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Radley Balko Finds a Good Cop. And He’s A, Well…
The folks among Black Lives Matter, radical Libertarians and “police reform activists” would have you that they don’t really want any harm to come to police officers. They simply want to prevent harm to people the police are dealing with.
They want you to believe they reject the idea that “The only good cop is dead cop.” But, the strange thing is they never quite seem to be able to say what a “good cop” is when it comes to actually dealing with dangerous people.
Earlier this week, though, Washington Post Columnist Radley Balko took to
Twitter earlier this week to give kudos to a cop for his handling of a dangerous suspect.
And, as you might expect, Balko’s good cop is, in fact, a dead cop.
Douglas County (Colorado) Deputy Sheriff Zach Parrish was slain on December 31 while trying to detain a man who was showing signs of mental illness. Video of the incident shows that he was kicking in the door to the man’s bedroom when he was felled by an intense fusillade of bullets fired through that door. Parrish, it appears, never knew what danger awaited him, but was aware of the possibilities. He died with his gun in hand, prepared to defend himself in exactly the way Balko would prefer that cops not do.
This is hardly surprising.
I wrote last year about Balko’s self-admitted ignorance of the practices and practical realities of policing. He admits he has never conducted a first-hand observation of police work. Let me repeat that: The criminal 
justice columnist for one of the most influential news outlets in the world had never bothered to observe police work. This didn’t stop him from writing a 400-page book about a topic on which he’s conducted no first-hand observation.
And it doesn’t stop him from criticizing the decisions that cops make to save their lives. But, he’s perfectly happy to laud them when they’re dead.
Notably, Balko had no words of praise for these deputies in Escambia, Florida who tried to use non-lethal force on a defiant, armed suspect. Note that one was only grazed, not fatally wounded.
So, Balko won’t tell you the only good cop is a dead cop. It’s just that those are the only ones he’ll tell you did good.
Published in General
Robert, Balko’s arrogance in suggesting that he’s some kind of expert is outrageous. And his not honoring those who put their lives on the line and manage to live, but only recognizing those who die is a travesty. As a consultant to cops, I participated in the ride-alongs and they were invaluable. Of course, I wasn’t caught in a dangerous situation, but I could appreciate how often these folks had to work with uncertainty and potential violence. I often say on this blog, Robert, that those men and women who work to protect me and mine earn my full gratitude; those who work to defame them should be condemned. Okay, I feel better now!
I’m familiar with Balko’s writing. The kindest thing I can say about him, he’s clueless, anything else would be [Redacted]. I don’t remember him being of any assistance when I was trying to arrest someone who was violent. Just as well really, I didn’t need someone who would run from danger. Crying for mommy, and navel gazing just doesn’t get the job done out on the streets.
Radley can at times be a little aggressive, but the flip side of this story just occurred here in San Antonio last month. Cops were chasing a fleeing lady criminal- they assumed she was armed. They finally caught up to her breaking into (maybe hiding on the porch of) a random mobile home. The confrontation led to some of the deputies fearing for their lives, so they fired and killed her. It turns out the criminal was unarmed. But at least all the deputies made it home safe that night to their families.
Oh, I almost forgot to add that 6 year old Kameron Prescott, inside the random home on his first day of Christmas break, was also killed by the barrage gunfire from the courageous officers, who all made it home safe.
I don’t like Balko, but I’m not sure I like you any better. “What’s your method of preventing?” the killing through negligence of a child is an awful way to answer. Had you said, the officers had been fired upon or assaulted & were defending themselves, that would have been, I think, acceptable.
I dunno why you think you’re doing the police forces of America any services, either, with that attitude. Maybe people are flattered that you’re humiliating their enemy. But that’s hardly the same thing.
People with your rhetoric can wave the bloody rag at people like Balko & they can do it right back. Much good that’s gonna do America-
although I generally understand what you’re saying, your comment makes it seem you have never done tactical firearm training and that you don’t know much about how police engage in deadly force.
If the chase was in the dark, the woman claimed to have a gun, and a clear vision of her was obscured – having gone through police training courses and observed actual police work – there could be a number of situations in which the three criteria of use of deadly force would have been easily satisfied: 1. Reasonable belief a weapon is present 2. The will to use it 3. A perceived attempt at delivery. If police decide to fire, they are going to fire numerous rounds in fast succession. untrained people might refer to this as a “barrage”, but handguns are notoriously difficult to use accurately, and it often takes multiple rounds to incapacitate a subject. I think the last study I read said that police hit their targets at something like 20-25% of the time. And given the realities on the human nervous system in high stress situations, that’s actually not a bad marksmanship rate.
