defense. A private citizen faced with the same threat would likewise have been justified in shooting the decedent. Certainly a law enforcement officer, one whom society directs to actively seek out and control criminal actors, should be given the benefit of the same analysis.
Most simply "do not know what they do not know" when it comes to the tactical and legal dynamics of close-in killing environments. As such, they superimpose ill-founded notions of reasonableness when judging others' tactical actions in situations fraught with immediate dangers. In doing so, they judge this dangerous world as they believe it ought to be rather than how it truly is. And, too often, opinion derived from television, the media or even political agitators instead of law, science and proper tactics drive the litigation train." (At this point is footnote 4 of the brief, which reads as follows: Bohrer, Shannon and Chaney, Robert, "Police Investigations of the Use of Deadly Force Can Influence Perceptions and Outcomes," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (January 2010). "For example, when interviewed, one chief of police advised, "it is sometimes easier to go through an officer being killed in the line of duty than a questionable police shooting." In 1993, Edward F. Davis was an instructor in the FBI Academy's Behavioral Science Unit when he interviewed the chief about police and the use of force. The chief's comment could be misconstrued because it was part of a larger dialogue about police use of force and community relations, although it demonstrates perceived and sometimes real concerns. Specifically, the chief was referring to the fact that the department seemed to pull together when an officer is killed and the opposite often occurs when the shooting is questioned in the media.")
I am often frightened by the ignorance I see here when it comes to the realities of use of force. It is no less bad than the usual ignorance and deliberate falsehoods from the moonbats like Balko, Wexler, and certain pressure groups, and far less excusable. If one is armed citizen, they have the responsibility to actually
know the law,
know the tactical considerations,
know the ballistic realities, and live accordingly. I see a scary number of really unsound comments on this forum on a regular basis, and I often do not reply because I will just make people mad, and maybe make the moderators step in, but not improve their knowledge.
Ziggy2525 also raises some important questions, and cites to a couple of cases that are unfortunate, but also have been taken out of context in the mass media. One of the problems presented is very serious, and in more appropriate settings I have raised a lot of hell about it: Police Command and legal personnel are staggeringly ignorant about the legal, tactical and ethical issues, and too cowardly to stand up for their personnel and explain the truth even if they do. I have seen numerous examples of that. This has left the facially unsound and even knowingly untrue claims of the moonbats unquestioned, which has resulted in the kind of damage we are seeing in California with their legislative proposals, here in Washington, and the overwhelmingly baseless consent decrees sought by DOJ/OCR for the last few years. (Look at the shootings of Lavoy Finicum and Michael Brown - the same knowingly false claims (easily but imprecisely) summarized as "hands up don't shoot" were made, and both of them were essentially the same type of people despite their differences: violent criminals, trying to kill cops. Period.
The Shaver case was created by his own moronic behavior (pointing a "rifle" out a motel window, resulting in scared citizens calling the cops), compounded by what one could conclude was a hopelessly incompetent set of commands from a Sergeant who would probably have been over his head if assigned to paperclip inventory. However, sadly, he moved his hands out of sight in manner consistent with drawing. That's a big deal. Like the decedent in our case, it is not mere "non-compliance" - it is non-compliance in a manner consistent with a violent assault. Let your pants fall - the people who see my hairy butt will be more traumatized than I am.
There are, as I have said, DECADES of hard learned lessons that have taught the practices and tactics involved. These lessons are often based on the death of cops who were too complacent. (Go find a copy of "Officer Down, Code 3" by Pierce Brooks; read the reports on the "Newhall incident"; read the studies the FBI did of cop killers and how they decided to kill cops.) I did not look into the Finch matter as closely, but as I recall, he went outside armed (unlawfully, as I recall; I think he was a prohibited possessor) and again did not comply with lawful commands. The time periods in question are measured in hundredths of seconds.
Are there cases in which LE is flat out wrong? Yes. The incident involving Walter Scott, IIRC - disgraceful. Go read
Stamps v. Town of Framingham, 813 F.3d 27 (2016). If one is not using language that would cause our moderators to have strokes as you read it, you don't have an adequate sense of outrage. Even given the tendency of plaintiffs' counsel as a group to lie in LE cases, the event itself is indefensible; the civil defense likewise, and I can't think of any reason why that "officer" (he is not of my tribe) was not fired and prosecuted for manslaughter. That said, the majority of prosecutions of cops are malicious, and the prosecutors should be disbarred. Command officers should have been fired and maybe prosecuted themselves (for violations of state analogues to the criminal violations of civil rights laws - we have one here and I would file it in many of those cases - like Tulsa's abuse of Betty Shelby).
I sometimes cite books and cases here. If you don't obtain and read (and re-read) them, you are probably not getting adequate education. The Patrick and Hall text is vital and simply not optional if you want to have an understanding of the law, tactics, and ethics involved.
