Sharp as a Marble - Mmmmm... Crow...

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Mmmmm... Crow...

I owe everyone an apology. My post regarding the officer shooting a guy accidentally apparently was a little uncalled for.

Brad reminds me that I shouldn't make hasty judgements considering it wasn't my ass on the line in that situation. And he's entirely correct.

I am a police officer. I have had occasion to run with a firearm in my hand. I have been in stressful situations while making felony arrests. During some of these arrests, I thought my life was in danger. I have had adrenaline flowing through my body to the point where I had tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, and my hands were shaking too badly to hold a pen to write something down on more than one occasion.

I train with my firearm(s) at least twice a month and am a firearms instructor, I practice keeping my finger off the trigger and continually harp on my fellow officers to do the same. However, I can imagine making a similar mistake while under that kind of stress. I have been there, and I know how it feels and how it affects my abilities.

Your commenters make light that on TV people run around with their fingers on the trigger, but I would bet that they couldn't run an IPDA course without any errors. How many of you have fumbled a reload or mistakenly hit your magazine realease when you didn't mean to? Those targets don't shoot back, yet people still make mistakes there.

Please read his whole comment. The line that hit home with me was this

Would you call a soldier or marine an idiot for having a ND during a firefight?

Ouch.

He's right. I'm not a huge fan of the Only One's meme insofar as it being used to bash cops as a proxy of authority. My father is a cop and I'd consider joining the auxiliary if my wife wouldn't pummel me for doing so. I have the utmost respect for the officers who put their lives on the line so that we can live ours in peace.

I have no such respect and even disdain for police who abuse their authority and make no bones about calling them out on it. This was not such a case.

I let my snarkiness run away there. The punchline was made at the expense of someone else who did not deserve it, and I apologize. The last thing I need to do is water down my message of self reliance and personal responsibility by demeaning others who do not affect that message.

Me and my big mouth...

posted @ 11/19/2008 8:20:56 PM

Comments

Bitter says:

on 11/19/2008 8:47:24 PM

I think that the problem many very good officers face is that a) we hear about bad apples and b) we also hear that the bad apples never face any consequences.

In Virginia there was a "claimed" ND that killed a doctor. The worst part was when you looked at the whole story. Cops got wind that he liked to gamble small amounts with his buddies. He was a trusting guy, so they went after him. They had a guy befriend him and pressure him to make higher bets to get him over some arbitrary limit. He had no wife or kids, owned a home, was a responsible community member, so why not?

Then they went to arrest him, he was fully cooperating, but one officer "accidentally" had his gun drawn and aimed at the doc's head. He then said his door bumped him and he just happened to make a perfect head shot. On a guy who was being arrested for a non-violent offense and was fully cooperating, probably more in shock that he had been betrayed by this person pretending to be his buddy.

The problem is that we hear those kinds of stories and then we find out that the officer - at worst - goes on paid vacation, gets no punishment, and the top even defends his actions because it's all just so dangerous out there. Common sense flies out the window.

The problem is that all of the other officers who were there and had sense are smeared with one bad apple who decided to take enough steps (drawing a gun when it wasn't warranted, putting his finger on the trigger, and aiming at the guy as he was cooperating for a non-violent offense) that a supposed bump into his car door caused him to kill the guy.

I don't know how the good guys can clean that situation up, unfortunately.

I'm not saying that it's permission to unfairly bash, but I also tend to be much more forgiving when people sometimes make the mistake of rushing to judgment. It's unfortunate, but it's not completely unfounded.

straightarrow says:

on 11/19/2008 9:13:38 PM

gotta go with Bitter here. but I add this caveat, how clean and sensible were the cops on the scene of the shooting she described when they supported the "no penalty" conclusion reached by the top?

Why do they consider loyalty to a bad officer more important than a life?

As for the cop trying to tackle someone while carrying his gun in his hand, I can promise you I would never do that. I would either shoot the sonofabitch or free both hands for the NFL playoff, I wouldn't do an amalgam.

Brad says:

on 11/19/2008 10:12:54 PM

Robb,

First off, from reading your blog, I always thought you would be the kind of guy I would like to go have a few beers with. The way you handled this now makes me sure that I would.

There are cops out there who abuse authority. There are cops out there who make stupid decisions which turn into tragedies. I acknowledge that. Cops are human beings.

Stupid, abusive, and criminal behavior occurs in every profession, every religion and every country in the world. It has been and probably always be a part of the human existance. How we deal with it is what counts.

I don't have any problem with bloggers who point these types of behaviors out in the police community. Transparency is needed. Incidents like that should be highly scrutinized, but don't expect cops to be perfect, only the guy with the big hat in Rome can claim title to that.

Remember too, police officers are held to the standard of what another reasonable officer would do. It used to be a reasonable person standard, but it was changed to reflect that most people don't fully understand all of the variables and conditions at play as the police do their jobs.

I appreciate that Robb understood that he was painting this situation with a very wide brush. I always try to look at the intent of the officer, myself. Were they doing their best to do their job?