Police have done what they can to use firearms that do not engage in over penetration, even to the point of losing numerous police officers by using calibers that engage in under penetration (for example, the inability to fire through a closed car window lethally into a target). The problem of mobile homes is that they are notoriously flimsy. A .22 round can go through the side and hit someone. so if the child was inside the mobile home, there is no way they could have scanned behind the woman. So if they were justified in firing, they would have been unable to consider the likelihood of the boy as collateral damage.
I think that is what the author is getting at. police require clear and objective criteria in order to function in extraordinarily stressful and fast-moving situations. You get about 1/4 of a second to decide whether or not to shoot in some situations, and you are always in an altered state of consciousness. So you need extraordinarily objective criteria for shoot – don’t shoot situations. the untrained public never seems to really understand this. That is why the police require what sometimes seems like “hearttless” support.
The beliefs of a police officer should be based on as much evidence as he reasonably can be expected to have in the situation he actually finds himself in. I understand that the crazy lady claimed she had a gun; that’s a fairly serious thing to worry about, but it doesn’t seem to me to dispose of the question.
I did not see in what you said that there’s reasonable evidence the officers were in danger. Perhaps there was & you were not in the mood, in the spur of that moment, to present it–limiting yourself to the crazy lady’s claim.
If there is nothing more than the repeated statements you mention, I do not see what justified opening fire. I would like to see rules changed concerning when an officer can start shooting.
Well, people here know I favor police officers & have no liking for BLM & such; America needs more policing, not less, especially with the shocking rises in murders since about 2014; but you are doing a good job of turning me in the direction of Balko, I can tell you that much.
Never done tactical firearm training; no, I don’t know much about how police engage in deadly force. In fact, if you want to refer to me as average Joe, I wouldn’t mind.
I know what you mean about incompetent shooting & the barrages that requires–we may have been reading the same studies, or in my case, just conclusions, not really studies. (Of course, multiple rounds is very imprecise. When it’s more than a clip /15 bullets, I’d raise an eyebrow–unless it’s a gunfight, which is a different thing…) I’ve heard similar numbers. They’re of course, for fairly small distances, too; we’re not talking shooting 70 feet away…
This is also why I say maybe the guy with the heartless answer should have taken his favorite plea that the officers acted reasonably & just copy-pasted for the community here to see.
That’s part of why I think you might want to call me average Joe & rethink some of what you’re saying.
Most shootouts are in urban areas, most of the big ones being places that vote Democrat. The police are part of a political structure & I suggest you consider that. They’re gonna get rave reviews on Ricochet & in many places where our fellow Ricochetti live–but those are rarely places where police officers engage in shootouts. I’ve never done the mapping with numbers, but my bet is that GOP America sees fewer officers killing & being killed than Democrat America. What’s yours? How do you think heartless support is going to play that far outside Ricochet?
The reason I posted the sad story in response is because while Balko may swing a bit to far one direction, near blanket veneration of police is something I find equally distasteful. The officers in the San Antonio incident were not by any definition of the word exhibiting bravery, they valued their own lives above those of the community. I can’t blame them, they are afterall human, but there should be a price to pay for the mistakes and chain of events they participated in.
Balko shines the light on mistakes and oversteps by officers, I think they should be studied and highlighted to limit the sense of entitlement that allows public servants who are held in a place of honor and respect to act cavelierly with the lives of the public they have ostensibly sworn to protect.
And @Nic Gibson, I certainly am no operator, but I do know 4 rules- every gun is loaded, never point at anything you don’t want destroyed, never place your finger on the trigger until you will fire, and know your target and what is beyond it.
Perhaps the deputies involved could have approached this situation more mindful of those rules. They didn’t and should be fired.
First of all the death of this boy is a tragedy. It calls for a full investigation of the decisions the officers made to shoot.
Until you have someone in handcuffs, searched, and sitting in the back seat of a police car you do not have them under control.
This woman committed serious felonies and threatened to shoot police officers. She attempted to take not just one vehicle, but also broke into at least one residence, and from the news story at least two more homes, threatening residents, and demanding car keys, including breaking into the residence that the boy lived in. She stated that she was armed. She worked very hard to enhance her chances of being shot, and she also contributed to the boy’s death by her actions.
Part of the shoot or don’t shoot decision is based upon her actions in that does an officer that confronts her have a reasonable belief that she is a danger not only to him/her, is she also a danger to the community if she is not taken into custody. Breaking into residence’s and threatening residents might meet that threshold in her case.
