Suicide by Cop caught by Body Camera in Idaho

Aha, the benefit of hindsight from the comfort of your armchair and the buffer from reality that your keyboard presents you with!

There are sayings that relate to trying to push water up hill or leading a horse to water but being unable to make it drink.

ATS is plagued with people that simply cannot see reality even when it is clearly spelt out for them and presented in a format that can be understood by anyone with an open mind. What is obvious to many members is that there is a hard core of anti-establishment who denounce LE all the time.

Most posters following this thread that have an understanding of LE work have been patient in trying to explain what it is like to be frontline policing, day in day out and dealing at times with the worst scum that society is able to produce. This will never serve to placate the zealots with an agenda, so be it, you are entitled to your opinions, if and when your crazy society does meltdown and anarchy or worse runs through your streets and homes don't go shouting for the boys and girls in blue to protect you!

Back to OP, it is tragic, it is possible that it could have been handled differently, but unless cops become multi talented and get trained to form mental health crisis teams at the drop of a carving knife, reality is as reality is. Warnings shouted, yes, talking is no good you have to take command by voice if possible, which rarely works but it's a start, fail to put the lethal weapons down and advance towards the cop with a knife raised and in that potentially lethal zone, one way ticket as all the other alternatives have gone out the window by now, unless of course the cop can pull a care bear from his tac. vest and beam nice calming thoughts and feelings to the guy...

Two sides, forever apart with one of them missing the obvious. Knives kill more people than guns, even in the home of the NRA. A person hyped up for any reason, armed with knives, can kill even an armed cop if they are in that kill zone. This cop tried to back away as proven by the vid. the guy kept coming, cops as a rule don't run away from danger, they face up to it, and the rest is history.

This is pretty much a textbook shooting that will probably be used for training officers in the future.

reply to post by CHRIS69za


This could have been avoided if the kid would have put the knife down, seems silly to blame the cop for doing his job.

reply to post by Logmafia


A police officer's job is not to kill anyone who will not capitulate, nor is it to flush out mentally unstable people for execution.

Police are paid to serve and protect. Knowing that the suspect was the only one still in the house and that the home had only one entry, the officer had no good reason to initiate a confrontation. The officer created a situation where he was alone only a few feet away from a strung-out guy with a knife. He should have foreseen the potential outcome, and recognized that there was no pressing need to confront this man (for the officer's own safety, as well as others'). The point has been made that surrounding the house and talking the guy down could likely have spared a life. Hell, just waiting for that second officer before barging in would have been safer. I haven't seen a youtube video of someone continuing to resist with two sets of taser barbs in them.

It amazes me how quickly people forget the past. Only a few decades ago this kind of aggressive, reckless, confrontational behavior would have meant the end of an officer's career...if it made the press. So many in this thread make the same tired point over and over again: the guy should have obeyed the officer. Do you people really want to live in a society where civil disobedience gives a police officer the right to be judge, jury, and executioner?

When did it become better for suicidal people to be killed by a cop than to injure or kill themselves? I guess maybe the same time it became better for a child to die helplessly in a fire than to possibly loose a cop, parent, or firefighter trying to save that child.

I dont like the popo and Im the first guy to scream from the rooftops about the popo..when they clearly have been abusive or denying rights or outright murdering someone such as shooting a kid in an empty streetcar 20' away..or shooting in the head mentaly ill people crawling on the ground after being shot 7 or 8 times already, the stories are endless nowdays..thats the kinda sh#t that pisses me off. Not the case here, the officer was left with little choice.

reply to post by boymonkey74


So you had someone you did not know holding two knives advancing towards you and you stopped them with a conversation? That is impressive. If the man had entered the home and held the woman hostage would you want the same thing to occur or someone just try to talk him down till he slit her throat and walked out?

Point is that we can talk all we want about what might have happened but given the circumstance it was a clean shoot. He did not walk in, point and fire. Eight times he told him to stop and drop 'two weapons'. This is not the movies where Danny Glover shoots the perp and then they all have beers. This is real life and sometimes real life plays out as tragedy.

Besides, the person with the knifes got what they wanted here, right? I mean, maybe he was tired of the meds and the poking and BS that the doctors told him. I will emphasize again I am glad he only hurt himself and no one else as is often the case.

the cop asked him what.. 10 times to please come out and talk?

then he saw the knife.. put it down.. put it down.. he told the guy he WILL shoot him if he doesn't put it down.. the idiot walks towards cop and gets shot.

i wonder how this guy could have come out of this alive! :Rolleyes:

reply to post by CallYourBluff


Entertaining-

This is a guy that salivates and raves on tv at violent UFC fights.