Re: Attorney: New audio reveals pause in gunfire when Michael Brown was shot[W:72,732
So here's a very good article that explains the policies and law that guide the police's interactions with the public and their use of force.
From a friend of mine. He is a cop and his wife is a detective in rural WA St. Not liberals :mrgreen: I am. And dang it if we arent friends anyway.
How cops can help citizens better understand police use of force
From the article:
Force Options
When an officer meets resistance, officers are trained to use a level of force justified by the specific threat, or resistance they are presented with. For example, if a person pulls away from an officer making an arrest and snaps, “Don’t you touch me,” the officer can choose to apply a compliance hold to that person.
These holds are designed to convince the person to comply.
When a suspect is actively resisting, the officer can also choose to disengage and deploy a TASER or utilize pepper spray to overcome that resistance.
It might surprise some people to discover that when a suspect strikes an officer, or even acts as if he or she is about to strike an officer, that officer can legally deliver impacts with what we call personal body weapons.
Officers can punch, kick, or strike with elbows and/or knees to defend themselves and/or make an arrest.
Officers can also choose to deliver baton impacts to targeted areas on the body. Officers can even strike a suspect more than once if once does not stop the suspect’s threat. If a suspect tries to hit an officer, don’t be surprised when that officer hits back.
Use of Deadly Force
I’ve never heard an officer say at the beginning of a shift, “I hope I get to shoot someone today.”
While the vast majority of officers never fire their weapons in the line of duty, some have to. When an officer is faced with the threat of death or great bodily injury — or someone they are sworn to protect is faced with that same imminent threat — an officer is justified in using deadly force.
There are three generally held misconceptions about deadly force that continually arise and need to be addressed:
1. An officer can shoot an unarmed man under certain conditions.
An officer may have to use deadly force on an unarmed man who is larger, stronger, and/or attempting to disarm the officer, for example. In the case of a suspect, who is battering an officer to the point that he or she may suffer death or great bodily harm, the use of deadly force is defensible. Police officers do not have to sustain a severe beating in the line of duty.
Other factors that could justify an officer’s choice to utilize deadly force are the extent of that officer’s injury, exhaustion, or the number of assaultive adversaries the officer is confronted with.
2. An officer can, in certain conditions, shoot someone in the back.
You see if a suspect is fleeing and their escape presents an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to the community at large, the use of deadly force can be justified. On some occasions a round might enter through the back, because of the dynamics of the circumstance.
3. Officers are not — and never will be — trained to shoot to wound or shoot weapons out of subjects’ hands.
These are not realistic options. Handguns are not accurate enough to deliberately attempt such things when lives are on the line.