Another Knife vs Gun: Look at how Close the Assailant was allowed to Get...

[dyl]

By strike, we mean the bullet striking the pavement right?

I had thought he had struck her dominant hand with the shank of the screwdriver after which the officer grunted, then performed the malfunction drill. But looking at the video again, I think he just swatted her dominant hand down with his left wrist and never really hit her with the screwdriver.

[peacefulgary]

Bad tactics in my opinion.
She was responding to a knife attack, so she knew the suspect was armed with at least one knife.
She found her suspect.
He stopped.
She stopped.
She got out of her cruiser.
He got out of his car with a weapon in his hand.
She tells him to drop the weapon.
And the rest is history.

Not to be a Monday morning QB, but a better tactic would have been this:
He stops.
She stops.
She gets out of her cruiser.
He gets out of his car with a weapon in his hand.
She quickly gets back in her cruiser and hits the gas and runs over the idiot.

Sometimes, a firearm is not the best tool for the job.

[Aguila Blanca]

^^^ I hope the above was meant to be facetious. If you were serious, it's a good thing you aren't a law enforcement officer.

[ghbucky]

By strike, we mean the bullet striking the pavement right?

That is what I was referring to.

Her response to him left me with a question..

It looks like he angled to the passenger side of her cruiser, using it as cover while he closed the distance and then crossed across it to lunge at her.

I wondered why she didn't retreat away from the cruiser to deny him that advantage, but is there some kind of rule about keeping control of the cruiser? It sorta seemed like she didn't want to leave that open driver door until she had no other choice.

[mehavey]

She's making decisions in fractions of a second.
Unless actually trained/rehearsed/repeated & repeated.... you take what that fraction can give you.

(Sure wish she hadn't pushed everything to the left early-on though...)

[peacefulgary]

I hope the above was meant to be facetious. If you were serious, it's a good thing you aren't a law enforcement officer.

No, I'm serious.
He started out walking slowly toward her, with a knife that was clearly visible.
She had plenty of time to get back in her cruiser.
And she didn't have to run him over, but she could have called backup from the safety of her cruiser.
And if he tried to break the window, she could have used her handgun then.
No one else was in immediate danger other than herself.
The suspect was not trying to flee at that point.
So why have a standoff and shoot multiple rounds in to a neighborhood trying to stop a guy with a knife, when you could have just got back in your car and locked the doors?
Her tactics are the tactics that get officers killed, or force officers to kill.

Consider this...
You're a cop.
Some nut is making a scene outside in your front yard.
You grab your handgun and open the door and step out on your front porch.
The guy has a knife and slowly starts walking toward you.
Do you tell him to drop the knife...and if he doesn't, you start shooting?
Or do you go back inside and lock the door and call for backup?
It's a "no brainer".
You don't want to get stabbed or cut, and you don't want to kill someone (even if that someone is mentally ill or on drugs or both), and you don't want to risk missing the target and shoot up the neighborhood, and a direct hand to hand confrontation can easily be avoided.

I'm not some anti-cop antifa punk.
I'm an Army vet and I support the police.
But sometimes the tactics the police use are just stupid.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

No, I'm serious.
He started out walking slowly toward her, with a knife that was clearly visible.
She had plenty of time to get back in her cruiser.
And she didn't have to run him over, but she could have called backup from the safety of her cruiser.
And if he tried to break the window, she could have used her handgun then.
No one else was in immediate danger other than herself.
The suspect was not trying to flee at that point.
So why have a standoff and shoot multiple rounds in to a neighborhood trying to stop a guy with a knife, when you could have just got back in your car and locked the doors?
Her tactics are the tactics that get officers killed, or force officers to kill.

Consider this...
You're a cop.
Some nut is making a scene outside in your front yard.
You grab your handgun and open the door and step out on your front porch.
The guy has a knife and slowly starts walking toward you.
Do you tell him to drop the knife...and if he doesn't, you start shooting?
Or do you go back inside and lock the door and call for backup?
It's a "no brainer".
You don't want to get stabbed or cut, and you don't want to kill someone (even if that someone is mentally ill or on drugs or both), and you don't want to risk missing the target and shoot up the neighborhood, and a direct hand to hand confrontation can easily be avoided.