There will be a full investigation. I imagine if the officers are charged that a pdf of the Grand Jury transcript will be made public after a jury is selected for any officer’s that may be charged in the boy’s death.
Pursing a felony suspect (for two hours) whom you’ve been repeatedly told is armed doesn’t meet any standard Of bravery? Interesting. Of course, the easiest way for cops to avoid such mistakes is to avoid situations where they might make them. That doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of society.
What makes you think such events aren’t studied and learned from?
So, what you’re saying is that no cop in any modestly urban environment should fire a gun at anything but contact range, because in a city a bullet that misses can hit anyone in any building for blocks around. Is that your standard?
My point is the officers had options in how they conducted the pursuit and then once they had a large group of officers cornering the suspect how to engage. I am jumping to the conclusion they didn’t possess the mindset of valuing the public’s lives above their own when they engaged. Reading all the accounts with only police sources I’m sure the opposite narrative is also plausible.
But, they were not brave. They cared more for their safety than the occupants of the trailer.
I’m sure they will face no charges, the feelings of officers are all that matter when they make the decision to use deadly force. I’m resigned to that fact, reluctantly.
Police officers serve a necessary and important roll in keeping society running. They are for the most part rewarded with societal respect and deferrence and in many metropolitan areas generous benfits. I’m sure many years from now many members of the Orlando swat team will be remembering their careers fondly from their vacation homes, very forgetful of the folks who bled out while they were waiting for hours outside a nightclub bathroom door.
True heroes don’t always get to retire, we should honor them, I think Mr. Balko was trying to do that in some way.
Doesn’t that make a big difference? If the woman was just hiding, the police had a lot of options and, in my opinion, should not have fired unless they had a clear view of the woman’s weapon and an indication that she was attempting to use it. If she was breaking into someone’s home, then I would give the police more leeway to stop her even if the evidence that she had a gun was uncertain.
She had already broken into the home and came out onto the porch to confront the deputies:
The quote was taken from the link in Comment #4. If you are going to comment on the specifics of the incident you might want to take the time click on the links that have been provided.
Etiquette tip for @robertcjparry:
Your responses are hard to read because you are placing your response above the quoted material, and you aren’t toggling the quote mode for your paragraphs, making them look like quotes, too. Placing responses above the quotes is a modern email affectation that looks terrible in any in-order view (so much so that it is considered rude in many tech environments). And just isn’t done here on Ricochet.
Never mind. It seems you figured it out by comment #12. /-:
Should these officers be jailed? Two bystanders wounded by cops after a shooting?
https://www.themaven.net/bluelivesmatter/news/video-cop-ambushes-would-be-cop-killer-with-full-auto-mag-dump-ppShtlT_MkuCwpGDLkOFnA?full=1
No, but they should be compensated for their injuries. As far as the bad guy goes, I’d file it under; Taking out the trash.
So sometimes it’s acceptable for innocent bystanders to be shot by the police.
https://www.themaven.net/bluelivesmatter/news/video-cop-ambushes-would-be-cop-killer-with-full-auto-mag-dump-ppShtlT_MkuCwpGDLkOFnA?full=1
No, but they should be compensated for their injuries. As far as the bad guy goes, I’d file it under; Taking out the trash.
I didn’t say it was acceptable, but the intent was not to harm innocent bystanders. Read your own link to the Utah shooting. As a police officer you are in a reactive position.
The dirt bag could have cared less who was hurt. He was willing to shoot not only police officers, but anyone else who got in his way. You complained because police officers didn’t enter the Orlando nightclub with guns blazing, and now you’re complaining because police officers tried to end a rampage in Utah.
The information posted on the San Antonio situation is incomplete. The woman was an ex-con who threatened the officers several times; neighbors of the young boy who was accidentally shot have said the LEO’s were not at fault. (http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Friends-family-say-Amanda-Lenee-Jones-was-12452864.php).
The Bexar county sheriff (for whom the officers work) has already said that changes in training are forthcoming in response to the incident.
The death of the young boy is a horrible tragedy, but I think to state that it means the officers put their safety above that of civilians misinterprets their actions.
This weekend we (my fire department) was called out for a disturbance. A woman was drunk and threatening her boyfriend; there were firearms in the home per the caller. We and EMS responded; we were there before the sheriff’s officers, and did what we are supposed to – we staged about 1/4 from the home. When the first deputy arrived, he went right in, as they always do, alone, and dealt with the situation.
That’s the daily reality of police work. It’s awfully easy to critique it from the safety of one’s keyboard.
What makes you think the Bexar County deputies wanted to harm bystanders?