Witness Accounts Show the Power of False Memory
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
You have two cops against a guy with a _hammer_ and the immediate solution is to shoot the guy? The first reaction of the assaulted cop is to run away from the attacker, which is understandable, I suppose, but really doesn't look like optimal hand-to-hand tactics. And her partner immediately draws his pistol and shoots the guy in the back. Why not grab him from behind and take him to the ground? Or whack him in the back of the head with a nightstick?
I really have to question the training and capabilities here. Is part of the problem here that one of them isn't large enough and strong enough for the situation? I doubt that, proper training and attitude should be enough here. But if size is a crucial factor here then that person shouldn't be a cop.
I expect cops to deal with something like this without killing people. Subduing people without killing them is part of the job. They didn't get it done here. To me this looks like manslaughter, and they certainly shouldn't be on the force.
Virtually all police are authorized --- in fact, trained & required --- to use deadly force to "protect themselves or another person from imminent death or serious bodily injury". A credible hammer swing to their partner's head obviously qualifies.
Unlike in other situations, they aren't supposed to carefully judge the minimum possible level of force. If "imminent death or serious bodily injury" is at stake, they are trained to use firearms.
No cop in that situation wants to try to grapple with the attacker --- he's about 8-10 feet away from the officer when he brandishes his weapon --- only to fail to prevent the hammer strike that paralyzes his partner.
There's a legit public policy debate to be had about whether US foot police should be outfitted and trained more like UK police, so that most of them don't have firearms at all. But it's not fair to single these officers out. If we're going to evaluate this incident under the rubric of "a good shooting", as you did, it's hard to see how this doesn't qualify.
Once the attacker misses on his first swing, I doubt the officer attacked is in grave danger. I think it is reasonable to expect a police officer to fend off a guy with a hammer, certainly long enough for her partner to get behind the guy and grab him. Someone who can't do that isn't qualified for the job.
And isn't clear to me that either of these officers made the right tactical choices in the first place. The shooter was very lucky that the attacker ended up in a position where he could take a clean shot.
That said: the NYPD General Order doesn't exempt police in NYC from using firearms to prevent imminent death or bodily harm.
I've known police from other states who visited my family in Chicago and carried their firearms with them. (Again: I don't like guns). When I asked why they had them, I got a speech about how they were required to carry them.
Why not just shoot the legs? Why does it have to be "deadly force"?
Just asking. My knowledge of this subject ends at watching Schwarzenegger target legs in T2.
The whole point is that you're trying to neutralize a deadly threat. It's no time for target practice or carnival games. Someone is attacking you with a deadly weapon. It is time to neutralize that threat at all costs.
I appreciate the instinct to preserve life. That shows a level of empathy that I respect a great deal. But I think it's an eccentric position. Most people are of the opinion that you lose the right to your own safety when you make a threat on another person's life.
The whole premise of them shooting is that there's an imminent threat. If they're shooting, it's supposed to be because they MUST incapacitate the attacker.
From what I've read, not only are they supposed to aim at the center of the target, but they're also not supposed to shoot just once. A single gunshot will kill someone, but not instantly, and in the time it takes for that wound to incapacitate them, they might go on to kill someone else.
Which when you think about it is the worst of both worlds: the police kill someone, and that person still manages to kill someone else.
A little later.
I was curious enough about this to make sure I wasn't just making this up (power of false memories and all that). Some arguments against "shooting to wound":
* It supposedly takes ~250ms to fire a round under optimal conditions, and just ~150ms to rotate/translate a limb from one side of the body to another; the target moves faster than the officer can shoot.
* Increased likelihood of missing the target also implies an increased likelihood of hitting something that isn't a target (again: something I would agree militates for officers not shooting at all, but still).
* The places on limbs where you're most likely to hit a target are going to cause them to bleed out anyways --- just not in a fashion that immediately incapacitates them. The bulk of the mass of an arm or leg is also where you're most likely to hit a huge artery.
* You shoot the legs of an armed attacker and you've left their arms and hands functional. Which means that the option (which doesn't really exist but stipulate that it does) to fire at the legs is situational; maybe it's something you could do with an attacker some distance away from the victim and carrying a hammer, but it would be totally ineffective against a target with a gun. You want rules that work in all situations.
