“When the state is unjust, citizens may use justifiable violence” by Jason Brennan

[Trooper224]

From an ideological standpoint the premise of the linked article seems valid. In reality, I think the promoting of that mindset is a very dangerous thing. A bystander will never have all the facts by which to judge a situation. There were many times during my career when I arrived at a scene without all the facts and didn't have a clear picture about what was happening. That was acting as a trained, professional observer, not like a concerned civilian sheepdog wearing a Gadsden flag t-shirt. Promoting that kind of behavior is a good way to get citizens killed.

[Duelist]

That's a sorry tale, my friend, and doesn't do anyone proud but you for your good intentions.

These "scenarios" are difficult at best. I remember very clearly that right after the Rodney King incident, (which, regardless of what a POS he may have been, was a clusterfuck and tarnished the badge), two black agents I worked with, one a close friend and former partner, used the incident and their anger to justify the beating that Reginald Denny received in the ensuing riots. (Because black folks "weren't going to take it anymore".)

I was appalled by their ability to perform the mental gymnastics required to allow one atrocity to justify another against an innocent party. I told them that they should turn in their badges if they couldn't be colorblind when it came to right or wrong. It left a bitter taste in its aftermath, but eventually my now late partner and I resumed the close friendship we had shared for years prior.

Decisions and actions have consequences, oftentimes lasting far beyond the moment in which they occur. As HCM mentioned above, walking that line is not always easy. I know I've come close to being my own worst enemy in that regard...once going so far as to uncuff a mouthy Colombian trafficker to see if he had the cojones to back up his talk. It wasn't a smart move but he proved that my suspicion was correct that he was all talk and no action. (I had told the other agents on hand not to intercede unless I was getting my ass well and truly whipped.)

A former co-worker said similar things after the Dallas police shootings. He called the shooter a warrior for black rights or some such. It took me some time to let go of that.

[Ed L]

If I saw an officer beating a guy who was prostrate, on the ground, limp, and clearly not fighting back? I might well take my chance on shooting it out with that officer. If he's beating someone incapable of fighting back he's crossed the line from violence necessary in affecting his official duties into attempted (or actual) homicide.

Did you carefully think through your above statement?

First, it might be a situation like TGS described, where you might not be able to see everything that was going on.

Secondly, would you really remotely consider "shooting it out with an officer," as in shoot or get into a gunfight with an officer?

I am hoping that you weren't serious.

You might get shot and killed by the officer, or shot or killed by back-up officers, and would definitely find yourself in a long expensive trial as a defendant who shot a police officer. This trial would be financially draining and possibly bankrupting; the whole long process would be emotionally devastating, anxiety and terror provoking. You would probably spend most of the time between the shooting and the trial in a facility being terrorized by the type of people who you carry a gun to defend yourself against. And if the trial did not go your way, that is where you would spend the rest of your life or a good portion of it.

[UNM1136]

I have pulled other cops off of people before...Since my career started I have had a switch in my head that allows me to stop myself using force. Even with handcuffed prisoners, their behavior determines a response. Compliance results in deescalation. Vince O'Neil, of OHP academy and "Oklahoma Custody and Control" fame told me about two and a half decades ago during a class: "think of yourself as a businessman. Your suspect is your client, and his behavior is his currency. Once he buys his ticket, don't cheat him out of his ride. By the same token you are a businessman, so you don't want give him more than he paid for, or you won't be in business long". I have carried that with me ever since.

Pat Rogers used to talk about "having the mean gene", and being able to "throw the switch", and essentially being able to go 0-60 and 60-0 instantly. I believe it to be an essential tool, and am shocked at the veteran cops I know that don't have that abiliity. They need a few minutes to ramp back down, and cheap shots can be taken. When training new cops I remind them of the difference between excessive force and brutality. If you think they are one and the same, I got news for you.

It has already said that you will not have all the facts. It has also been said that the street is not where you will be able to solve the problem to any degree. I have fought with people that believed I didn't know what I was doing and that I had no business trying to arrest their friend. They got arrested and charged too, and I havent lost those cases in court. Time and place. Even if the cop is wrong, you are not likely to win in the street.

