Police shoot uniformed security guard

[HeavyDuty]

Ugh. I don’t envy the investigators assigned to this one.

[CraigS]

Let's not forget that the original link was to NPR's report. Not exactly a politically centrist source, they will do all they can to try to make the cop look bad. Some witnesses say they were yelling that he was a guard. Apparently he was directed multiple times by the police to put his gun down and he didn't. If that turns out to be verified, it is a shame he is dead but he could have avoided death easily. I remember Michael Brown and all the hands up don't shoot crap that turned out to be a total fabrication. We heard a lot about the fabrication and dang near nothing about the truth when it was finally determined to be BS by the FBI.

[LSP552]

How many people who carry in plain clothes, regardless of job function or employer, are trained and practiced on dealing with responding uniformed officers?

You do not have a halo or neon sign indicating you are the good guy. You are a potential threat in a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situation. Armed citizen, security, pain clothes LEO. Doesn't matter. There are no guarantees, but proper training for the plain clothes carrier vastly reduces these sorts of incidents.

For several years, I worked plainclothes crime suppression in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. The LSP Criminal Intell Unit would roam in packs of 4 or so looking for trouble. We definately didn’t look like Police and had some pretty wide latitude where we went and what we did.

One member’s primary and only job was to look for uniform officers and jump up and down waiving a badge yelling POLICE. Despite this, I’ve come close to being thumped more than once during use of force events. When the uniforms show up, they only know what they’ve been told and what they are seeing at the moment.

[John Hearne]

Blue-on-Blue is a legit concern. Good resource: https://www.policeone.com/Officer-Sa...lue-shootings/

For instance: "Assume commands such as “Police, don’t move” or “Drop the weapon” are meant for you."

[Cypher]

If he had just been involved in a shooting I wonder if his ears were ringing so loud he couldn't hear.

[HCM]

If he had just been involved in a shooting I wonder if his ears were ringing so loud he couldn't hear.

More likely tunnel vision / auditory exclusion.

Blue on blue shooting of LEO’s happen all too regularly. A friend of mine is on the ODMP website as a result of being shot by another LEO and one of my former partners lost an Academy classmate to a blue on blue shooting.

Thee are not a lot of facts availible yet, at least publically, but anyone who claims this “must”be. anything other than a serious mistake at this point is clearly both predjudiced and ignorant.

[BehindBlueI's]

If he had just been involved in a shooting I wonder if his ears were ringing so loud he couldn't hear.

Not unless he was using a field howitzer. Auditory exclusion or the belief in the good guy halo is more likely.

[Cypher]

Not unless he was using a field howitzer. Auditory exclusion or the belief in the good guy halo is more likely.

I used to shoot "Field Howitzers" for a living and it's been my experience a handgun round has a sharper crack and hurts your ears more.

The closest I've ever been is I witnessed a shooting one night and I remember yelling at one of the guys involved " are you okay? Are you shot?" And I swear based on the way he was looking at me he didn't hear what I was saying.

Now was that because of auditory exclusion or because his ears were ringing from the gunshot I will never know. I also made the mistake of firing a shot at an indoor range with my boss one day before he had his ear plugs in and the sound caused him pain I know that because he told me it did

I'm not insisting that I'm right but I don't think it's that far out there

[BehindBlueI's]

The closest I've ever been is I witnessed a shooting one night and I remember yelling at one of the guys involved " are you okay? Are you shot?" And I swear based on the way he was looking at me he didn't hear what I was saying.

Now was that because of auditory exclusion or because his ears were ringing from the gunshot I will never know.

Auditory exclusion. He "heard" in that his ears worked, but didn't "listen" because his mind had more pressing things to do then process your words. I've never experienced "ear ringing" inside or outside, .357 magnum, .40, and 5.56, that interfered with my ability to hear someone shouting. I have experienced auditory exclusion so that I could tell there was yelling but could not process the words. I could hear well enough to hear the "sproing" of the buffer tube spring in my rifle, but all the gun shots were muted pops and the yelling was just sort of Charlie-Brown-Teacher-ish.

From my experience in post-shooting investigations I am not unique. This is why I brought up training for the plain clothes carrier. If you don't know that and you turn toward the muffled shouting, that's a good way to get shot. You have to be aware of it to combat it, and even knowing it I found it hard to do.

[peterb]

From my experience in post-shooting investigations I am not unique. This is why I brought up training for the plain clothes carrier. If you don't know that and you turn toward the muffled shouting, that's a good way to get shot. You have to be aware of it to combat it, and even knowing it I found it hard to do.

I’m sure studies have been done on this, but my experience from everyday life is that if you come up behind someone and say “freeze” or “don’t move”, a lot of people will turn around. It’s just what people do.

Yelling “Police!” is not going to instantly rewire their brains.

Which makes it really difficult for everyone involved......