Man killed after grabbing officer\

reply to post by birchtree


thank you for the post i fully agree he was not a choir boy and thank you for shedding light on the shoot to kill issue

quick question for you though is in your experience dont you find its possible in most of the situations where the person doesnt have a gun to solve the problem without a gun?
isnt that what a good cop would do


i apologize if my 1st post came off as too much of a attack against police but id say only 90 percent of my experience with police or seeing police actions are negative
ive seen several instances where the person needed the cops help ends up becoming the bad guy, ive seen a few cops be helpful but only in non-tense situations
its my experience that majority of the time police presence makes the situation worse and escalate rather than be of assistance so its fair to say i have a bias against cops especially when i see a man dead who didnt have a weapon

Originally posted by Dramey


in what way are all police encounters taped or documented?

do u mean the camera mounted in their car?

All police stops, if the flashing light are on, the camera mounted in the car automatically turns on and starts recording. If the cop does something wrong, he cannot tamper with the tape, it's tamper proof.

Originally posted by Dramey

i know in california and ny that cops dont carry about tape recorders or video cameras to document things

In any State, cops can carry small portable tape recorders that can be activated at any time, and many do, just to save themselves. It's not standard equipment issued by the departments (it should be), the cops have to buy it on their own but most do.

I personally know an officer who is a friend of mine, he carrys a tape recorder on his belt. It cost him $400 (it's pretty hi-tech) but he saved his career.

He had a complaint that while off-duty, he was abusing his authority at his neighbors. What happened was, the neighbors kids were throwing rocks in his pool. So he went nextdoor and confronted the kid's dad, and politely told him what his kids were doing and to please keep on eye on them.

That guy then turned around, told the chief of police (of another department) that the deputy (my friend) was abusing his authority as an officer and threatening to arrest the man AND his kids for throwing rocks in his pool. Now, it wasn't looking good for my friend because that chief of police happened to be the neighbor's best friend from high school. So the chief of police belived him and got my friend (who works for a different department) in deep doo-doo.

It was looking very bad for my friend, since his boss (the sheriff) got a complaint directly from a chief of police! Fortunately my friend recorded the whole encounter on tape, and after review, the sheriff and investigators cleared him of any wrong doing, and wrote a scathing letter to the county about that chief's misuse of authority to avenge his friend (the rock thrower) and get my friend (the deputy) fired.

After that, the chief of police lost his job and a new one was hired. My friend was cleared of any wrong doing.

So two officers are trying to arrest some guy and he gets tasered for not complying, then pulls the wires out of his skin and takes the tazer gun, shooting it at the officers and fighting with them... I can't sit here and say it would have been wrong for a 3rd officer to kill him, obviously the first two officers were in danger if their tazer couldn't take the guy down. It's the guy's own fault for what happened; even if you don't like the police and don't want to get arrested, you still need to be respectful because they have authority over you. If you take their tazer gun and shoot it at them, then you have every reason to be shot imho.

reply to post by Dramey


That is quite fine, I will answer you to the best of my ability.

First off every situation is different, but I would say in general and in not addressing this particular situation we are all discussing now that

First I will ask you
I might then tell you twice
then I am going to make you

When the making part comes into play officers from diff areas have diff training, it is just like anything else but you want the situation to end as quickly as possible and hope that it does not escalate to where someone is reaching for your weapon at that point you are in a life and death struggle

It is a good idea to be proficient with as many techniques as you can, but realize there is also a psychological factor and as the struggle goes on the officer starts losing his fine motor skills and tunnel vision starts taking place, the officer in general compared to a suspect has many more things to think about at that point, first the safety of others, then his or her safety and finally if it can be helped the safety of the individual that may be attacking him or her. All these things should be in the mind of the officer before he/she arrives, once they arrive safely, exiting the vehicle (where actually a lot of cops get killed arriving or exiting their vehicles) when making the approach, the start of the confrontation through to the completion and then even rendering life saving aid to the suspect if required.

As far as the verbal considerations I know it seems to some that in an event that when they are the victim the officer may get loud and have them sit down or question them a few times about what actually happened, look at it this way they are arriving on the scene they dont know who is who and they need to get that sorted out.

Sometimes officers words are not the best and there is a strong growing in the police community to start using techniques such as Verbal Judo (which you can look up on the internet) and better understanding pyschological patterning and recognition, in a basic way it is taught at better academies, but training for police is an ongoing event that happens during a career and I myself as a police officer have had experiences with other police that I did not appreciate. I am sorry if I did not awnser all of what you asked but if I missed something remind me and I will get back to you.

reply to post by ForestSanctuary


Ahh, someone that thinks with common sense. A logical thinker. I like you.

