LEO Engages Ax Wielding Suspect

[Javier730]

I think she was trying to emasculate this man more than anything by advancing on him like this. Some women think they have the strength of men, but they forget their fuel for their bravado is in the strength of the courts and police.

//Monday Morning Quarterback// if he saw she had an axe he could have stayed in the car.

Otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with his homicide.

Please tell me you're joking.

I say that, because life should be preserved when possible. I am not dogging the officer for killing her. but here we are...in our armchairs asking the questions. We cast what is ultimately our approval or disapproval for what happened. If there is a better way to handle situations like this (with the assumption that life is precious), then my question to you is what is the problem with mentally exploring the other options?

So no I am not joking, my post should be taken for what its worth to you.

Part of the police officer's job should be to protect people from ax wielding nut jobs. He can't do that effectively while in his car. There appeared to already be one Police vehicle present, and she wasn't advancing on those officers, so how could he know she was going to come after him? If he was backup, again, he can't act as backup while sitting in his car. The loss of life is unfortunate, but it is sometimes necessary for the preservation of other lives. This was one of those times. I see nothing to indicate this was not a fully necessary and justified self-defense shooting.

[Txtension]

If I can expand on my MMQB

I watched the video a few dozen more times and I agree with some of the other posters here (all of you?). I see that the officer retreated, and held his fire until literally the absolute last millisecond. Not only in chopping range, I can even see the subject begin to "power up" for that chop, (she begins to hop slightly and raises the weapon).

So I applaud the officer for granting her those 3 extra seconds of life

The crux of my MMQB is if you know the person has an Ax, why inject yourself directly into the fight. It appears that there are 2 other LEOs on site who I must assume must be relatively in control, maybe even talking her down. Negotiating? Doesn't look like they are under attack.

So why not enter the scene well outside of the 21ft rule.

I disclaimed that comment with //MMQB// because I don't have experience in LE, I wasn't there, and I really do not want to offend anyone, but I thought would explore that "what if"

[WildBill]

If I can expand on my MMQB

I watched the video a few dozen more times and I agree with some of the other posters here (all of you?). I see that the officer retreated, and held his fire until literally the absolute last millisecond. Not only in chopping range, I can even see the subject begin to "power up" for that chop, (she begins to hop slightly and raises the weapon).

So I applaud the officer for granting her those 3 extra seconds of life

The crux of my MMQB is if you know the person has an Ax, why inject yourself directly into the fight. It appears that there are 2 other LEOs on site who I must assume must be relatively in control, maybe even talking her down. Negotiating? Doesn't look like they are under attack.

So why not enter the scene well outside of the 21ft rule.

I disclaimed that comment with //MMQB// because I don't have experience in LE, I wasn't there, and I really do not want to offend anyone, but I thought would explore that "what if"

Negotiating? The officers did not have the luxury of trying to determine the intentions of the person with the ax.
It doesn't matter if she raised the weapon. What if she had a gun in her hands and it was pointed at the ground would it be any different? NO.
It is the job of the officers to "inject" themselves into the situation. What if they didn't show up and just sat in their patrol cars and watched and the woman starting chopping up other people?
It is fine to wonder "what if" but sometimes it doesn't offer any new insight.

[Txtension]

The officers did not have the luxury of trying to determine the intentions of the person with the ax.
It doesn't matter if she raised the weapon. What if she had a gun in her hands and it was pointed at the ground would it be any different? NO.
It is the job of the officers to "inject" themselves into the situation. What if they didn't show up and just sat in their patrol cars and watched and the woman starting chopping up other people?

If she had a gun low-ready instead, I do not think it would have been sane to inject himself as he did, all other variables constant. The officer certainly responded as if there was an Active Chopping going on.

To Protect and Serve also applies to those who break, or are suspected of breaking the law. Otherwise, when did the state start hiring Street Judges?

[WildBill]

The officers did not have the luxury of trying to determine the intentions of the person with the ax.
It doesn't matter if she raised the weapon. What if she had a gun in her hands and it was pointed at the ground would it be any different? NO.
It is the job of the officers to "inject" themselves into the situation. What if they didn't show up and just sat in their patrol cars and watched and the woman starting chopping up other people?

If she had a gun low-ready instead, I do not think it would have been sane to inject himself as he did, all other variables constant. The officer certainly responded as if there was an Active Chopping going on.

To Protect and Serve also applies to those who break, or are suspected of breaking the law. Otherwise, when did the state start hiring Street Judges?

It appears that you have some type of agenda to push.

Go ahead and post what you want to say, but I am not playing.