Everytime something goes wrong when a police officer is doing their job, it doesn't mean that the officer was negligent or should be jailed. Or that there is some huge conspiracy to cover something up. Sometimes there are bad results when everything was done properly...

Thanks for your re-appraisal Robb.

Brad

Sailorcurt says:

on 11/20/2008 9:04:47 AM

And this is the difference between our community and...um...others...

We recognize when we are wrong and do our best to make amends.

You are an honorable man, sir, and I'm honored to call you friend.

Robb Allen says:

on 11/20/2008 10:51:33 AM

I'm going to disagree with both Straightarrow and Bitter here - The news is chocked full of stories of idiots with guns. We argue that even though we hear about those items day in and day out that there's a much larger segment of gun owners who are responsible and we shouldn't be judged by the bad apples.

Same applies to cops.

However, the difference is that we as gunnies tend to be much harder on our brethren when we screw up.

Matt says:

on 11/20/2008 11:25:40 AM

Here's my problem with the differing standard for police officers because they have a dangerous job that we, the little folk, don't understand.

It is that police officers CHOSE a profession that carries those inherent dangers and risks. It's not like they found out about them afterward. Lots of people have dangerous professions and we don't see excuses and forgiveness of failure in those areas. If you erect a crane wrong (a dangerous job if you aren't careful and attentive) and it collapses and kills people, there is no "That's tragic but we won't punish your lapse in judgment because you were doing a dangerous job.".

The whole problem of this stories started BECAUSE they decided a reasonable person standard didn't apply. Only cops can understand the trials and tribulations of other cops and we'll police ourselves in the event of misconduct.

So a few bad apples truly have spoiled the bunch. The failure lies with the police officers as a group who have elevated themselves above the very people they swore to protect.

This is not a riff on cops. I know several. The good far outnumber the bad but the attitude of the bad and those who see themselves as better or above is corrosive. It infects the good ones even if they don't realize it in order to conform within that group. I understand why they do it.

But by showing no consequences for things that would land any one of us in prison, it causes the community as a whole to lose respect for the police and puts us on that "us vs. them" path. We no longer greet a police officer in a traffic stop with a goofy "Whoops, I just got caught." mentality. Now we tremble in fear at what authority this man or woman in a uniform might do to us.

This is not the way it used to be and it has to stop.

Stop making excuses. People will understand if you explain the mistake, that it happened, that yes, it might be tragic but the offender WAS punished. To sweep it under the rug with the excuse that "we don't understand" means you're already too far gone. You are in action and in deed, existing above the law you swore to protect.

I'd rather have no police than a police force afflicted with such attitudes. Spread far enough, it is no different than an occupying army.

We need to find a way back to "Peace Officer" not "Law Enforcement Officer".

Bitter says:

on 11/20/2008 11:57:13 AM

Here's my problem with your disagreement, Robb:

When gun owners do something stupid, there are often legal consequences. When we hear about bad apples in law enforcement, the chance of consequences seems to go down rather quickly. If you do something stupid, you'd potentially face arrest and potentially lose your job when they find out. When one of their bad apples messes up, it's merely an investigation where they are not arrested, and they continue to get paid to wait on the results.

On top of that, they are funded by tax dollars. The entire public should ride them about cleaning up their ranks when a bad apple is uncovered. We do it as private citizens to our own, but there's technically no vested interest in doing it beyond PR. They have PR to worry about and the public good.

Then, there's the whole issue of the power of the state behind them. When a gun owner does something stupid, there's no authority behind that gun owner. He/She doesn't have the legal power of a gun at everyone's head, so-to-speak. Police officers do. When they make bad decisions, there should be a reason for people to be concerned.

I have some very good friends who are cops. In fact, police officers were the guys who really brought me into the gun movement after I went to the range the first time and had a blast. I hate that I do think it's not unfounded to assume the worst at times. It's only because there seem to be few - if any - efforts to clean things that need to be cleaned up from the top. In fact, hearing the stories I did, the times that the leadership would get involved and ask hard questions were often the time when officers were most justified in acting. It's as if yelling at the guy who never gets in trouble is easier than actually dealing with the guy who every body has warned would be trouble.

Robb Allen says:

on 11/20/2008 12:07:58 PM

Nobody is denying that needs to happen, Bitter. What I'm saying is that my treatment of the cop (calling him an idiot while running with a gun) was wrong due to the fact that the issue I had had nothing to do with bad apples.

kaveman says:

on 11/20/2008 12:18:41 PM

To both Robb and Brad.

This is the perfect example of what seperates the pro 2A crowd from the antis.

Person A writes down their opinion.

Person B is rubbed a little raw and shares why in a respectable manner.

Person A revisits the thought and takes all things into account, displaying the willingness to take an honest critique to heart.

Next thing ya know, both persons have a few beers together and engage in a playfull pissing match over who's the better pistol shooter.

The antis might come back with some pithy comment like "Pigs, suck!" or some other witty bantor.

Just for the record, I wasn't exactly a cheer leader for cops in my younger days.

I don't hate cops anymore; I hate District attorneys, Judges and anyone who works on a parole board.