OK, let me ask the people who are saying the cop used excessive force a question. Please answer it honestly because I think it will tell us exactly what kind of person you truly are. You have a service revolver and a guy with a tazer walks up to you with the intent of shooting you with it. Do you shoot the guy or do you let him possibly tazer you?

in reply to agent

i admire the police you work with as they have taken steps into their own hands to make sure they have what they need even if its not standard issues and i thank them for making the financial sacrifice, unfortunately i must admit ive never in my life seen a officer act in that manner with any device

i agree and admit what you say about the dash cam is true

however that implies that all action takes place on a dash cam which is true in probably almost all traffic stops however when they just pull up somewhere and start chasing guys etc whatever the situation may be its not 100 percent of the time that the dash cam captures all of the event unbiasedly as if its not in the cameras view than its not documented, a stationary camera isnt the widest view in the world


birch

thank you for your input youve done a great job of dealing with my questions

and i fully understand its hard to say what you wouldve/shouldve done in a situation you werent in
and to everyone yes i do understand in retrospect its always easier to say what shouldve happened

but just to play devils advocate

say you were the 3rd officer and you showed up

one perpetrator was trying to wrestle a taser away from 1 of 2 officers already on the scene

if that perp and the cop are that close in vicinity then wouldnt it actually be more dangerous to use your sidearm then to address it in another manner, i mean isnt there a risk of shooting your fellow cop during a wrestling match?

i guess i just want to believe that we can train our officers with all of the knowledge and technology that we have today to handle the situation without the loss of a life


going back to the guy being on drugs like agent was saying, if thats true (im not arguing that one way or another) wouldnt that make him sick and a person who needs help rather then a person who should be killed?

edited to address burdmans ?

i admit i wouldve shot if it was me or him but i also want to wish that if i was a cop id have the training necesary to shoot him in the least fatal way maybe thats not possible but id like to believe with todays increase in knowledge learning and technology that that should be possible

[edit on 9-6-2008 by Dramey]

OK pay attention and re-read people


The man pulled the Taser probes from his body and began fighting with two officers in the front yard, Derge said.

One of the officers fired his Taser but the man continued fighting and was able to grab the weapon from the officer, Derge said.
The man then fired the Taser at other officers, investigators said. A third officer arrived who saw the man still had the Taser and was fighting with the other two officers.
The third officer shot and killed the man, Derge said.
The officers were not seriously injured but received minor scrapes in the fight

That was the snippet. THIS is the story. Read it closely because all you are missing a bigger picture. Even if the AZPD use the x26 it is still a one shot tazer.

To fire it again you would have to replace the cartridge assuming one keeps multiple cartridges one his or her person.

Now the perp managed to grab the tazer from the cop that shot him with the tazer as explained above. The above story goes into fantasy land when the claim is made that the perp fired the tazer at the officers. It is a fiction because the perp can not re-fire a fired tazer unless he re-loaded with a fresh cartridge which he would of had to of got from the tooth fairy because the cops are not gonna keep multiple tazer cartridges. YOU COPS KNOW THIS. If the tazer fails to incapacitate the perp then you move to the next level of defense, your side arm.

You cops also know that one tazer can only be used on one person at a time (unless your holding hands or some assinine thing and you know the tazer is not designed to operate in this manner)

So even if the tooth fairy reloaded the tazer for the perp he could still only taze one cop at a time leaving plenty of opportunity for the other cop to shoot the perp dead.

But some how this particular perp can fire the tazer again and again while wrestleing with the cops keeping the both of them busy till the thrid cop can get there and shoot the perp dead.

The story is not implausible but impossible.

I mean you tazer cops are trained, you know where the safety is and how to remove and reload cartridges. The perp in this story after being tazed pulled out his probes and re-laoded the tazer then fired it at the cops on the scene AND fought them both off till number three gets there to do what number two sould of done.

Do you get it yet?

The story stinks! It is suspect. Someone is lying and as the only people left alive to speak are the cops I think it is kinda pointless to ask the dead perp what happened.

We don't have the whole story but we have enough of the story to question the truth of it.

[edit on 10/18/2007 by titorite]

[edit on 10/18/2007 by titorite]

Unless we were there or saw the tape....Who can judge this officers actions. Maybe the guy went for the officers gun. Who knows. Get all the fact before you make up your mind.

reply to post by TXMACHINEGUNDLR


TXMACHINEGUNDLR

We do have enough facts to make a judgement. Just read the story in the OP. You can even read the snippet I reposted just above your post.

The cops say that after the perp took the stun gun he fired it again... AFTER IT WAS ALREADY FIRED! Please, pretty please, with a frickin fracken cherry ontop goto wiki and educate yourself to tazers and how many shots they hold in a clip. I can say its a one shot weapon till I am blue in the face but apparently the bulk of you people think tazers work like .45s. They do not. A 45 can fire as many bullets as the clip will hold. A tazer has one shot. After you fire a tazer, if you miss or want to use it again you must reload it.

If they lied about one aspect of the story what makes the rest of their story any more credible?

Uncivil Rights

You know, it's a sad state of affairs when a man can't steal metal flower stands from someone's carport at 3AM in the morning, only to be tasered and shot by the cops for nothing more than physically attacking them.

If this keeps up, we may well face an alarming decline in burglaries and assaults.