[Excaliber]

The officers did not have the luxury of trying to determine the intentions of the person with the ax.
It doesn't matter if she raised the weapon. What if she had a gun in her hands and it was pointed at the ground would it be any different? NO.
It is the job of the officers to "inject" themselves into the situation. What if they didn't show up and just sat in their patrol cars and watched and the woman starting chopping up other people?

If she had a gun low-ready instead, I do not think it would have been sane to inject himself as he did, all other variables constant. The officer certainly responded as if there was an Active Chopping going on.

To Protect and Serve also applies to those who break, or are suspected of breaking the law. Otherwise, when did the state start hiring Street Judges?

The video doesn't give you the information the officer received from dispatch or from other officers which may have provided insight into the suspect's intent that he would have taken into account in his decision making.

You'll note that he didn't pull his vehicle right up to the suspect, but stopped some distance back to give himself an opportunity to assess and react to whatever occurred.

You'll also note that he didn't open fire when the suspect began to approach him in a threatening manner, that he backed up to create distance and give warnings, and that he waited until the suspect was in a position where she could have charged and severely injured him within approximately 1 second. He did everything he reasonably could to save her life, and she literally forced him to fire. I've had people try to make me do the same, but fortunately I always had different circumstances and more options than this officer did.

You are correct that "protect and serve" (which is only a slogan and not a legal canon) applies to those who break the law as well, but the "protect" part applies to the protectors too. IMHO, this officer acted compassionately and reasonably to a very rapidly evolving deadly threat, and fired only when it appeared he was just moments from being attacked with an axe.

The MMQB exercise can be useful, but it can also be counterproductive when the facts are over "whatiffed" in order to reach a forced conclusion. It's also worthwhile to keep in mind that those who MMQB most critically very often have never faced a similar situation and may very well never have to in their entire lives. Officers, on the other hand, will face things like this multiple times during their careers, and have to get it right every time to stay alive and out of prison. Most are pretty good at it and, although they all face multiple circumstances where the legal answer to "can I shoot" is clearly "yes", in 99% of cases, they answer the not legally required but morally necessary "must I shoot to preserve innocent life" question with a "no" and find another way.

Those who haven't walked in their shoes should bear these things in mind before condemning their actions in a case where they run out of other options and are forced to take a life.

[WildBill]

Most are pretty good at it and, although they all face multiple circumstances where the legal answer to "can I shoot" is clearly "yes",
in 99% of cases, they answer the not legally required but morally necessary "must I shoot to preserve innocent life" question with a "no" and find another way.

Those who haven't walked in their shoes should bear these things in mind before condemning their actions in a case where they run out of other options and
are forced to take a life.

Well said Excaliber.

[rotor]

With complete ignorance on my part, would a wire shooting taser device work in this kind of situation assuming you had time to use it?

[mojo84]

With complete ignorance on my part, would a wire shooting taser device work in this kind of situation assuming you had time to use it?

Maybe. How about shooting the ax out of her hand or using a beanbag gun?



Just being ornery.

[Excaliber]

With complete ignorance on my part, would a wire shooting taser device work in this kind of situation assuming you had time to use it?

The maximum range of a police taser (X26) is 25 feet. A determined subject with an edged weapon inside this distance is an extremely deadly threat and capable of striking even if hit by gunfire unless a round strikes the central nervous system or a major skeletal support structure (e.g. spine). If one of the probes misses or the subject is not fully incapacitated, there is a very high likelihood that he or she will successfully launch a deadly attack on the defending officer.

Would you take that gamble the first time you encountered a situation like this?

How about on the 6th or 8th time you faced such a situation during the 25 years of your law enforcement career?

If you did decide to take all those gambles, how many do you think you'd win before you lost one in a permanent way?

Officers responding to these calls know they are facing life and death situations with very real consequences and still take those calls and deal with them so the rest of us don't have to. It should be borne in mind that every situation is different and that officers have to take action based on partial information within time frames measured in single digit seconds or less while MMQB'ing goes on forever. Based on the published facts and the released videos, in my opinion the situation this thread is based on was a "good shoot" that was as clean as it gets in the real world regardless of whether the suspect's intent was to kill the officer or to commit suicde by cop.

There is true value in reviewing the details of real life incidents and learning from both the good decisions and mistakes that were made so we can be better prepared to make good decisions if we are ever faced with similar situations. However, in my opinion MMQB's with no actual experience in surviving and resolving deadly threats but just chock full of could'a / should'a / would'a's should be extremely reluctant to rush to condemn the courageous folks who repeatedly and selflessly put their lives on the line for them for real unless true malice or unconscionable negligence is clearly involved.

