When the Police Run Away, Who Will Fight Crime?

 

LAPD HeadquartersIn my recent contribution at PJ Media, I lamented the fact that “over the last few years the belief has arisen that a fleeing or resisting suspect – even an armed one – has the absolute right to be subdued without being harmed.” It’s bad enough when this opinion is held by an uninformed public or members of the media, but police officers are dumbfounded when they find such ignorance expressed by people occupying positions that should, at least in theory, demand a greater mastery of the issues.

I have written previously on the low opinion I hold for the Los Angeles police commission, the five-member body that oversees the LAPD. The members are appointed by the mayor to five-year terms, and though the commission is charged with setting policy for the department and evaluating officers’ conduct in serious use-of-force incidents, there is no expectation that any commissioner have even minimal experience or training that might inform his decisions. In reality, the commissioners are selected so as to conform with some unwritten “diversity” checklist, with the result that there is always at least one black member, one Hispanic, one female, one gay, and what have you. The politics of Los Angeles being what they are, the current members are all left-leaning, some of them more so than others.

A recent decision from the commission brings into stark clarity this lack of real-world experience. Last September, two uniformed LAPD officers were dispatched to a report of a woman creating a disturbance while armed with a knife. The officers drove to the location of the call, parked some 70 feet away from the woman, and got out of their car to investigate. The events that followed were captured on a security camera, the video from which is available at this Los Angeles Times story. The video shows the woman advancing quickly on the officers, both of whom draw their pistols. There is no sound accompanying the video, but videos from the officers’ body-worn cameras (which were not made public) showed that the woman was ordered to drop the knife no less than six times.

When the woman continued to advance while holding the knife, both officers fired. She was between four and five feet away from one officer and about ten feet from the other when she was struck by the gunfire and fell to the ground. She was taken to a hospital but died from her wounds.

To anyone with even a modest amount of police experience, this was clearly a justified shooting. The officers parked and exited their car a safe distance away from the suspect, who made the decision to advance on them quickly while holding a knife in an aggressive manner. When the woman ignored repeated commands to drop the knife, less-lethal means of subduing her, such as a Taser or pepper spray, were not practical alternatives to deadly force. Yes, it is unfortunate that the woman died, but it would have been no less unfortunate if she had stabbed one or both of the officers because they were reluctant to defend themselves as the law allows and common sense demands.

In a decision that has left LAPD officers agog, the commission ruled that the officer who was closest to the woman “out of policy” when he shot her. Their rationale for this finding (if one can label it as such) is that the officer placed himself in a “vulnerable position.” The commission further reasoned that “Given the nature of the Subject’s advance, it should have been apparent to Officer C that his positioning was quickly becoming disadvantageous and that redeployment was warranted.”

In other words, the commissioners would have preferred that the officer run away. The commission’s full report on the incident can be found here, but don’t read it in the expectation of finding any trace of wisdom within.

Over at The Corner on NRO yesterday, my friend Heather Mac Donald reported on newly released FBI crime data that further proves the “Ferguson Effect” to be real. Violent crime is up 12 percent in Los Angeles so far this year and 37 percent over two years. If you were an LAPD officer, how willing would you be, aware that your actions will be judged by these people, to place yourself in harm’s way?

When LAPD officers decide it’s more prudent to take crime reports after the fact than to do what is required to prevent disorder, when crime continues to rise in Los Angeles, will the police commission see a connection to their findings in this case? Of course they won’t.

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  1. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    You may or may not understand why I am deeply grateful I no longer live or work in the Los Angeles area. You have my deepest sympathy Jack for having to put up with this idiocy.

    • #1
  2. Trinity Waters Member
    Trinity Waters
    @

    My heart and mind go out to those brave souls who man the line between us and “them.”  A political, diverse, leftist, uninformed committee decides the fate and career of a person who is likely a nominally fine police officer.  That they judge he should have run away shows that they support a pure abdication of his responsility for public safety, not just the maniac’s safety.  God help us.  I’m glad not to live anywhere near an inner city, but feel tons of compassion for the many who do, and recognize the stupidity that surrounds them, and can’t just walk away.

    • #2
  3. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    Jack Dunphy: When the Police Run Away, Who Will Fight Crime?

    I know it is part of the Rico C0C to assume the other side is acting in good faith, however I have to acknowledge that I have generally given up pretending that the hardcore left is acting in good faith and I now assume that they are actively seeking the break-down of society to immanentize the eschaton of the communist revolution.

    You would think that the lessons of the French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Cambodian, VietNamese revolutions would dissuade them from pursuing a similar revolution here, but let’s be honest, the left doesn’t study history.  They think of history as previous seasons of their favorite tv show.