Is nothing sacred?

reply to post by Majic


Majic could you answer me my question I have been beating to death on this thread? How does one fire a tazer gun multiple times? This has been the biggest draw back of the tazer. You can only fire the probes once. The wires do not retract. The tazer gun does not hold a clip of multiple wires. You only get one shot and if a perp pulls out the probes and takes the tazer gun he can not fire another shot because it only has the two wires and one shot.

So how did the perp fire the stolen tazer mulitple times?

Originally posted by Majic
Uncivil Rights

You know, it's a sad state of affairs when a man can't steal metal flower stands from someone's carport at 3AM in the morning, only to be tasered and shot by the cops for nothing more than physically attacking them.

If this keeps up, we may well face an alarming decline in burglaries and assaults.

Is nothing sacred?

does that imply we should shoot to kill those who steal garden tools?


i just got done rewatching the movie bobby
i think everyone defending the cops here should go and watch the ending scene of the assassination and listen to the speech kennedy gives really drives home alot of points that would enlighten people to the ideology of whats really being debated here


doing that will maybe allow people to get past the small picture of this situation and realize the big picture of the escalation of violence and use of force
listen to the speech either in the movie or youtube from where ever it was the movie took the speech from and it will hopefully allow you to think about the idea that violence just leads to more and worse violence and it needs to be stopped somewhere

where better then to begin with the police of the united states of america "the wealthiest nation of all" "the best nation there is" theres all this ideology as to what america is but no longer do our actions reflect our ideas

A Stunning Possibility

Originally posted by titorite
So how did the perp fire the stolen tazer mulitple times?

The article isn't very specific, but since he was apparently close enough to make physical contact with the officer and take his weapon, he may have been using drive stun mode.

Wikipedia: Drive Stun

Some Taser models, particularly those used by police departments, also have a "Drive Stun" capability, where the Taser is held against the target without firing the projectiles, and is intended to cause pain without incapacitating the target. Taser defines "Drive Stun" as "the process of using the EMD weapon [Taser] as a pain compliance technique. This is done by activating the EMD and placing it against an individual’s body. This can be done without an air cartridge in place or after an air cartridge has been deployed."

A Taser used this way is capable of delivering several incapacitating shocks before being fully discharged.

Pride And Prejudice

But fear not! Having seen hundreds of threads like these in my time here, you may rest assured possibilities like that won't prevent anyone from hating cops no matter what they do, or blaming them for every possible outcome of a struggle with a violent criminal.

After all, it's never too early to jump to conclusions.

Force issues in police work are complicated. There is no black and white. Afew things.
Many departments have many different force policies. Some departments that issue Tazers no longer isse other hard open hand control options such as OC spray, or intermediate options like batons as Tazer's are all around safer and more effective force options. When a guy swinging metal things at you continues resistance AND takes away a weapon that could potentially immobilize your body, he will probably get shot.
Tazers work in two modes. Drive stun mode which is basically a pain compliance technique, is when the officer touches the discharging end to the suspects skin. Its bad on combative suspects because it will not physically immobilize them, and because the officer will be close enough to touch them with the weapon. It will just cause pain at the contact area. If you can touch the suspect, he can touch you. Thats when cops get hurt.
Dart deployment is the single shot dart pack that fires two probes either 21 or 25 feet. Single shot is misleading as most tazers are issued with TWO cartridges, the spare clipped to the battery pack inserted in the weapon. A dart deployment will immobilize the target if it makes a good circuit, and the probes land far enough apart. If a suspect has a weapon in his hand that could immobilize you, shoot him.
It sounded like they fought with him a while before they shot him. I get tired quick sparring. If in a real world situtation I was tired to the point I could no longer effectivley defend myself, I'd shoot him. That one even works for third party "good smaritan" scenarios.

Oh yeah. It was also 3 Am. Officer 3 walks up on a guy firing a tazer at 2 officers. In the dark I would safely assume that officer 3 knew what a firing tazer sounded like. He would also know what it could do to incapacitate a human body. He probably also couldnt see see whether or not the cartridge had been fired. Its reasonable to assume then the dude was a deadly threat.

Originally posted by Dramey


does that imply we should shoot to kill those who steal garden tools?

If they are using them as a deadly weapon, then yes. I don't care if someone is aiming a gun at me, charging me with a baseball bat, trying to cut my throat with a knife, trying to smash my head with a cinder block, or [as this man in the story was] trying to stab me with garden tools - if they are trying to kill me, they are dying first.

This whole story seems to have a lot of fishy elements to it, the re-firing of the tazer, the use of deadly force against supposed non-deadly. But heres what irks me, is it normal for an average man to rip tazer probes from his body? that must require immense amounts of strength and focus, anyone else find that odd?

it's so simple. don't try and fight 3 police officers cause you will either get viciously beat up or shot. If a police officer tells you to do something and it isn't infringing on your rights then do it. If the police officer makes you do something that infringes on your rights settle it in court. and to the guy who says 3 on 1 isnt a fair fight google for the video of the naked black dude on PCP that punches a fence to death and needs a huge amount of police to take him down. It's an awesome video.