Looks like FB is blocking me from posting this on the DBMA FB page:
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Nir Maman
14 hrs ·
Lately, I have been tirelessly getting dragged into ‘debates’ on Police application of lethal force, by of course, none other than the social media tactical force science guru experts who simply know nothing as it relates to Policing, because well, their Policing training and experience comes from the CNN Police academy!
The funny thing is, when you call these buffoons out on the fact that they’re not qualified to even form an opinion on the matter, they throw a tantrum, then a hissy fit, then they de-friend and block you on Facebook! LOL!
In any event, there absolutely are more than enough people on here, who don’t come from the profession of Law Enforcement profession that have legitimate questions, which I am always more than happy to take the time to answer when I can to help better educate people on the realities of our profession.
One such subject that has come up quite a bit in the past week, is the subject of Police Officers “shooting someone in the back”.
There’s a lot more that should be presented on the subject, but in short, here is an explanation I provided to hopefully help people understand how it ends up that subjects are shot in the back **in justifiable Police shootings**:
(And yes, there sure is some attitude on my part that seeps through in my explanation, for as I explained, unfortunately too many people believe they can formulate opinions and judge on subjects they know NOTHING about. And well, that’s not only irresponsible, negligent, and dumb...but it’s also frustrating)
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The arguments on the subject of ‘Officers shooting a subject in the back’ is one that way too many people latch onto while having absolutely ZERO knowledge, experience, or intellect on all the variables that factually occur in a dynamic stress induced life and death situation.
People allow themselves to look at freeze frames of an unfolding and rolling dynamic scenario, from a third party point of view, where in addition to lacking any of the expertise and training on how to assess and address that scenario from beginning to end, they are also entirely deprived of all the emotional, physiological, psychological, and human factors that each Police Officer is bound by, given that we’re always a human under that uniform before anything else, and while entirely deprived of all those crucial factors, think they can decide what has factually happened.
Without going into the many variables that goes through an Officer’s mind and physiology when they’re in that exact moment of pulling the trigger on an individual that has just attempted to incapacitate or kill you, I will explain what happens to these subjects that end up getting shot in the back:
Legally, There are quite a few scenarios that on face value warrant an Officer shooting a subject in the back, with intent to shoot them in the back, when the subject has demonstrated that they have the intent and means to kill someone (including the Officer) and they are still fully capable of carrying out that threat while they are running and may potentially be able to enact their deadly force on any other person reasonablly accessible to them immediately or potentially if they manage to get away from the Officer.
That said, in practically every single case where you see a subject shot in the back, the moment in time the Officer pulled the trigger, the subject did not have their backs turned to the Officer.
The transition between a point where an Officer is facing a subject’s empty hands and where suddenly one of those subject’s hands is now holding a gun pointed at the Officer’s face, happens in milliseconds.
There are seconds added to an Officer’s ability to perceive that change in the subject’s behavior, process the sudden existence of a deadly threat in that scenario, and respond physically (which takes seconds).
All this while the Officer has to also contend with the immediate impact of life and death stress which affects us in numerous physiological ways.
Take all the above, and now add what the vermin scumbags do:
When scumbags pull guns/weapons on us, 100% of EVERY SINGLE TIME, it’s for no other reason than because they committed a crime, we caught them, they’re about to go to jail, as far as they’re conserned they are not going to jail, they have made up their minds that they are willing and going to kill us in order to escape, and then, they put all that into kinetic action.
When they enact their deadly force (or threat of) against us, they usually do so while also beginning the process of RUNNING AWAY!
When they run away...they turn and face away from us.
Sometimes, they
1. fire their weapon at us,
2. stop firing,
3. then turn, and
4. run.
however, where as you’re reading those last four steps in four separate actions separated by comas, in real life, those four steps are dynamically executed in as close to one continuous motion. Meaning, it all happens at once, especially to the perception capability of the human facing the subject who is enacting all those steps against him/her.
Somewhere within those four steps of action being enacted by the subject, the Officer perceives, analyzes, and produces their weapon to return fire to save their lives.
All this happens in fractions of seconds!
And the two sets of actions (the subject’s and the Officer’s) take place at varying points in relation to one another....but the order never changes, it’s Officers who react to the subject’s decided upon actions.
Additionally, as the human mind’s reaction process will always dictate, it takes an Officer as much time and processing to identify that the subject’s behavior has changed...i.e: the subject has now turned, the subject has stopped shooting at the Officer, the subject’s weapon arm has lowered or has turned away, to name a few.
Because of how dynamically all this unfolds, it is sometimes entirely unavoidable to shoot a subject in the back.
It is not the Officer who shoots the subject in the back, but the subject who dictates by decisive action against the Officer, that the Officer will have to shoot them, and once putting the Officer on that course of action, the subject ends up turning their back to the Officer during the Officer’s enactment of his/her life saving actions.
In other words, it’s unavoidable. This is why practically every single case you see in the news of an Officer shooting a subject in the back, the Officers are deemed to have justifiably applied lethal force and are cleared by the investigation.
There are also the incidents, more than enough of them that occur, where subjects actually intently and continuously shoot at the Officers while running away...meaning their backs are constantly exposed to the the Officer throughout the lethal exchange both ways.
As it specifically relates to the Atlanta incident with Officer Rolfe: brooks was running away, he demonstrates more than enough of the requisite variables that he was an immediate threat to the safety and life of the Officers, he disarmed one of the Officers (was now in known possession of a weapon - a deadly only one his hands), made it clear from the moment he began resisting arrest that he was willing to escape the law at any cost, was actively running away from the Officers, turned and fired the taser at Officer Rolfe’s face while still actively running away, began to swing his arm back towards his front as Officer Rolfe deployed his firearm and fired.
There are numerous extenuating circumstances here as well, such as the fact that Officer Rolfe may have reasonably not known if the weapon brook’s discharged at him was in fact the taser he took from the Officer or a handgun he may have had concealed and accessed while running.
It was a 100% ethically, morally, and legally justifiable shooting by the Officer, and he will end up being acquitted, if those charges aren’t even dropped before it reaches court.
People need to stop judging and reaching conclusions on subjects they have no business judging. Period.