I’m confused here. You’ve gone from suggesting she run him over with her vehicle (I can imagine there might be some questions as to that legality of that or if not then even just the optics of that decision) to now suggesting she retreat to her car and wait for backup. So we have a person suspected of attacking someone with a knife, who has now at least threatened a police officer with the knife, and she should instead expose her side or back to him as she gets back into the police car and then hide inside? So while she calls and waits for backup the man with the knife does what? Who is to say he simply stops and waits outside the car? What if he then runs or drives somewhere and attacks someone else all while the officer did nothing? Or he runs over to the police car, breaks the window, and starts attacking her while she is stuck seated in a vehicle, essentially surrendering any and all advantage she had with her ranged weapon as opposed to his knife? And her tactics are the ones that get officers killed?


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[ghbucky]

The way I look at it is she put her life on the line to protect another innocent person from being attacked.

[peacefulgary]

I’m confused here.

No, you're not.
People often say that to score points in a debate, but it's total nonsense.
You're not confused at all.
You disagree with me.
That's okay.
But don't make a silly statement like that.

You’ve gone from suggesting she run him over with her vehicle (I can imagine there might be some questions as to that legality of that or if not then even just the optics of that decision)

Yeah, she should have ran him over.
It would have been the right tactical thing to do.
Are you suggesting that the suspect was dangerous enough to shoot, but not dangerous enough to hit with the police cruiser?
At least by using the cruiser to take down the suspect, she wouldn't have endangered others in the neighborhood by sending missed rounds down the street.

to now suggesting she retreat to her car and wait for backup. So we have a person suspected of attacking someone with a knife, who has now at least threatened a police officer with the knife, and she should instead expose her side or back to him as she gets back into the police car and then hide inside?

Look at the video again.
He was slowly walking toward her car at first. She had plenty of time to get back in her cruiser without exposing her side or back to the suspect.
You could have done it, I could have done it, heck, a eight year old could have done it.

So while she calls and waits for backup the man with the knife does what? Who is to say he simply stops and waits outside the car? What if he then runs or drives somewhere and attacks someone else all while the officer did nothing?

It's a fluid situation.
YES, the officer must be able to think on her feet and make changes to her tactics.
If he turns around and starts walking back toward his car, she has options...
Try to deter or stop him, or allow him to return to his car and then stay in pursuit (which is not "doing nothing").

Or he runs over to the police car, breaks the window, and starts attacking her while she is stuck seated in a vehicle, essentially surrendering any and all advantage she had with her ranged weapon as opposed to his knife?

Look at the video again.
No way could he have run over her cruiser.
That's just nonsense.

And if he even tried to break her window, she could have shot him through the window glass and probably actually hit him without shooting up the entire neighborhood.
He actually got close enough to cut her, so she lost the range advantage by initially missing her target while he closed the distance.
And she would not have been "stuck" in her seat...she could have exited by the passenger side door.
From what you have said, it does not seem that you can think outside the proverbial box.

And her tactics are the ones that get officers killed?

Absolutely!
She is darn lucky to be alive today.

Don't defend poor decision making, or poor tactics, or poor training.
That does not help our law enforcement at all.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

No, you're not.
People often say that to score points in a debate, but it's total nonsense.
You're not confused at all.
You disagree with me.
That's okay.
But don't make a silly statement like that.


Yeah, she should have ran him over.
It would have been the right tactical thing to do.
Are you suggesting that the suspect was dangerous enough to shoot, but not dangerous enough to hit with the police cruiser?
At least by using the cruiser to take down the suspect, she wouldn't have endangered others in the neighborhood.


Look at the video again.
He was slowly walking toward her car at first. She had plenty of time to get back in her cruiser without exposing her side or back to the suspect.
You could have done it, I could have done it, heck, a eight year old could have done it.


It's a fluid situation.
YES, the officer must be able to think on her feet and make changes to her tactics.
If he turns around and starts walking back toward his car, she has options...
Try to deter or stop him, or allow him to return to his car and then stay in pursuit (which is not "doing nothing").


Look at the video again.
No way could he have run over her cruiser.
That's just nonsense.

And if he even tried to break her window, she could have shot him through the window glass and probably actually hit him without shooting up the entire neighborhood.
He actually got close enough to cut her, so she lost the range advantage by initially missing her target while he closed the distance.
And she would not have been "stuck" in her seat...she could have exited by the passenger side door.
From what you have said, it does not seem that you can think outside the proverbial box.