    • #3
  4. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Kay of MT:You may or may not understand why I am deeply grateful I no longer live or work in the Los Angeles area. You have my deepest sympathy Jack for having to put up with this idiocy.

    I’m still a cop, but I’m no longer working or living in L.A., either.  Not far away, though.

    • #4
  5. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    A-Squared: They think of history as previous seasons of their favorite tv show.

    Perfect.  Or in the alternative, history began when they were born.

    • #5
  6. C. U. Douglas Coolidge
    C. U. Douglas
    @CUDouglas

    My good friend in Vancouver (who is presently a detective and still totally exists) has noted the same nationwide. Moreover, as officers retire or leave the force before hand, it’s getting difficult to fill those positions.

    There’s very little thought of consequences amongst the Progressive left.

    • #6
  7. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    At this point criminals fear armed civilians far more than the police, at least in areas without overly-restrictive gun laws. If a crazy knife-wielding lady or a meth-head, or a kick-in bandit goes after an armed civilian in a situation where the civilian cannot reasonably retreat (or has no obligation to retreat) the lawbreaker ends up dead. The shooter gets to go through a system avoiding the administrative law system the police are subject to.  Criminals know this.

    I suspect it is the major reason progressives are so intent on disarming civilians – to make the streets safe for their voter base.

    Seawriter

    • #7
  8. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Whenever I think of Daryl Wilson I get angry. That cop protected an Asian man’s business from a violent thug stealing drug paraphernalia. When the physically lethal thug assaulted him and reached for his gun he defended himself. He put himself on the line so other citizens wouldn’t have to.

    He did what cops are supposed to do and he ought to have reminded the public that being a good police officer requires an element of heroism. Instead he is thought of as cop who killed an, “an unarmed black man.” As though unarmed people aren’t capable of killing.

    Furthermore, BLM will never say, “this man was a good cop and he was treated unfairly.”

    Cops are pre-judged to be at fault.

    • #8
  9. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    C. U. Douglas:My good friend in Vancouver (who is presently a detective and still totally exists) has noted the same nationwide. Moreover, as officers retire or leave the force before hand, it’s getting difficult to fill those positions.

    There’s very little thought of consequences amongst the Progressive left.

    I suspect they have thought it out quite well.  Force out the existing officers and replace them with political appointees that will do what they are told, when they are told.  That the poor or any other citizens might suffer does not matter.  That innocent officers might go to jail does not matter.  What matters is that they get the right kind of officers, ones that will do what the left wants when they are told or what the left wants when they are not told.

    • #9
  10. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    A police department on the path Jack describes will suffer morale problems. Your best street officers will eventually start looking for another department and leave. Officers that understand the street and in many cases become FTO’s and pass on their knowledge to the next generation of officers. Officers that would have become competent supervisors.

    You will be left with officers that cannot wait to get off the streets after the minimum time they have to spend on the street to become admin officers. Administrators that did not have what it took to be competent patrol officers, in some cases you can substitute “what it took” with the word courage.

    Not only does your department lose on this path the citizens you protect lose as well.

    • #10
  11. Pugshot Inactive
    Pugshot
    @Pugshot

    The bottom line on this nonsense is that the people who make up the Commission do not live in the areas that suffer from out-of-control crime and will likely never be victims of a violent crime. They are responsive only to their supposed constituencies (meaning the people in power or people with political or financial influence), and the left-wing attitudes of those constituencies demand that the police be prevented from dealing with poor, mentally challenged individuals who wander the streets and threaten other citizens – and the police. Ultimately, the unfortunate citizens of these almost invariably Democrat-controlled cities will reap what they have sown.

    • #11
  12. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    I’m really sorry, Jack.

    Apparently, activists in Charlottesville are loudly demanding the resignation of the Mayor, and shouted her down during a city council meeting when she tried to I-Feel-Your-Pain them. The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    • #12
  13. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias

    So this was on facebook. What would Heather MacDonald make of it? My guess is that the studies go out of their way to avoid comparing apples to apples this is a typical statement.

    “evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.”

    As I mentioned before, Michael Brown was trying to kill Daryl Wilson while being unarmed. It’s easy to imagine huge difference in interactions between blacks and whites with police interactions.

    • #13
  14. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Kate Braestrup: The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    Is there a downside to that?

    Seawriter

    • #14
  15. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Jack Dunphy:A recent decision from the commission brings into stark clarity this lack of real-world experience. Last September, two uniformed LAPD officers were dispatched to a report of a woman creating a disturbance while armed with a knife. The officers drove to the location of the call, parked some 70 feet away from the

    In a decision that has left LAPD officers agog, the commission ruled that the officer who was closest to the woman “out of policy” when he shot her. Their rationale for this finding (if one can label it as such) is that the officer placed himself in a “vulnerable position.” The commission further reasoned that “Given the nature of the Subject’s advance, it should have been apparent to Officer C that his positioning was quickly becoming disadvantageous and that redeployment was warranted.”

