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So You Want To Kill Someone
With cops shooting citizens, citizens shooting cops, and plenty of people just plain old shooting each other, it’s obvious we have a culture of death in America. (Just kidding. The culture of death is only found in PP clinics.) More seriously, with the killing of the Dallas shooter by Dallas police employing a unique method the question of use of force has come to the fore of my mind. Many people cheer the outcome for this particular suspect, but I am reluctant to give applause to something new just because the outcome seems laudable. I’m constrained by both knowledge and philosophy to slow down and take a closer look at the available information, compare that to my own experience and knowledge before I render my support to a new technique of the state to exercise its power, especially the power over an individual’s life.
For a little background on where I’ve formed my understanding of this: I served in the Navy as a Missile Technician for around 14 years. The official description of the job says a lot about computers and electro-hydraulic systems, but the truth is Missile Technicians are first and foremost guardians of our nation’s most sensitive weapons. The first watch one qualifies is as a security guard, and every watch thereafter entails security to some degree, including being armed and authorized to use deadly force. The first binary question in qualification for these duties is to know and understand the Navy’s definition of deadly force and its justified uses. I first memorized this in November of 1993 and remember it word for word to this day. I often joke that it will be the my last words. I have been questioned and drilled on it, I have run through countless scenarios testing my knowledge of it, and I even found myself standing at parade rest outside the Executive Officer’s stateroom once to explain why my answer to the Pacific Fleet’s Nuclear Weapons Security Officer demonstrated too much willingness to employ it. Because of the countless hours I’ve spent specifically contemplating the use of deadly force I come at police use of it from a very technical point of view. The situation in Dallas raised some serious questions for me, but questions that would be easily and satisfactorily answered with more information.
As a matter of philosophy I believe the state exists for a very specific reason, namely that reason outlined in the Declaration of Independence. It exists only to protect individual rights, and the chief among these is the right to life. When the state is required to do the opposite of that and take a life it must be severely constrained. It can only do so under very limited and specific circumstances and in service of its primary duty of protecting individual rights. At times those entrusted with the power of the state must make a decision to take life from one to preserve life in others. I do not pretend that these decisions are easy or that the person making them gets to sit around and ponder the many intricacies of the matter in the heat of the moment. The deep thoughts ought to have already been accomplished. The person ought to have drilled himself mentally, and his empowering agency of the state ought to have drilled him physically, well in advance of any event in which deadly force is employed. Even then there is no guarantee that the fragile nature of humans won’t shatter and render an unjust outcome. Each instance where the state takes a life stands or falls on its own merit.
Deadly force is more than just killing. It is a very specific and technical thing. I reference the Navy definition due to habit and because the things true about it are the same with federal law and most state laws. First, any force which can cause death or serious bodily harm is classified as deadly force. The person employing force must know the extent of force he is using. Legal definitions include terminology such as “should know” to eliminate the excuse of ignorance. Just as Hillary should have known her actions were illegal, so a person engaged in using force on behalf of the state should know when his force will create a substantial risk of causing death or serious harm. Second, deadly force is the absolute last arrow in the quiver. It is only justified under conditions of “extreme necessity” (per the Navy definition) and when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed. Shorter: if there is a realistic choice, deadly force isn’t an option. There must be no other reasonable means to achieve the desired ends if it is to be legitimately employed. Third (last maybe), there are only certain defined circumstances under which the calculation of using deadly force as the last and only available option are allowed.
I won’t list all the scenarios, but those relevant to the Dallas shooting are serious offenses against person and apprehensions. Many people have stated that because Johnson had killed 5 officers and wounded more that deadly force was justified, but this misunderstands why serious offenses justifies deadly force. Things which have happened in the past are a matter of due process and the judicial system. For serious offenses against others to justify deadly force it must be in order to stop the offense while it is happening or prevent an imminent occurrence of an offense. Well, some argue, he was armed and stated that he wanted to kill cops and white people. As bad as these statements are, they are not enough alone, or even coupled with the means, to justify the state taking a life. It’s a hard truth, but the destruction already wrought by the shooter only justifies the state taking his life through due process of law. Just because we don’t like it in this particular instance does not remove this fundamental right guaranteed to us (all of us, even the murderous scumbags out there) and protected by the Constitution.