Absolutely!
She is darn lucky to be alive today.

Don't defend poor decision making, or poor tactics, or poor training.
That does not help our law enforcement at all.

Actually yes I find your logic confusing.

I’m suggesting police choosing to run over suspects with their vehicles rather than shoot them isn’t something I see happening regularly or agree with, especially when the officer already had the suspect at gunpoint. People can move, generally more dynamically than a car. I don’t know that a police officer weaving a car to hit a suspect is better than firing shots at a suspect.

Assuming he didn’t start moving faster sure. Could she have made it in the car? Yeah probably. Do I think that’s the tactically sound choice? No, hence my response.

Absent running him over, most of the options to deter him would involve getting back out of the vehicle, putting her right back where this started. This assumes the suspect did retreat and didn’t continue the attack.

I didn’t say “run over her cruiser”. I said run over to her cruiser, as in on foot, to break her window. Read more carefully, please.

I don’t see what happened here as her “shooting up the entire neighborhood”. That seems like an exaggeration. Shooting from a seated position up at a suspect who is likely stabbing you or striking you is more likely, in my limited experience of shooting out of a vehicle, to result in errant rounds going into a neighborhood than what we saw here. Could she have crawled across? Depending on the layout of her cruiser, maybe. I don’t consider crawling or scooting across the interior of a cruiser from a suspect that has broken your window and is striking or stabbing you to be a tactical advantage when you chose to put yourself in that situation.

There’s thinking outside of the box, and then there’s making suggestions that seem ridiculous. I can agree the line may be a bit blurry, though I’m not sure that’s the case here.

I have no issue calling out law enforcement for poor tactics. The tactics you just described seem worse for both the officer and the community than what I see in this video.


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[peacefulgary]

I’m suggesting police choosing to run over suspects with their vehicles rather than shoot them isn’t something I see happening regularly or agree with

It's the safer thing to do in this particular situation.
By pulling her pistol, she knows that every round she fires that misses the suspect has the potential to kill someone else in the neighborhood.

"Hey, this guy stabbed an elderly man, and he was walking toward me with a knife, and I felt I had no other option but to shoot at him...
I'm sorry that one of my rounds missed the suspect and hit your five year old child who was playing on your porch."

How would you feel?

I honestly think that some police officers are so focused on getting their suspect that they endanger other innocent folks.

[mehavey]

Sorry, but she cannot retreat (like a civilian), and deliberately running over the "Alleged Suspect"
will (likely) put her in front of a grand jury for potential manslaughter.
https://www.tmz.com/2020/06/07/misso...-doorbell-cam/

[TunnelRat]

I think that’s a possibility. I think that trying to run over a suspect that can then himself move and I then have to play a reverse game of Frogger in the middle of the street isn’t necessarily a winning solution. Other people can be driving and walking. There are possibilities of hitting them as well. I might not be able to hit the suspect and then I’m back where I started and I have to get out of the car. He might simply jump a fence and escape and harm someone else.

I get the concern about hurting people that are innocent. For the reasons I outline above and have outlined previously I don’t think trying to run over the suspect is inherently better.


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[peacefulgary]

Sorry, but she cannot retreat (like a civilian), and deliberately running over the "Alleged Suspect"
will (likely) put her in front of a grand jury for potential manslaughter.

Okay, let me get this right...

She can use a taser to stop the suspect.
She can use pepper-spray to stop the suspect.
She can a baton to stop the suspect.
She can use her handgun to stop the suspect.
She can use a shotgun to stop the suspect.
She can use an AR rifle to stop the suspect.

But using her cruiser to stop the suspect would put her in front of a grand jury for manslaughter?!?

Not to mention that in high speed car chases cops have been known to purposely hit the suspect's car, forcing them off the road and possible killing them, and that's okay.
But hitting a suspect who knifed someone and is threatening the officer, is somehow criminal and unacceptable?!?

[mehavey]

But using her cruiser to stop the suspect would put her in front of a grand jury for manslaughter ???

In a word: "Yes"

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

Consider this...
You're a cop.
Some nut is making a scene outside in your front yard.
You grab your handgun and open the door and step out on your front porch.
The guy has a knife and slowly starts walking toward you.
Do you tell him to drop the knife...and if he doesn't, you start shooting?
Or do you go back inside and lock the door and call for backup?
It's a "no brainer".

