Reconsidering 9mm for Home Defense Given LAPD Shooting

[waffles]

Videos are out. The officer in the video shooting was using an M16A1, though another could have gotten in on it too. One of the vids has discussions of some of the officers going up with less lethal first, rifle guy gets up past all the other cops saying he should be on point since he had the rifle. Suspect is scurrying away trying to get around an aisle divider when the officer starts shooting.

Absolutely tragic, it's not pleasant to watch and I hope the 14 year olds family can eventually get some peace.

 

[biku324]

And the right discussion (less-lethal) was had, but apparently not followed through.

 

[waffles]

And the right discussion (less-lethal) was had, but apparently not followed through.

Yep. Suspect apparently was beating people with a bike lock. I recognize it's all Monday morning quarterbacking now but concerns about overpenetration of a given caliber are pretty far down on how this situation could have gone differently.

 

[oink]

I don't know what information was dispatched to the primary officer(s) involved. However it may be that he was relayed the information (apparently incorrect) from the caller that said shots had been fired. I suspect that that mis-information resulted from the suspect slamming the cable lock into something causing the loud sharp bang heard in the recording.

So, the officers were, to their knowledge, responding to an active shooter situation. My active shooter training (as a result of Columbine) was to respond with speed at the expense of risk to myself or other officers and without waiting for full support or backup to rapidly terminate the threat before (more) lives are lost. I assume they had similar and probably better training. (I don't think I phrased that well but hopefully you get the idea.)

They arrive and find blood on the floor and an injured citizen and see a suspect presumably armed with a firearm (based on the report) about to flee from immediate sight. Take him out now!

The death of the child is a horrendous outcome, obviously. I don't even have words for that...

As for the suspect, well tough. His death was a result of his own stupid or deranged actions and just bad luck due to the way the call came in. The responding officers are going to error on the side of, well error in an effort to stop what was a perceived mass shooting.

I really can't adequately express my feelings on the situation without getting censored.

A bad situation with a very bad outcome.

 

[giants1]

oink, thank you for your reply.

I have friends and family in law enforcement and can't be more supportive and respectful of this difficult profession.

Watching the MSN video link provided earlier in this thread and this one,

MSN

the badge cam of the cop with the AR15 clearly showed the suspect with a cable chain lock in his right hand facing the ground, no gun in his possession, not charging or threatening anyone, the nearest victim about 10 feet away from him and next to the cop with the badge cam and the AR15. His partner said, "slow down, slow down." The cop with the AR15 then shot the suspect.

Note that there's a large scope on the AR15 and if you look carefully, you can see a bullet hole in the wall behind the suspect.

Regardless of whether a caller reports to 911 that there's a gunman, the cops need to look at the situation on the ground and not rely solely on a caller.

Apparently, that cop with the AR15 ignored other cops who had tasers and suggested using tasers. I did not hear that part of the discussion.

My sig other said that in the Spanish news, the victim's mother heard a commotion, so she and the daughter crouched down in the dressing room and prayed. The bullet struck the teen in the chest. If true, the cop grossly missed the suspect's center of mass.

While we don't know all of the circumstances, especially other badge cam and surveillance videos, based upon that video, the suspect was not an imminent threat to anyone to justify immediately shooting him and less lethal interventions should have been done or the cop at the very least will need to articulate very well why he didn't consider less lethal measures and, if he didn't use the rifle scope, why not.

I presume that his AR-15s was set to select fire/burst mode, which would explain why he shot three cartridges.

 

[Doug M.]

Crybabies gonna crybaby. Mixing the tragedy of what might well be poor marksmanship (and an AR is a lot easier to shoot well under pressure than a handgun for us mere mortals) with the appearance of the platform is to expected. Giving into it is cowardly and unethical.

 

[biku324]

The LAPD video release is 35 minutes - if you watch the actual bodycam and store surveillance video and listen to the conversation, the officer only discussed the decedent "...hitting..on the right side" of the woman left bleeding on the floor. No one said anything about a gun from the time they geared up to the end of the video although one initial dispatch call said it was a shooting. We don't see mobile data terminal traffic. The most relevant part is from 27:00 to the end. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjcdanUhmSY[/ame]

The shooting of a whacko armed with a bike chain and lock who is several feet from (and no further threat to) the victim, who has broken off his attack, and who is trying to run away in a store where you have several police officers on the same floor within a few feet, is outside of any recent use of force policy of which I'm aware, and probably violates Garner as well. No commands, no use of the less-lethal weaponry on the several officers immediately at arrest site - this one will be expensive.