I really think that in the era of the smart phone you CAN act in a more meaningful way than engaging the cop with force. Smartphone footage will show the behavior you want to stop, and the realization that they are being recorded can get them to behave. Engaging them with force will create a hero out of the cop you want to stop. You are now attacking a cop who is "just doing his job". If you survive the encounter you will be charged. The depertment, at least initially, will be behind the cop as will the media. Your forceful intervention is a crime, and will be viewed that way, with your defense being that you were trying to stop the police officer who was committing a violent crime. You defense is not that you didn't commit the crime, but that you thought you had a good reason for commiting the crime. An uphill fight to be sure, not impossible, but complicated. Be a good witness, record the encounter. Let the processes in place, such as use of force investigations, internal affairs, the court system (civil and criminal),, and yes, even the news media are how these things get settled properly,

Locally a couple of years ago had a cop rough someone up on a DWI arrest. I don't know if the agency would have upheld the use of force as justified. The cop kinda sealed his own fate by taking the witness' phone and deleating video of the incident. It was all caught on his own body cam. So instead of writing a good report, and telling the truth and taking his chances with the system he had been a part of for years, he doomed himself before anything could be investigated.

I have a coworker that pretty much flips out when he thinks people are recording him. I have to keep telling him to just do his job and let them film him doing his job and he will be fine. More than one person has decided that given his reaction, maybe they should record him. Does he have something to hide? Why would he care if he is being recorded if he is doing what he is supposed to be and behaving professionally?

The reason these things make the news is because they are rare, and shocking. You wanna be the hero by potentialy exposing a violent cop, or make the violent cop a hero by attacking him or her?

pat

[blues]

Did you carefully think through your above statement?

First, it might be a situation like TGS described, where you might not be able to see everything that was going on.

Secondly, would you really remotely consider "shooting it out with an officer," as in shoot or get into a gunfight with an officer?

I am hoping that you weren't serious.

You might get shot and killed by the officer, or shot or killed by back-up officers, and would definitely find yourself in a long expensive trial as a defendant who shot a police officer. This trial would be financially draining and possibly bankrupting; the whole long process would be emotionally devastating, anxiety and terror provoking. You would probably spend most of the time between the shooting and the trial in a facility being terrorized by the type of people who you carry a gun to defend yourself against. And if the trial did not go your way, that is where you would spend the rest of your life or a good portion of it.

RevolverRob would choose to defend himself in court and in so doing run off at the mouth so virulently that the judge would either commit him for observation...or throw the case out just so his head would stop hurting.

(I didn't raise the issue of guilt because even if he were wrong, I don't think that RR would ever knowingly do violence with malice to an innocent party, so reckless / manslaughter might be as high as it would go.)

I'm betting on "just make it stop".

[RevolverRob]

Did you carefully think through your above statement?

First, it might be a situation like TGS described, where you might not be able to see everything that was going on.

Secondly, would you really remotely consider "shooting it out with an officer," as in shoot or get into a gunfight with an officer?

I am hoping that you weren't serious.

You might get shot and killed by the officer, or shot or killed by back-up officers, and would definitely find yourself in a long expensive trial as a defendant who shot a police officer. This trial would be financially draining and possibly bankrupting; the whole long process would be emotionally devastating, anxiety and terror provoking. You would probably spend most of the time between the shooting and the trial in a facility being terrorized by the type of people who you carry a gun to defend yourself against. And if the trial did not go your way, that is where you would spend the rest of your life or a good portion of it.

Did you read carefully the statement I wrote?

Did you read carefully the remainder of what I wrote in my post?

I made it abundantly clear that I feel that such situations are almost entirely contextually dependent and one must assess the situation at hand in that moment. I proffered a very specific set of circumstances under which I might consider undertaking the use of lethal force in a situation where I feel it is appropriate. I'll have a very good attorney when and if such an event comes to pass. I don't take shooting anyone lightly, let alone a police officer.

And yes I read what TGS wrote. And I contemplated it, I've seen many instances where suspects continue to fight officers. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it's actually pretty easy to see when someone is continuing to resist, even underneath an officer. Which is why I said, "Prostrate, limp, and clearly not fighting back". While I'm no use-of-force or compliance expert, I would seek to do my best of my ability to avoid endangering an officer or a detainee if I felt I had no choice but to intervene.