[rotor]

With complete ignorance on my part, would a wire shooting taser device work in this kind of situation assuming you had time to use it?

The maximum range of a police taser (X26) is 25 feet. A determined subject with an edged weapon inside this distance is an extremely deadly threat and capable of striking even if hit by gunfire unless a round strikes the central nervous system or a major skeletal support structure (e.g. spine). If one of the probes misses or the subject is not fully incapacitated, there is a very high likelihood that he or she will successfully launch a deadly attack on the defending officer.

Would you take that gamble the first time you encountered a situation like this?

How about on the 6th or 8th time you faced such a situation during the 25 years of your law enforcement career?

If you did decide to take all those gambles, how many do you think you'd win before you lost one in a permanent way?

Officers responding to these calls know they are facing life and death situations with very real consequences and still take those calls and deal with them so the rest of us don't have to. It should be borne in mind that every situation is different and that officers have to take action based on partial information within time frames measured in single digit seconds or less while MMQB'ing goes on forever. Based on the published facts and the released videos, in my opinion the situation this thread is based on was a "good shoot" that was as clean as it gets in the real world regardless of whether the suspect's intent was to kill the officer or to commit suicde by cop.

There is true value in reviewing the details of real life incidents and learning from both the good decisions and mistakes that were made so we can be better prepared to make good decisions if we are ever faced with similar situations. However, in my opinion MMQB's with no actual experience in surviving and resolving deadly threats but just chock full of could'a / should'a / would'a's should be extremely reluctant to rush to condemn the courageous folks who repeatedly and selflessly put their lives on the line for them for real unless true malice or unconscionable negligence is clearly involved.

As I said, my post was in ignorance and not to judge the actions of the officer. You always see those tasers used on TV shows bringing down a huge person instantly. My post was a question of what the real world is like. I was NOT critical of the officer.

[Excaliber]

With complete ignorance on my part, would a wire shooting taser device work in this kind of situation assuming you had time to use it?

The maximum range of a police taser (X26) is 25 feet. A determined subject with an edged weapon inside this distance is an extremely deadly threat and capable of striking even if hit by gunfire unless a round strikes the central nervous system or a major skeletal support structure (e.g. spine). If one of the probes misses or the subject is not fully incapacitated, there is a very high likelihood that he or she will successfully launch a deadly attack on the defending officer.

Would you take that gamble the first time you encountered a situation like this?

How about on the 6th or 8th time you faced such a situation during the 25 years of your law enforcement career?

If you did decide to take all those gambles, how many do you think you'd win before you lost one in a permanent way?

Officers responding to these calls know they are facing life and death situations with very real consequences and still take those calls and deal with them so the rest of us don't have to. It should be borne in mind that every situation is different and that officers have to take action based on partial information within time frames measured in single digit seconds or less while MMQB'ing goes on forever. Based on the published facts and the released videos, in my opinion the situation this thread is based on was a "good shoot" that was as clean as it gets in the real world regardless of whether the suspect's intent was to kill the officer or to commit suicde by cop.

There is true value in reviewing the details of real life incidents and learning from both the good decisions and mistakes that were made so we can be better prepared to make good decisions if we are ever faced with similar situations. However, in my opinion MMQB's with no actual experience in surviving and resolving deadly threats but just chock full of could'a / should'a / would'a's should be extremely reluctant to rush to condemn the courageous folks who repeatedly and selflessly put their lives on the line for them for real unless true malice or unconscionable negligence is clearly involved.

As I said, my post was in ignorance and not to judge the actions of the officer. You always see those tasers used on TV shows bringing down a huge person instantly. My post was a question of what the real world is like. I was NOT critical of the officer.

I understood your post as you stated here, and my comment about MMQB's was not intended to be critical of you or anyone in particular. It was meant as a general statement about that way of approaching reviews of police deadly force incidents.

I should have explained taser use a bit more thoroughly, so here it is:

Tasers are very useful for controlling resistant and moderately violent subjects who do not present an immediate deadly threat. They are much more reliable than irritants (pepper spray, tear gas, etc.) and less injurious than a baton. When all goes well, they are highly effective and their proper use has been clearly shown to reduce injuries to both officers and suspects.

Many resistant suspects who are not too intoxicated to understand the situation will comply when warned that a taser is about to be deployed. However, they are not 100% effective. Probes can miss or be deflected by an object (e.g. cell phone), the subject may be able to grab the wires and rip out the probes, and other things can go wrong. That makes relying on them in situations where a failure to immediately control would likely result in serious injury or death of the officer a very bad idea. That's why nearly all agencies train officers to use the firearm in cases like that.