Welcome back warriors, in a lot of my previous videos we have been going over what not do. Well, today I found a video online of what in my opinion was a good shoot. I want to be clear, when I say good shoot I mean the officer felt his life was in danger and there were no other means to defend himself or others except with deadly force. That being said let us jump into this video.
Video Courtesy of PoliceActivity Channel on Youtube.
We start the video when three officers are approaching a stolen car with a suspect sleeping inside. After running the plates the senior officer makes contact with the suspect waking him up. Now Things at this point do escalate quickly. And for all of you law enforcement officers out there you should be aware that situations can escalate quickly. And it is up to you to maintain control of the situation, because once you don’t have the control that’s when good people get hurt or killed. So this officer who makes contact seems to understand the concepts of maintaining control. He can see the suspect really wants to keep going into his shirt, even after he told the suspect to keep his hands where he could see them. This next point is something I really liked to see. Even after repeated orders, the suspect is still attempting to reach into his shirt. So the senior officer draws down on his suspect realizing that he might have to use deadly force, but he demonstrates situational awareness. He knows his fellow officer could be in the line of fire and instructs her to a better tactical position and retrieve a less than deadly force weapon. Now, this shouldn’t seem like something very remarkable, but after doing a review about an officer who shot his partner in the back while exiting a building trying to avoid a dog. It is pretty apparent that the officer who made initial contact has been well trained in situational awareness. So very shortly after the officer gets his partner out of the line of fire the suspect makes a sudden movement towards his shirt even after being warned not to. Leaving the officer no choice but to deploy deadly force. So even after being shot, you can hear the officer tell the suspect to keep his hands visible because he doesn’t want to kill the suspect. And the officer also calls for one of the other officers to get an ambulance on the scene. And we can see that as soon as the officer has the suspect secured that they retrieve a first aid bag. So yes, in my opinion, the senior officer handled the situation he was in the best he could to ensure his safety and that of his fellow officers.
Now the only thing I saw negative from the officers was from the female officer in training. Now that being said no one comes out of the academy 100% ready. That’s why there are Field Training Officers. (FTO). And luckily she seemed to have a good one. As mentioned above the situation was going sideways fast. You as an officer need to be able to read the situation, and she should have been able to tell from the tone in the senior officer’s voice that the situation is escalating fast and remove herself from the line of fire. And I am sure after the scene was secure she will be debriefed and she will be able to take this as a learning experience.
So this wraps up today’s video. If you guys have any questions are comments I would love to hear from my readers. And as always especially in these times be aware and stay safe