But to be clear, I have no desire to shoot anyone. Nor do I take such a stance lightly. But I also do not believe that agents of the state have special powers that make them immune. If an individual intervenes in good faith using what they feel is reasonable force under the law, they shouldn't have to simultaneously worry about whether or not the aggressor they use force on is a police officer or not. And in fact, find me a state use-of-force law that requires an individual to determine if someone is or is not a police officer prior to using force...I'll bet you cannot. That may be an unpopular opinion, I don't know. But given that the circumstances are heightened around shooting police officers, I wouldn't want to be in a bad shoot. And I think the risk of shooting an officer deliberately and claiming "self-defense" is pretty damn low, honestly.

If you do things in a pragmatic way and can articulate why you did X, Y, and Z - then you've done your level best to be in a good shoot. I always find it funny we talk about, "If it's a good shoot, it'll be okay. If it's bad it'll be bad." - What we don't talk about, is the decision making that goes into understanding the situation. We have an innate sense of "good" and "bad". We can point to certain circumstances leading up to an event after the fact. But so frequently, it is state of mind and would a reasonable, rational, person do this? If the answer is "No" or even "maybe, I dunno" - you probably shouldn't do that.

And yes, you may arrive on a scene and not understand what the fuck is going on. Guess what? Nobody ever said self-defense shootings were mistake free, that's why there is a reasonable-person standard.

I was privvy to a rather unfortunate accidental/self-defense shooting that involved a police officer and a civilian a dozen or so years ago. A man living in a condo attached to his business had been burgled for copper several times. He'd installed an alarm system and acquired a shotgun. One evening the alarm went off and two officers responded. Both climbed onto the roof (where the previous thefts had occurred). The man, coming out of his house shouted and an officer put his head over the side to look down. In the dark, the man thought he was a burglar and shot him. A single round of buckshot to the head. The officer died on the spot and the man was arrested and charged with manslaughter. A charge that was no-billed by the grand jury, because after summarizing the totality of the circumstances, the man was within his legal rights to use force to defend his property and because the officers had not verbally identified themselves when called to. In other words, a case of mistaken identity is still protected under the law, because all of the other factors surrounding the circumstances support a claim of self-defense.

Such is the unfortunate nature of life. Sometimes accidents happen. The man was understandably distraught and remorseful, but also not in the wrong, in fact he was legally in the right. That doesn't make it better for anyone, but it does demonstrate that clear articulation of your decisions and a reasonable-person standard allow for even ugly and unfortunate things to be legal. In other words, while I'm not into climbing uphill battles in court, I have more faith in the justice system than some, when it comes to these scenarios, for better or for worse.

Also, just to reinforce my point above. I do not advocate violence against law enforcement officers or any state agents or against anyone, except in legitimate self-defense scenarios. I also feel this is mostly an academic discussion and moot point for me, in particular, because I try to avoid stupid people, stupid places, and I can honestly say in all my years, I've only been but in handcuffs once and seen someone else handcuffed less than half-a-dozen times. So, I'm highly unlikely to be in any of situations described here. If cops are out somewhere arrested people? My plan is to be somewhere else, not getting arrested or being involved with people who are getting arrested.

PS: Also to note, I do not feel we need special immunity for citizens. I'm not currently of the opinion that we are wrongly imprisoning a number of people who rightfully use self-defense. While I think we do, occasionally, do that I don't feel that there is a frequent miscarriage of justice in this regard.

[blues]

^^^^ I rest my case.

[TGS]

Did you read carefully the statement I wrote?

Did you read carefully the remainder of what I wrote in my post?

I made it abundantly clear that I feel that such situations are almost entirely contextually dependent and one must assess the situation at hand in that moment. I proffered a very specific set of circumstances under which I might consider undertaking the use of lethal force in a situation where I feel it is appropriate. I'll have a very good attorney when and if such an event comes to pass. I don't take shooting anyone lightly, let alone a police officer.

And yes I read what TGS wrote. And I contemplated it, I've seen many instances where suspects continue to fight officers. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it's actually pretty easy to see when someone is continuing to resist, even underneath an officer. Which is why I said, "Prostrate, limp, and clearly not fighting back". While I'm no use-of-force or compliance expert, I would seek to do my best of my ability to avoid endangering an officer or a detainee if I felt I had no choice but to intervene.

But to be clear, I have no desire to shoot anyone. Nor do I take such a stance lightly. But I also do not believe that agents of the state have special powers that make them immune. If an individual intervenes in good faith using what they feel is reasonable force under the law, they shouldn't have to simultaneously worry about whether or not the aggressor they use force on is a police officer or not. And in fact, find me a state use-of-force law that requires an individual to determine if someone is or is not a police officer prior to using force...I'll bet you cannot. That may be an unpopular opinion, I don't know. But given that the circumstances are heightened around shooting police officers, I wouldn't want to be in a bad shoot. And I think the risk of shooting an officer deliberately and claiming "self-defense" is pretty damn low, honestly.