In any event, it's nice to see LEO's reading and contributing to the gun blogosphere.

Matt says:

on 11/20/2008 12:22:28 PM

Robb, you were applying a reasonable person standard to the circumstance. I don't necessarily think it was wrong. Just applying our context versus their context. How hard would any of us being on a fellow gunnie if someone wanted to try your Glock so you ran from one end of the line to the other, gun upraised 45 degrees and finger on the trigger because of inattentiveness and excitement to share your prized pistol with another?

We'd crucify them for the lack of safety judgment and violating safety rules we drill into ourselves like a mantra.

I can see the officer's point-of-view on why it is done. But he is illustrating a responsible view of the practice: He's training the muscle memory to keep the finger out of the trigger guard so under stress and not thinking, the behavior is automatic. So kudos to him for pointing it out and kudos to you for being willing to look at it with different eyes.

Still doesn't necessarily mean your initial observations weren't correct. You can also train officers to remain holstered and only draw and shoot at the moment a threat presents itself. I'd argue any of us who've concealed carry seriously have practiced such drills. There is more than one path to follow with varying degrees of good and bad.

And no, I wouldn't fault anyone for a ND in a firefight. It's a FIREFIGHT. The difference between a tragedy and a shaky laugh afterwords is whether or not you shot your buddy in the process. Dirt puff and a ricochet? Whoops and phew! Headshot? Gets reported as a KIA and the unfortunate who did it suffers from nightmares, guilt and PTSD for the rest of his/her life and maybe tells the family of their comrade later about his error resulting in a Blue-on-Blue incident the Pentagon washed away.

Brad says:

on 11/20/2008 9:35:13 PM

Howdy, its Brad again.

I would like to respond to a couple of Matt and Bitter's points.

I agree that cops shoose their profession, we voluntarily put ourselves in harm's way. I agree that cops should be held to a higher standard. To quote Spiderman (loosely, and probably poorly), with great power comes great responsibility.

Every single thing I do as a police officer comes under scrutiny. Every traffic ticket I write, every arrest I make is open to be challenged in court. Every citizen contact I make, for that matter, is recorded on video and audio, so that a citizen can make a complaint against anything that I say or do. I won't even get into the Civil Rights lawsuit possibilities (thankfully, I have no horror stories of my own to share of those). I don't think there are many jobs out there that have that level of oversight attached to them.

Robb originally poked fun at the 83 page report, but think about that. Think about all the witness interviews, diagrams, lab reports and other effort that went into this incident. I fail to see how this was swept under the rug.

I might be simplifying things a bit but what we had here was an arrest of a cocaine dealer (I think I can define him as a dangerous, likely to be violent felon) where he didn't submit. He either ran, fought with the arresting officers, or both.

This officer, under what I consider to be combat stress, made a fine motor skill error while trying to do his job as best he could. Does he belong in jail? I don't think so. Does he deserve to lose his job? I don't think so either.

None of what he did was dishonorable. None of what he did violated the public trust. None of what he did was reckless or outlandish. What he did was make a mistake, in the heat of battle, while doing his job.

Brad says:

on 11/20/2008 9:36:01 PM

Again, if you want to make light of the stress someone is under who is chasing or fighting with a dangerous felon, then go ahead. I can't personally compare it to military combat because I have never experienced that. I have studied gunfighting though, and coupled with my 15 years of experience, I believe that the effects of the stress on the human body are similar.

Proper training only goes so far. We can't really be critical of the training because the article doesn't address that. I would be shocked if the officer wasn't trained to keep his finger off the trigger.

When I am instructing, I am a huge proponent of keeping the weapon in the holster, and using a "grip ready" stance, keeping the pistol in the holster instead of a low ready. I make it a point to show my people that is just as fast as a low ready position with a little training. You know what though? When you are facing a potentially deadly threat, it feels a lot better to have the gun in your hand.

That is why I made the comparison with military firefights. We seem to be quick to cut people in that situation slack (justifiably so, in my opinion), and I think in this instance, the officer deserves the same.

Do I think that this is a blanket provision? Hell no. There certainly are bad shootings that occur where officers should be put into jail or perhaps lose their jobs. I just don't think this was one of them. Each case is different, which is one of the aspects I love about my job. You always have to come up with decisions and solutions where the variables are never the same twice.

And Bitter, I work in the suburbs of Detroit, in Wayne County. I know of at least a half dozen cases where officers were tried for murder or manslaughter while they were on the job. Maybe where you live things get swept under the rug, but here, if there is any question at all as to the validity of the shooting, there will be a full criminal trial. The real sad part is that most of the time, the officers are aquitted by the juries. But by then they have lost their jobs, and their lives have been turned upside down for the two years the whole ordeal took.

Google up David Krupinski. He is the Detroit PD Officer who shot a deaf man who came at him with a garden rake. There were federal investigations, huge media attention and finally a trial, where he was aquitted.

This is how I see things. I don't see things being swept under rugs.

Ok everyone, I got it all out of my system (I think). I'll leave it alone now.

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