    So does redeployment mean you go for coffee and then come back in half an hour to see if she was still there? Or does redeployment mean you give her enough space to stab someone else. Why even leave the precinct at all. Just assign everyone to the Telephone Report Unit and save the environment from the carbon emissions of police cars.

    • #15
  16. C. U. Douglas Coolidge
    C. U. Douglas
    @CUDouglas

    Seawriter:

    Kate Braestrup: The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    Is there a downside to that?

    Seawriter

    A societal collapse, even a fairly localized one, will have a ripple effect. Also, liberals being liberals will want to dump your tax dollars in trying to revitalize cities blighted with liberalism.

    • #16
  17. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Kate Braestrup: Apparently, activists in Charlottesville are loudly demanding the resignation of the Mayor, and shouted her down during a city council meeting when she tried to I-Feel-Your-Pain them. The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    http://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/court-records-show-keith-scotts-wife-filed-for-restraining-order/450911728

    Let me go over his record. Keith Lamont Scott;

    1 Had a history with a history of violence with guns for which he served in jail for seven- eight years (sources differ)

    2 who was accused of domestic violence twice,

    3 who was in possession an illegally obtained weapon that he bought from a thief in the black market

    4 who had a history of illegally holding guns

    5 was once charged check fraud

    The police officer that shot him has no demerits to his name. Google searches of him indicate that he likes football and going to a racially diverse church with his wife. Why do activists assume that the cop is the bad guy?

    • #17
  18. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Kate Braestrup:I’m really sorry, Jack.

    Apparently, activists in Charlottesville are loudly demanding the resignation of the Mayor, and shouted her down during a city council meeting when she tried to I-Feel-Your-Pain them. The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    She is a big proponent of the choose your own bathroom mandate. Hiding in the woman’s restroom will not be an option for her.

    • #18
  19. barbara lydick Inactive
    barbara lydick
    @barbaralydick

    I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of today’s situation, and with the comments herein.  For you and the rest of the brave officers on the street, it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. (Even if you personally are no longer in downtown LA, the chances are rising for real problems, area notwithstanding.  Thanks, O, and appointed police commissions similar to LA’s.)

    In cases such as the knife-wielding woman, is it possible to fire on her, aiming for her kneecap?  Is that a possible solution?  As for those cases where the suspect clearly has a gun, or is highly suspected of having one, I do realize this is not an option.

    • #19
  20. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    barbara lydick:I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of today’s situation, and with the comments herein. For you and the rest of the brave officers on the street, it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. (Even if you personally are no longer in downtown LA, the chances are rising for real problems, area notwithstanding. Thanks, O, and appointed police commissions similar to LA’s.)

    In cases such as the knife-wielding woman, is it possible to fire on her, aiming for her kneecap? Is that a possible solution? As for those cases where the suspect clearly has a gun, or is highly suspected of having one, I do realize this is not an option.

    Barbara you are trained to shoot for center mass. So the target area is the torso, because it is the easiest part of the target to hit. As an officer you are responsible for every round that you fire so you have to take bystanders into account when you have to shoot. A criminal is as well, they just don’t care who they hit.

    You stop shooting as soon as the subject is no longer a threat. Some will survive and some won’t. Adrenaline rush is a factor in a shooting situation. It can affect controlling your pistol. Center mass reduces the risk of hitting an unintended target.

    • #20
  21. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    barbara lydick: In cases such as the knife-wielding woman, is it possible to fire on her, aiming for her kneecap?

    No. Hollywood may be in Los Angeles, but real life is not Hollywood. Except in fiction only a fool aims at anything other than center of mass in a situation like this.

    Even if you do put a shot in a limb, there is no guarantee it will only be disabling. When I lived in Palestine, TX, some nut job wielding a sword rushed a Palestine Police officer. The officer shot the man. The bullet hit the swordsman in the arm and severed an artery. The guy bled to death despite attempts by the officer to stop the bleeding. In that case the officer was aiming at the man’s body but hit the arm. The swordsman would have been better off getting hit in the torso.

    Seawriter

    • #21
  22. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    These citizen boards are a thing of political beauty.  This is sort of off topic, but in Vermont, the governor created a Health Care advisory board to help oversee his institution of single-payer.  He then named people he wanted to the board – all political appointees.  None of them, none, had previous health care experience.  One of them was a restaurant owner.

    Same here, maybe.  The appointed board makes all the judgments, the politicians are covered (they point to the board), and idiocy reigns supreme.  The glories of not being accountable to anyone, or anything.