The decedent won't be missed by me, so I'll likely not make his celebration of life.

I can't even imagine how awful the officer who fired feels.

 

[waffles]

Crybabies gonna crybaby. Mixing the tragedy of what might well be poor marksmanship (and an AR is a lot easier to shoot well under pressure than a handgun for us mere mortals) with the appearance of the platform is to expected. Giving into it is cowardly and unethical.

An innocent 14 year old girl is dead from a botched police response. I'm glad we've got "crybabies" who aren't cool with that.

Also, it looks like the decision to shoot was a bad one. I don't particularly care that it was with his AR, though that is relevant as the original post thought it was a 9mm used. I don't think we'd have seen a better outcome had the officer been using his handgun instead.

 

[giants1]

Would Federal FlyteControl #00 Buckshot likely have over-penetrated into the dressing room?

 

[waffles]

Would Federal FlyteControl #00 Buckshot likely have over-penetrated into the dressing room?

Yes. There's really not a good way around the basic truth that ammo we deem acceptable for taking down people or people sized (or larger) animals will also go through light doors and walls.

 

[biku324]

Doesn't matter - the use of deadly force was either justified or not, and it's mighty clear to me it wasn't. The method employed is a side issue.

 

[6518John]

Doesn't matter - the use of deadly force was either justified or not, and it's mighty clear to me it wasn't.

I bet the severely beaten lady would disagree. The police have to have the most thankless job in the history of the world. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They are in a no win situation no matter what they do anymore.

 

[biku324]

Nonsense. When police follow their training and policies, the result is nearly always a good one. It's not 'backing the blue' if one endorses clearly inappropriate actions.

https://lapdonlinestrgeacc.blob.cor...1/05/Special-Order-No-23-556.10-Revised-1.pdf

California Penal Code SS 835a (2020) :: 2020 California Code :: US Codes and Statutes :: US Law :: Justia

 

[Univibe]

I bet the severely beaten lady would disagree. The police have to have the most thankless job in the history of the world. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They are in a no win situation no matter what they do anymore.

If the job of the police is thankless, if the victim of the beating holds some opinion: none of that addresses whether the shots should have been fired, and how they should have been fired.

Interesting that some members who are LEO are critical of LAPD after they see the video.

I'm not LEO, but EDC. If the crazy was beating a woman with a lock on a chain, I'd have fired (this is assuming TX). If he was approaching another customer with said weapon, I'd have fired.

 

[biku324]

It was not Texas, but California. The decedent was not in the act of beating the woman when shot; he was several feet distant and trying to run.

If a civilian killed this whacko in the circumstance of trying to stop the escape of someone who had beaten a woman with a bike lock and chain, then was running away and who was not an imminent threat to him or her (hard to be imminently threatening while running away), then the civilian would be in jail.

What legal authority does an 'EDC' have to make arrests and prevent escapes?


California Penal Code
CHAPTER 1. Homicide [187 - 199] ( Chapter 1 enacted 1872. )

197.
Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in any of the following cases:

(1) When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person.

(2) When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein.

(3) When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a spouse, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he or she was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed.

(4) When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace.

(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 50, Sec. 67. (SB 1005) Effective January 1, 2017.)


And the current CA jury instruction:


B. JUSTIFICATIONS AND EXCUSES
505.Justifiable Homicide: Self-Defense or Defense of Another

The defendant is not guilty of (murder/ [or] manslaughter/ attemptedmurder/ [or] attempted voluntary manslaughter) if (he/she) was justified in (killing/attempting to kill) someone in (self-defense/ [or] defense of another).

The defendant acted in lawful (self-defense/ [or] defense of another) if:

1. The defendant reasonably believed that (he/she/ [or] someone else/[or] <insert name or description of third party>) wasin imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury [or was in imminent danger of being(raped/maimed/robbed/ <insert other forcible and atrocious crime>)];

2. The defendant reasonably believed that the immediate use of deadly force was necessary to defend against that danger; AND

3. The defendant used no more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against that danger. Belief in future harm is not sufficient, no matter how great or how likely the harm is believed to be. The defendant must have believed there was imminent danger of death or great bodily injury to (himself/herself/ [or]someone else). Defendant's belief must have been reasonable and (he/she)must have acted only because of that belief. The defendant is only entitled to use that amount of force that a reasonable person would believe is necessary in the same situation. If the defendant used more force than was reasonable, the [attempted] killing was not justified.