* Assuming optimal conditions in a police shooting incident is silly, because everyone involved in that situation is completely and unavoidably overloaded with adrenaline. Police are going to fire multiple times, even if the guidelines say otherwise. They are going to turn in their worst firearm performances, not their range performances, because they're impaired. Stipulating that, you want them picking the part of the target where they're most likely to hit what they're aiming at.
There are other less credible arguments against "shoot to wound". For instance: police are equipped with rounds designed to penetrate but then mostly be stopped by the mass of someone's chest and surrounding clothing, and those rounds won't be adequately impeded by an arm or a leg. Ok, so change the ammunition.
1. The circumstances of the attack. The assailant was in a crowded public place and suddenly went berserk and attacking police officers with a deadly weapon and apparent intent to kill. Does not seem to be in a frame of mind to comply with an arrest in any way. The police were looking for him because of three previous attacks against pedestrians. He was believed to be mentally unstable.
2. He saw his partner struck in the head with a hammer, and I don't believe he had cause for confidence she could support him in a physical takedown.
3. If the officer closed to take him down by hand, and the assailant struck the officer with the hammer, he could be put out of commission and then the assailant would potentially have a pistol to use in a crowded street. Police rarely approach a person still armed or still having the intent to attack. They need control of the situation before doing so.
4. The officer did not continue firing after the assailant went down. The man lived.
Would it have been different if he was using a knife or a machete, or would he actually have to be wielding a gun for you to call this justified? At that close range, a hammer is just as deadly as a firearm.
A deadly weapon is a deadly weapon, and you, or cops, or anybody, are allowed to use deadly force against someone actively using a deadly weapon to attempt to kill another person. Any other policy effectively allows murder to happen.
Most places with unarmed police, more officers would have been sent, and the first step would have been to tell passers by to step away, while officers would have kept their distance from the suspect.
Once he is attacking the first officer I agree the shot was probably justified, but that police officer should not have approached someone who was wielding a weapon that way in the first place.
A deadly weapon is only deadly if you allow officers to get into range without adequate protection.
I think this is a large part of the problem with weapons use for US police: They have a lethal weapon as easy backup, so they're taking risks that would be downright stupid and against every instruction for someone who has to go back to their car to unlock a sealed box to get at their firearm, or call for backup from a specialist firearms squad (depending on country).
In this particular ambush, the only right thing is to shoot the assailant. If some cops could handle this situation without their firearm (and they were confident enough this wouldn't risk their partner's life or health), then that would surely be the exception rather than the rule.
There was an assault outside my house a few months back, and they sent 3 cars and 6-7 officers despite no indication weapons were involved.
People tend to respond very differently when thy face a group of officers spread out - turn towards one of them in a threatening manner and three others will be slamming you to the ground.
What struck me about the video in the article was how there were just two of them, and despite that one was getting in the suspects face. You don't get in the face of an expected dangerous assailant if you want to avoid violence.
My point is, this was a very fast-developing dangerous situation and I believe the cops responded well. Yes, cops are trained to handle dangerous situations but I don't think we can expect them to disregard other people's safety and lives to protect a very violent attacker.
I didn't watch the video but if that's true it's amazing the office got their weapon out in time.
21 foot rule: an attacker with a knife can close a 21 foot gap and stab you in under two seconds
"In real-world encounters, many variables affect time, which is the key component of the 21-Foot Rule. What is the training skill and stress level of the officer? How fast and agile is he? How alert is he to preliminary cues to aggressive movement? How agile and fast is the suspect? Is he drunk and stumbling, or a young guy in a ninja outfit ready to rock and roll? [...continues for a while...]"
Was it the best choice? No. But the whole thing happened in just a few seconds, start to finish. I can't fault them or say it was a bad choice - I would likely have done the same upon seeing someone I worked with being beaten about the head with a hammer.
The problem here is that the hist first reaction was take out the gun and shoot him. It shouldn't be his first choice.
In this case it's hard to argue that a person randomly hitting people with an hammer on their heads didn't deserve it, but it's more a bad trending that can only domore harm than good
The reason the answer is to shoot the guy is because putting more people in danger is not a good solution. It can easily be shown to be an incredibly bad idea.
If we're talking about taking the guy down with a non-lethal projectile then that's a different matter. Because it keeps you out of striking range of the melee weapon. It's kind of difficult to perform your duties as a police officer with a claw hammer sticking out of your head.