If you do things in a pragmatic way and can articulate why you did X, Y, and Z - then you've done your level best to be in a good shoot. I always find it funny we talk about, "If it's a good shoot, it'll be okay. If it's bad it'll be bad." - What we don't talk about, is the decision making that goes into understanding the situation. We have an innate sense of "good" and "bad". We can point to certain circumstances leading up to an event after the fact. But so frequently, it is state of mind and would a reasonable, rational, person do this? If the answer is "No" or even "maybe, I dunno" - you probably shouldn't do that.

And yes, you may arrive on a scene and not understand what the fuck is going on. Guess what? Nobody ever said self-defense shootings were mistake free, that's why there is a reasonable-person standard.

I was privvy to a rather unfortunate accidental/self-defense shooting that involved a police officer and a civilian a dozen or so years ago. A man living in a condo attached to his business had been burgled for copper several times. He'd installed an alarm system and acquired a shotgun. One evening the alarm went off and two officers responded. Both climbed onto the roof (where the previous thefts had occurred). The man, coming out of his house shouted and an officer put his head over the side to look down. In the dark, the man thought he was a burglar and shot him. A single round of buckshot to the head. The officer died on the spot and the man was arrested and charged with manslaughter. A charge that was no-billed by the grand jury, because after summarizing the totality of the circumstances, the man was within his legal rights to use force to defend his property and because the officers had not verbally identified themselves when called to. In other words, a case of mistaken identity is still protected under the law, because all of the other factors surrounding the circumstances support a claim of self-defense.

Such is the unfortunate nature of life. Sometimes accidents happen. The man was understandably distraught and remorseful, but also not in the wrong, in fact he was legally in the right. That doesn't make it better for anyone, but it does demonstrate that clear articulation of your decisions and a reasonable-person standard allow for even ugly and unfortunate things to be legal. In other words, while I'm not into climbing uphill battles in court, I have more faith in the justice system than some, when it comes to these scenarios, for better or for worse.

Also, just to reinforce my point above. I do not advocate violence against law enforcement officers or any state agents or against anyone, except in legitimate self-defense scenarios. I also feel this is mostly an academic discussion and moot point for me, in particular, because I try to avoid stupid people, stupid places, and I can honestly say in all my years, I've only been but in handcuffs once and seen someone else handcuffed less than half-a-dozen times. So, I'm highly unlikely to be in any of situations described here. If cops are out somewhere arrested people? My plan is to be somewhere else, not getting arrested or being involved with people who are getting arrested.

PS: Also to note, I do not feel we need special immunity for citizens. I'm not currently of the opinion that we are wrongly imprisoning a number of people who rightfully use self-defense. While I think we do, occasionally, do that I don't feel that there is a frequent miscarriage of justice in this regard.

Next time you think about shooting a police officer, please just first take a deep breath, remember your anger issues, and call your therapist for a second opinion before proceeding.

[blues]

Next time you think about shooting a police officer, please just first take a deep breath, remember your anger issues, and call your therapist for a second opinion before proceeding.

You forgot to add "and don't call me in the morning".


Folks, under anything less than a state of siege and full blown collapse of society, I think it has been abundantly demonstrated that your smart phone and corroborating testimony are your best allies in such situations. Attacking a duly sworn LEO, (even one whose action has gone beyond the pale), will create a shitstorm and hell on earth in your life beyond your wildest dreams.

I think we all know this...and that this thread is speculative in nature, but it needs to be said anyway. And I am simply reiterating earlier cautions.

[Duces Tecum]

Notwithstanding your own indignant righteousness, the simple point is that you might not have all the facts. It's all bravado to write something like that on the internet, it's another to actually apply what you wrote to a developing situation in front of you and parse what you see vs what you don't see.

Indignant righteousness? Internet bravado? If you give me your POB, I'll have Amazon send you a mirror.

I'm trying to think of a backstory that would justify prisoner abuse, and nothing's coming to mind.

While waiting for Amazon, you might reflect on whether or not your cousin indeed had a prisoner. From your story, it seems the "prisoner" was not convinced.