    • #22
  23. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Jack I pulled a quote from the LA Times you linked to in your essay:

    Guzman and Byrd were among the 36 people shot by on-duty LAPD officers last year. Twenty-one of them were killed.
    This year, on-duty LAPD officers have shot 17 people, according to a Times analysis. Fourteen of those people died.

    The population of the City of Los Angeles is approximately 4.03 million people. It doesn’t appear to me that Los Angeles Police Officers are trigger happy.

    By the way according to the LAPD Commission in 2015 :

    • In 2015, LAPD officers had over 1.5 million contacts with members of the public, including arrests and responses to 9-1-1 calls. Only .13% of those contacts resulted in any type of use of force. This represents a Use of Force rate of 1.3 per 1,000 public contacts.
    • The 48 Officer-Involved Shootings in 2015 represent only .03 per 1,000 contacts with members of the public or .003%

    If you choose to follow the link the report is contained in a blue bordered box.

    • #23
  24. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Jack Dunphy:

    Kay of MT:You may or may not understand why I am deeply grateful I no longer live or work in the Los Angeles area. You have my deepest sympathy Jack for having to put up with this idiocy.

    I’m still a cop, but I’m no longer working or living in L.A., either. Not far away, though.

    I worked as far north as the Lancaster TB prison and as far south as Inglewood, lots of places in between. Left LA Aug 8, 1970. Worst event I lived through was the Watts riots. Kept a black co worker and her little one in my apt with me in Reseda until it was over. We worked at the Sylmar Juvenile facility at the time.

    • #24
  25. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Kate Braestrup: The one thing that might turn this around is when enough mushy lefties realize that their heads, too, will end up on the pikes.

    Doubtful, lefties always fail upward.  If the mayor can’t hack it then she will move up to governor or senator or better yet a federal appointee of some sort.

    • #25
  26. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Doug Watt:You will be left with officers that cannot wait to get off the streets after the minimum time they have to spend on the street to become admin officers. Administrators that did not have what it took to be competent patrol officers, in some cases you can substitute “what it took” with the word courage.

    Not only does your department lose on this path the citizens you protect lose as well.

    That process began long ago in the LAPD.  This will only hasten it.

    • #26
  27. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Henry Castaigne:http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias

    So this was on facebook. What would Heather MacDonald make of it? My guess is that the studies go out of their way to avoid comparing apples to apples this is a typical statement.

    “evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.”

    As I mentioned before, Michael Brown was trying to kill Daryl Wilson while being unarmed. It’s easy to imagine huge difference in interactions between blacks and whites with police interactions.

    Heather would shred it, and then be ignored by Vanity Fair and the people who read it.

    • #27
  28. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Doug Watt: Barbara you are trained to shoot for center mass. So the target area is the torso, because it is the easiest part of the target to hit. As an officer you are responsible for every round that you fire so you have to take bystanders into account when you have to shoot. A criminal is as well, they just don’t care who they hit.

    Exactly.

    • #28
  29. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Seawriter:

    barbara lydick: In cases such as the knife-wielding woman, is it possible to fire on her, aiming for her kneecap?

    No. Hollywood may be in Los Angeles, but real life is not Hollywood. Except in fiction only a fool aims at anything other than center of mass in a situation like this.

    Even if you do put a shot in a limb, there is no guarantee it will only be disabling. When I lived in Palestine, TX, some nut job wielding a sword rushed a Palestine Police officer. The officer shot the man. The bullet hit the swordsman in the arm and severed an artery. The guy bled to death despite attempts by the officer to stop the bleeding. In that case the officer was aiming at the man’s body but hit the arm. The swordsman would have been better off getting hit in the torso.

    Seawriter

    And I’ve seen them bleed out from a leg wound, too.

    • #29
  30. Jack Dunphy Member
    Jack Dunphy
    @JackDunphy

    Doug Watt:Jack I pulled a quote from the LA Times you linked to in your essay:

    Guzman and Byrd were among the 36 people shot by on-duty LAPD officers last year. Twenty-one of them were killed.
    This year, on-duty LAPD officers have shot 17 people, according to a Times analysis. Fourteen of those people died.

    The population of the City of Los Angeles is approximately 4.03 million people. It doesn’t appear to me that Los Angeles Police Officers are trigger happy.

    By the way according to the LAPD Commission in 2015 :

    • In 2015, LAPD officers had over 1.5 million contacts with members of the public, including arrests and responses to 9-1-1 calls. Only .13% of those contacts resulted in any type of use of force. This represents a Use of Force rate of 1.3 per 1,000 public contacts.
    • The 48 Officer-Involved Shootings in 2015 represent only .03 per 1,000 contacts with members of the public or .003%

    If you choose to follow the link the report is contained in a blue bordered box.

    Those statistics have been fairly constant over my police career.  And as I understand it, only about 1 in every 100 arrests results in any kind of use of force, much less a shooting.

    • #30
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