When deciding whether the defendant's beliefs were reasonable, consider all the circumstances as they were known to and appeared to the defendant and consider what a reasonable person in a similar situation with similar knowledge would have believed. If the defendant's beliefs were reasonable, the danger does not need to have actually existed.[The defendant's belief that (he/she/ [or] someone else) was threatened may be reasonable even if (he/she) relied on information that was not true. However, the defendant must actually and reasonably have believed that the information was true.][If you find that <insert name of decedent/victim> threatened or harmed the defendant [or others] in the past, you may consider that information in deciding whether the defendant's conduct and beliefs were reasonable.]

 

[LennyLames]

"Clearly," (note the quotes) it was an inappropriate use of deadly force. However, by the time I got to the part where the shooting occurred, I had already seen several minutes of CCTV footage from various perspectives that showed the perpetrator handling the bike lock, slinging it over his shoulder, leaving it on the floor near the escalator, swinging it at various objects and people.

On the other hand, the responding (shooting) officer in front saw all the blood, an incapacitated victim apparently with serious bodily injury, and had less than a second and a half to stop the bad guy from possibly causing death or serious bodily injury to others. There was also the prior report of shots fired.

29:08 "He's got a tube." [Elongated object].

29:12 "He's hitting her now on the right-hand side." [Nothing innovative, elongated objects such as guns can be used as clubs].

I replayed the video around 29:24 several times and I could discern a large black object in the bad guy's left hand that was quickly hidden from view by his body. If cell phones can be mistaken as firearms, an elongated black object (tube) in the hands of a rampaging criminal is worse.

The -Revised-1.pdf document linked above, an easy-to-read document that even defines "serious bodily injury," regarding use of deadly force states:

". . .when the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of circumstances, that such force is necessary for either of the following reasons:
. . .
To apprehend a FLEEING person for any felony that threatened or resulted in death or serious bodily injury, if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or serious bodily injury to another unless immediately apprehended."

One could argue that the officer should have spent several more seconds interviewing the nearby victim to see if he could get coherent answers from her but in the meantime, there could be more victims of "death or serious bodily injury."

I don't know what level of certainty LEOs get regarding a situation, but if there's any possibility of a bad guy with a firearm, I would expect them to err on the side of safety (their own and others).

I feel sorry for the 14 year old that was shot. While it doesn't lessen the pain, I hope her family gets decent compensation.

On the other hand, the bad guy's family would get in on the game. Doesn't matter if they were estranged and hated him, but they'll go for as much dinero ($) as they can to address their "pain and suffering" and the loss of their "loved one" who was "turning his life around."

Nothing to add to the O.P. caliber discussion. Happy New Year to all of you!

 

[petepeterson]

It was not Texas, but California. The decedent was not in the act of beating the woman when shot; he was several feet distant and trying to run.

If a civilian killed this whacko in the circumstance of trying to stop the escape of someone who had beaten a woman with a bike lock and chain, then was running away and who was not an imminent threat to him or her (hard to be imminently threatening while running away), then the civilian would be in jail.

What legal authority does an 'EDC' have to make arrests and prevent escapes?

Please don't let your legal hogwash prevent a CCW holder from an opportunity to use "suppressive" fire. Such a buzzkill.

 

[Echo40]

Pretty much everything penetrates drywall, including .410 Birdshot, so seeking a Home Defense cartridge/load that won't penetrate drywall yet is still powerful enough to stop a threat is a fool's errand.

If you're worried about collateral damage in a Home Defense scenario, then I would sooner recommend lining your interior walls with tile or something else that may slow down, break up, or stop projectiles than try to find a new cartridge or load which won't penetrate drywall, at least then you have the fringe benefit of two-way protection which will prevent bullets from entering or exiting your home.
People may say that it's equally if not more ridiculous to attempt to make your interior walls bulletproof as it is to seek a load that cannot penetrate walls, but if you're going to do one or the other, then might as well make it one which is less expensive and offers two-way protection.

 

[BE Mike]

My take on this, all other considerations aside, is that everyone who carries a firearm needs to train to be able to hit the intended target. Misses can have have dire consequences. Marksmanship tops all other training, i.e. fast draw, fast initial shot, fast reloading, engaging multiple targets, shooting and moving, et al.

 

[biku324]

Please don't let your legal hogwash prevent a CCW holder from an opportunity to use "suppressive" fire. Such a buzzkill.

Guess I'm just Debbie Downer (kicks dirt).