We’re left only with the justification of apprehension as a valid circumstance under which the state’s use of deadly force against an individual was legitimate. Here’s the problem: the technique chosen did not have as its probable (maybe even possible) outcome the achievement of the ends which justified the use of force. The state did not set out to apprehend him and employ force which could result in his death while attempting to realize this aim; rather, the state set as its goal Johnson’s death. Do I think the shooter didn’t deserve to die? Of course not. From the information available, he deserved to die for his crimes (I’d say painfully and slowly, but there’s constraints on the state about that, too), but the only way the state can kill a person for his crimes is through the due process of law. This is one of those fundamental restraints on the state which keep it aimed at its only reason for existence.
I’ve stated in the various posts about the robot that I believe we do not have enough information to accurately judge the action of the Dallas Police Department, and I stand by that assessment. I just discovered today that Johnson was likely wounded through all of the exchange of deadly force with police. According to this news story, he wrote on the walls of the structure in his own blood during the standoff. Even this information is inadequate because we don’t know if the police knew he was wounded before or after they decided to blow him up. For all we know it could have been mere minutes before he was incapacitated due to his injuries and easily apprehended. Details like this are what justify or condemn the state’s taking of life, and we do not have enough of them to make the call one way or the other. What we do have, however, is the right (and some would say duty) as citizens to critically examine the state’s use of deadly force on our behalf to determine if it was in line with our laws and our character as a nation.
Whenever a shooting of newsworthy proportions happens we hear calls to refrain from judgement until sufficient quantities of reliable information are available on which to form an opinion of the matter. I make such a call regarding Dallas Police’s unique use of remotely delivered explosives to kill the shooter. We must learn the specific laws of Texas regarding police use of deadly force. We must learn more details about the specific circumstances and the environment faced by the officers. We need timelines and the thought process that drove this decision. Until we have those required data we should neither celebrate nor condemn the state’s action. Once we have this and have rendered judgement, then we can move onto the next matter: considering this as a precedent in state interaction with individuals.
Published in Guns
The Wired article was outstanding. It made some of the points about line of sight and inability to just shoot the guy (or for him to shoot police) that I was failing to adequately convey.
I don’t disagree, but it contradicts your earlier statement that he was not in a position to shoot anyone.
The question is, if he is actively shooting and you don’t know how much ammo he has, how long should the cops wait before they stop him?
You keep saying this, but I strongly disagree. They are absolutely relevant. These weren’t five separate murders, with a perp tracked down at some later time. This was one event, including five murders, multiple woundings, concluded with deadly force to put a certain end to the killing spree. The actions and evident skill of the assailant make his statements to negotiators credible and urgent. Use of deadly force had already been attempted against the perp (in the form of return fire), and snipers apparently were authorized to fire if they had a clear shot, so the form of deadly force is really the only thing left to dispute.
You may have been exquisitely trained to protect the military’s missiles, but I don’t see that applying here. The use of the ROV was an inspired solution that minimized civilian (including police) casualties.
Maybe, but how would
youone know he was out of ammo? You seem to be grasping for straws here.This may be a true statement, but the ends do not justify the means.
I don’t know with the available data that the spree was not already stopped by having the guy cornered, contained, and isolated. If the spree was ended (or at least paused long enough barring new actions) then the goal of law enforcement and the justification for the use of deadly force must change with it. The use of deadly force does not latch in and remain relevant but is turned on and off with the circumstances. The justifications for using deadly force are rigid. The circumstances either fit them at the moment the force is employed or they do not. We cannot change the justifications to fit the circumstances, not even for an agreeable outcome.
They did send in the ROV which had capabilities of surveiling him. The police had a lot more data than we do on which to make this decision, but they have not given a full report of it yet, nor would I expect them to this near the event.