But you didn't suggest getting back in the cruiser and calling for backup. You suggested getting back in the cruiser and running the guy over.

You don't want to get stabbed or cut, and you don't want to kill someone (even if that someone is mentally ill or on drugs or both), and you don't want to risk missing the target and shoot up the neighborhood, and a direct hand to hand confrontation can easily be avoided.

I'm not some anti-cop antifa punk.
I'm an Army vet and I support the police.
But sometimes the tactics the police use are just stupid.

So rather than shoot the guy, your suggestion was to run him over with a 4,500 pound SUV? That's your notion of "less lethal" than shooting?

If you are really former military, you may have encountered the term "rules of engagement." I very much doubt that any police department teaches "run 'em over" as the preferred response to knife wielding perps.

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

And she would not have been "stuck" in her seat...she could have exited by the passenger side door.

You have obviously never looked inside a Ford Explorer equipped as a police cruiser. It's not a 1950 Chevy pickup with a nice, wide, open bench seat to slide across.

[peacefulgary]

So rather than shoot the guy, your suggestion was to run him over with a 4,500 pound SUV? That's your notion of "less lethal" than shooting?

NO. I never said I thought she should use less than lethal tactics.
I think that her best tactic of stopping the suspect AND not endangering innocent bystanders would have been using the cruiser.

I very much doubt that any police department teaches "run 'em over" as the preferred response to knife wielding perps.

You just made my point for me...

The tactics being taught to the police are not always best.
We don't teach cops to "run 'em over" even if running them over is the best tactic.

We also don't teach cops to hide in the woods and set up an ambush and kill the suspects in a hail of machine gun fire either...but that's exactly what the cops did with Bonnie and Clyde.
It was smart and it worked!

The tactics being taught to police today are, by and large, not working as intended.

[peacefulgary]

Forgive me for too argumentative.

I can be like that sometimes.

[TBM900]

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

Bad tactics in my opinion.

Your opinion is irrelevant.
As a 4+ decade LEO I can also say your opinion is absud.
But please, by all means...
Feel free to show us an agency UFP that allows for running over a subject in this situation.
Just one...

[TBM900]

Originally Posted by peacefulgary

I think that her best tactic of stopping the suspect AND not endangering innocent bystanders would have been using the cruiser

Where are these bystanders you speak of...?
How did she endanger them...?

The tactics being taught to police today are, by and large, not working as intended.

Specify a couple of these tactics you speak of...
Provide a few examples of how they “did not work as intended”...
Then detail for us your foolproof methods...

[Sharkbite]

There have been quite a few times vehicles were used by Police as an alternative to firearms. Deadly force must be justified and most of those were against subjects armed with firearms, but i can see a vehicle used against a knife wielding assailant.

Now, TASERS, Beanbags, 40mike foam batons (with lethal cover) are most always a better option, but you gotta use whats at hand to protect any bystanders. If you are all alone (empty streets), i think it would be an uphill battle to claim any imminent threat to bystanders.

[Swifty Morgan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u075XsD31w

Cops are actually taught to use their cars for things other than going to get donuts.

[TBM900]

Originally Posted by Swifty Morgan

Cops are actually taught to use their cars for things other than going to get donuts.

Care to cite such a training curriculum and UFP....

Further, such is an absurd analogy.

[TunnelRat]

Some people have mentioned police using cars for PIT maneuvers or running over fleeing suspects. I’d like to point out that this is different than what is being proposed here. What is being proposed here is having a suspect at gunpoint, abandoning that position, getting back into a car, and then running over that suspect. To me this is notably different than already being in a car and using the resources at hand.


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[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by TunnelRat

Some people have mentioned police using cars for PIT maneuvers or running over fleeing suspects. I’d like to point out that this is different than what is being proposed here. What is being proposed here is having a suspect at gunpoint, abandoning that position, getting back into a car, and then running over that suspect. To me this is notably different than already being in a car and using the resources at hand.

I have seen video of two incidents in which police used a cruiser to ram a perp. In both cases, the perps were armed with firearms and were in a position to fire on the officer(s).

In the incident that is the subject of this discussion, the perp was armed with an edged weapon (some say knife, to me it looked like a pair of large scissors) and a screwdriver -- not a long-distance weapon.

I respectfully submit that there is a difference.