Amen, brother.Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus
Amen, brother.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Erick G is again dropping Platinum. I will add his point as a sixth gauntlet going forward for sure.
DB
I am not your attorney. I am not giving legal advice. Any and all opinions expressed are personal and my own and are not those of any employer-past, present or future.
Couldn't have said it any better, thank you.
This information was originally posted without context which makes sense now that it is revealed that this occurred during the 1970's when he was using what would have been considered an "oddball" caliber with an "oddball" gun and there also being a Negligent discharge involved.
Unfortunately in today's environment, lots of LE have this negative and fearful attitude, leading them to sit on their hands and not be pro-active for fear of civil consequences or their career. Spreading misinformation or information without context only fuels this type of BS.
I offered it as an example of using something, anything, different or changed against you in court. Like the dust cover, the caliber and weapon being different than issued was used against the officer in criminal and civil court. Dust cover or caliber or different firearm being used to insinuate motive. I've been through a 1983 action and it isn't pleasant.
And I didnt disagree with you.
Be safe everyone
Last edited by Sammy1; 11-30-2022 at 06:17 PM.
🤦*♂️
Like Erick, I think a significnt amount of culpability lies with the sergeant. Leaders, formal or informal, have a significant influence on the outcome of tactical scenarios. The sergeant should have realized that his instructions were unclear and difficult to follow, especially for a bunch of drunks in a hotel room. Simpler commands and having the suspect walk forward might have entailed some risk, but avoided the kabuki dance that this takedown entailed. Moreover, his instructions were setting the tone for his officers and likely priming them to use deadly on a "go" movement rather than evaluating the suspect's actions. The sergeant wasn't just issuing commands to the suspect; he was inadvertently issuing commands to everyone else.
It's easy to blame the officer, but to avoid repeats of this cluster, we need to look at the whole. This wasn't just one cop who made a tragic decision. It's about overall tactics by everyone.
I put this solidly in the lawful, but awful column.
I don't think it's fair to either of the involved officers under discussion, Sgt. Kennedy in NH and Officer Brailsford in AZ, to call their shootings negligent. In the end, both appear to have been victim precipitated: probably intentionally in the NH case, almost certainly unintentionally in the AZ case.
In the NH case, Kennedy had been in pursuit of a wildly erratic driver, one Soucy (perhaps "Soucie"? All these years later I don't recall the exact spelling). Motorists had been run off the road by this suspect and Kennedy believed it was only a matter of time before he killed someone. Backup was distant. When Soucy ran off the road and got stuck, he was revving the engine and trying to get back on the road. Kennedy felt he could not allow the danger to the motoring public to continue. That was when he approached the driver's door. (The prosecution painted that as recklessness. I thought it was courage, but I digress.) His privately owned/department approved Gold Cup .45 was drawn per protocol at the end of a high speed pursuit, and held in retention position. He testified that it was on-safe, his right thumb poised above the safety lever and his index finger on the front edge of the trigger guard exactly as he had been taught at Smith & Wesson Academy.
They were in close proximity at the driver's door when Soucy's right hand was seen to go under his right thigh as if reaching for a pistol. (It turned out later that all he had there was a liquor flask, but it was a clear-cut furtive movement.) Not wanting to kill the guy, Kennedy reached in with his left hand to grab the driver's right wrist. That was when the driver reached up with his left hand, grabbed the .45, and forcibly pulled it toward himself. Kennedy's hand reflexively tightened, which brought the thumb down releasing the safety and tightened the trigger finger, which was held taut at the front of the guard, snapping the finger back onto the trigger and causing the single shot of the event to be fired into Soucy's face.
It taught me among other things that finger on the front of the trigger guard was dangerous as hell, but that's a corollary discussion. The officer had done exactly what he was trained to do.
In the Arizona case, Brailsford was designated lethal cover, which explains why he was the only one who fired. If we review the bodycam video of the officer whose camera caught Daniel Shaver's movement...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc
...we can see that on or about 3:46 Shaver's hands start to go behind his back. (The guy had serious alcohol problems and a history of DUI arrests. It is theorized with 20/20 hindsight that in the past he had been ordered by police to put his hands behind his back prior to cuffing, and may have been trying to just be cooperative.) This is what triggers the sergeant to yell at him -- repeatedly -- that if he does that again he will be shot.
Imagine that you are the two-year patrolman next to the 20-or-so-year sergeant, your supervisor, your Alpha who shouts that statement repeatedly. Would you not take that as a command to shoot this man if he does that again? It's hard to imagine how an officer in Brailsford's position could take it any other way.
On or about 4:25, as Shaver is crawling toward the police, his right hand is seen to flash down toward his right hip, exactly mimicking a draw from hip/behind the hip position. It is at this time that Brailsford fires the rapid burst from his .223.
20/20 hindsight leads most of us to believe that the friction of crawling along the floor was pulling Shaver's tennis shorts down and his hand went reflexively to the waistband. This would make it a classic furtive movement shooting: the alleged victim -- suspected to have been a pointing gun at people, which is why the police were there -- made a movement consistent with going for a gun and not reasonably consistent with anything else in that very brief window of time.
We can see why good defense teams won criminal court acquittals in both cases. We should also note that both officers' police careers were destroyed in the aftermath nonetheless.
@Mas coming strong with the facts.
I tend to agree with @Erick Gelhaus on the Sergeants handling of the AZ incident. Having been in that position on multiple occasions, you begin to realize that one of the most important roles of a supervisor in that type of environment is to maintain and project calm control. If the senior officer present isn't maintaining a calm demeanor, you can't expect the young guys to do so. There has been a great deal and discussion and study the last few years of the effect of 'Dispatch Priming' on officer actions at the scene of a critical incident. I think this was a perfect example of 'Supervisor Priming'.
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