The answer first became to shoot the guy because the officers were reckless enough to get that close without more backup rather than getting pedestrians to back away and trying to de-escalate the situation.
What I saw was two officers crossing the street in normal foot traffic. As they got close to the attacker, who was standing there non-threatening in the crowd, he lunged at them with a weapon that was likely difficult to see from their perspective or was hidden. The man attacked one officer repeatedly spilling out into the street. The other officer shot him.
That's about as clean a shoot you can get.
There was no way that situation was going to be deescalated by talking him down. He attacked them before anything had escalated in the first place.
What would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do was for the second officer to engage the attacker by physical means instead of drawing his weapon and shooting him. An incredibly stupid thing that you seem to suggest should have been done. Or maybe you mean the second officer should have deescalated the situation before falling back on drawing his weapon even though the situation was the attacker beating his partner to death in the street right in front of him.
Hell, if you assault someone in my family without a weapon you've forfeited your right to live.
I realize some may hold cops to a different standard, and I most certainly hold them to the same standard as I do anyone (and the recent spat of cops killing unarmed men or kids with toys on park benches have been atrocious) but this guy was out to murder a cop, so, boom you're dead.
I know others may have a different opinion, but don't imagine a stranger - imagine someone you know is being assaulted with a hammer. Would you not put the assailant down on the spot, even if you had police/military/marshal arts training?
I would.
Cops are usually extremely close to their partners. They take the responsibility of the other's life quite seriously. So if you want to even pretend to understand what happened, you have to imagine someone was attacking a friend/loved one with a hammer.
Personally, as you can no doubt tell, I think the cop was right to shoot the guy completely disassociated. But it's because I know what my reaction would be in the most extreme situation that I don't stand back and place judgement.
But what I imagine is a police force that is trained enough to know better than to approach a man with a hammer without adequate backup and preparation.
Thankfully I live somewhere where - despite high profile, dreadful, mistakes - that tends to be what police does. The high profile, dreadful mistakes are high profile because they are so exceedingly rare. This is why we get lists like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
while still having lists like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer...
The answer is to approach with the intent to isolate and de-escalate rather than with the intent to confront. British police are only armed in exceptional cases, and as a result they can't go in the way US police often do because they don't have someone ready to shoot the suspect at the drop of a pin. Instead they go in with more people. They get other people away if possible. They keep their distance if there's potential danger until they can approach the suspect cautiously, and ideally from multiple directions.
They don't walk up to someone wielding a hammer with only one person as backup.
There are of course exceptions where there are immediate dangers they must respond to, but they generally try very hard not to contribute to creating those dangers - whether for themselves or others.
To me it looked like from the point in time that the assailant brandished the hammer to when he was shot the female police officer was within inches of having her head bashed in.
If I were in any danger I would not like you to be the one keeping me safe.
But I think those standards are a problem.
That might be somewhat less lethal than shooting him, but still has a good chance of causing death or permanent disability. In addition, it would require being in striking range of his hammer which is the opposite of where you want to be. I don't think you have a good grasp on this at all.
It's very very common to clearly remember something that never actually happened.
These are just examples of things I realize aren't real memories because the situations were never possible.
I was recently talking to some coworkers about a problem we had about 3 years ago. We all had different accounts of some of the details, but we were all about equally certain about our recollection of events. After digging through some old email, it turns out only one of the four of us was right.
The fallibility of our memories is something I think most of us significantly underestimate.
And it's not (usually) because they intentionally make it more outrageous each time.
"While I can’t know what is in his mind, given what we know about memory it is reasonable to give Williams the benefit of the doubt. It is absolutely possible, even likely, that it is his memory that has shifted over the years, in a fashion consistent with memory research."
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/did-williams-li...
As an aside, I don't think the expert they quoted could have had a better paired name to go with their statement than: "Said Dr. Strange, 'It is surprising to the average person how quickly memories can be distorted.'" Read it in your best super villain voice.
"It was the first fatal shooting by Metropolitan police officers since that of Mark Duggan in August 2011 which led to the worst riots in modern English history" (ie the Met hadn't had to shoot anyone for three years)
and also "Witnesses differ in their recall of the number of shots fired, with accounts varying from three to 10".