KP, two comments:
You keep repeating that you want to withhold judgment until we know all of the facts, implying that everyone else is rushing to judgment. I think those of us who have defended the police on this thread and others share your same sentiment.
But this is Ricochet, and not a court of law, so most of our comments are by definition laced with the unspoken caveat of “assuming that the public information is true”. In this case, there has yet to be any reason to doubt its veracity.
Similarly, you also keep repeating about wanting to know all of the facts before acting once the perpeatrator has been reasonably isolated. Perhaps that luxury exists on a military base, but in the middle of a major city in an unfolding situation, there are too many uncontrollable variables for the police to simply say “we’ve got him boxed in, let’s put this on hold for a day until we have all of the facts”.
What if the killer had explosives on him? Or was waiting for potential accomplices to intervene? Or knew that his accomplices were about to launch an attack in a different part of the city and was trying to distract the police?
There are too many unknown unknowns in a situation like this for the police to allow themselves the luxury of detachment.
It is paused only so long as he remains cornered. The longer the stand off endures, the longer the risk that the still armed and still claiming to want to kill as many people as possible man may get desperate and begin firing on officers. Or, despite best efforts to contain him, he might manage to escape the immediate vicinity.
It is clear that the police gave him every opportunity to surrender peacefully. Insisting that his threat cannot be eliminated without directly exposing more human beings to his line of fire is reckless without any benefit.
BDB, you have made some of the best and most substantive comments on this thread. Why do you feel the need to ruin it all by personally attacking someone who is making an argument in good faith, and who we all know is not some limp-wristed bleeding heart?
Show more respect to those who have earned it.
I am going to unfollow this post because I can’t deal with the new notification system, but I first wanted to mention that I am disappointed that it hasn’t yet made its way to the Main Feed.
More recent information/statements by the police chief indicate that this was their belief and a weighty factor in their decision, something with which I heartily concur. When the available information was only that he had killed (past tense) and was stilled armed it did not meet my understanding of the justification for applying deadly force with the intended outcome of inflicting death. At that point the intended outcome would normally be apprehension using the amount of force necessary, including deadly force, to affect that outcome. If death occurred in such an action it would be incidental to the objective, not the objective itself. Intention still matters, and with the use of deadly force it matters a lot.
It has also come to light that he was wounded. We don’t know when this information became known by police. Did they see his writings in his own blood before or after they decided to kill him? Did video from the ROV show what his wounds were? Were the wounds significant enough to have impaired his ability to attempt escape or even effectively utilize his rifle? These are all questions we don’t yet have answers to, but they all bear on the decision made.
The police suspected he was wounded, but did not know definitely. Men can survive long lengths of time with gun shot wounds. You could allow him to bleed out, though this doesn’t seem morally superior to killing him directly. It of course also risks that he isn’t actually wounded and you’ve been working on a false assumption.
KP, my (badly-made) point is this: there are numerous unknown unknowns in a situation like this. Explosives are just one. You are making your arguments based on what was dribbling out at the time or what we know in hindsight.
But those on the scene would not necessarily be privy to either of those information sources yet would themselves be the potential victims if the situation turned out to be more complicated than it appeared.
Your argument is essentially premised on the notion that if the shooter posed an immediate grave threat he could be intentionally killed, but since he did not pose an immediate grave threat at the time of the robot bomb the police should have used other means to detain him. My argument is that in the haze of an unfolding situation, the police are not capable of determining that the shooter “no longer poses an immediate grave threat” because they don’t have enough information and don’t have the time (or means) to gather that information.
This is a very plausible take on the matter. My more specific take is that they judged him to be an immediate threat based on the information they had (even if it was incomplete or not optimal) and that given the same set of data I would likely have made the same call if I were the one making it. One of my points is that I really hope they are making the most rational decisions based on the information they have that are in keeping with our laws and our ideals. The character demonstrated by the chief in statements so far leads me to believe this is most likely the case in this matter.
If a police sniper took him out would we be having this discussion? How much of this is about killing the shooter and how much of this is about the fact that the little robot thingy delivered the fatal blast?
Likely much less. Using that technique is normal and has been hashed out already. That said, even with a sniper, the goal of shooting the person is to cause the cessation of the activity which justifies taking the shot, whether that results in death or mere disablement. My understanding is that police are not trained to shoot to kill but to shoot to stop. It’s semantics, but that often matters in these things. I have trouble wrapping my head around a brick of C-4 being intended as a mere stopping device. It seems intended to kill as the minimum, not the maximum.
This is wrong. There is no distinction between shooting to kill and shooting to stop. Firing a gun at another human being comes at the point when lethal force is justified.
We disagree here. You are absolutely right in the reality — shooting at a person is likely intended to kill him — but in the technicality it matters that the intention of taking the shot is to stop the person. Deadly force is legitimate and authorized only so long as the conditions exist which justify it. When the conditions change such as the person to whom it is directed dies or is incapacitated due to being shot, then it is no longer authorized. I said in the OP and in subsequent comments that I am coming at this from a technical viewpoint. I’m arguing the semantics because that is what I set out to do.
If you have to shoot someone and the cops ask for your story there is a difference between saying “he attacked me, and I used my weapon to stop the attack” and saying “he attacked me, and I used my weapon to kill him.”
Part of this is a reflection of what tools are available.
If a weapon could have been mounted onto the robot which would have had a nearly 100% probability of completely incapacitating the shooter with no collateral damage whatsoever, then yes, I think the police SOP should be to use that weapon in a situation like this.
However, since that weapon does not exist, the police should err on the side of public safety and their own safety. If that means the intentional death of a killer who is surrounded, so be it.
The Wired article linked earlier talks about the normal armaments of these ROVs. They are often used to detonate explosives intentionally in a controlled way.
Technology is evolving and providing law enforcement with new tools and techniques which could be both safer and more effective, most often coming from the battlefield. It is still incumbent on us as a society to vet the technologies as to their suitability in law enforcement.
KP, most of your secondary arguments are spot-on and you will get no disagreement from me (nor, I suspect, from anyone on this thread).
However, it is a little puzzling that you chose this particular event as the mountain to make your stand on. If there was ever an apparently clear-cut case for the police using the highest level of violence available, this is it.
If we want to talk about the dangers of police overreach we should choose a case which is much more of a gray zone. And there are two perfect examples from the last week: the two police killings in Minnesota and Louisiana which sparked the Dallas protest in the first place. I think those two examples would be much better conversation starters for many of the points you’re trying to make, not the police intentionally killing an active police killer.
This is exactly why I wrote the post. No case is clear cut. Every case stands or falls on its own facts, and we should never just accept the state’s press conference explanation when it takes a life.
The two relevant questions are these:
It is tempting to simply answer the question in the affirmative because we like the outcome, but we shouldn’t. We should have the same amount of diligence in this case as we would any other, and maybe even more because it was so unique.
You are assuming that those of us who disagree with you are doing so because we like the outcome, and not because we have evaluated the facts and find the police’s actions perfectly appropriate.
I contend that there are not enough facts in the public sphere yet to make that call. Each bit of data gets us closer, and you may have a lower bar for trusting government, but I can’t go there. I’ve met some people (meaning all of us are made of the same crooked timber), including a few who work in government (which somehow seems to amplify our flaws), and have taken a reverse of Reagan’s axiom — verify before trusting.
Yup. Interesting, but still a little disappointing.
I clearly don’t as a general rule, based on our track records on this site. I think your expectations here are unrealistic.
They are in line with my training and understanding of the technical definition of deadly force and the justifications for its use. I didn’t make this up out of thin air. I had it pounded into me.
The same way that arresting a fidgety suspect is not assault. The same way that firing at a range is not firing down the street.
I’d rather hear an argument for the equation of this with a drone strike than have to guess at the similarities beyond the superficial.