today we're going to see two videos that
show an armed guy not get shot and an
unarmed guy gets shot and why those were
both good decisions
whether in dry fire or in live fire the
mantis x firearms training system
really helps you to get better every day
with your defensive shooting i use mine
all the time
welcome to today's active self
protection lesson i'm your host
john korea today we have two separate
badge cams
one from calvert county maryland and a
second one from cleveland ohio both in
the united states
that are going to show us the importance
of moments in justification for the use
of deadly force
the first one here out of calvert county
maryland
started as a simple traffic stop as the
officer continued to investigate he's
going to decide to get this guy out of
the car
okay he's got a lot of stuff in there
huh
all right all right go ahead and step
back
got anything in your pockets in like
that oh i'm sorry
what do you got body bag i'm sorry
please don't ask drop your hands
put it on the ground
this next one from east cleveland ohio
is a little more complicated you go read
the multiple news stories that i've
linked in the description
you can hear that the officers heard
this down the block a little ways
there's some discussion here but what it
looks like is that they heard
a gunshot of some kind and then they
heard this guy
attacking a woman in the street heard
her screaming for help
and came to investigate
back up
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tough stuff on both of these now i do
want to say there's an
awful lot to learn especially from the
cleveland incident
that we are not going to talk about
today this video would be way too long
if i tried to do both
we'll get that on another video but out
of these two i want to go back through
and think about the justification for
the use of deadly force and how we look
at it moment by moment to see what the
right thing to do is
and about the totality of the
circumstances and what the officers saw
in the moment that made them act the way
they did
so in justification we're always looking
for totality of the circumstances here
and this officer's pulled this guy over
and he's talking with him a bunch and
the guy's been helpful you can see that
he's not
giving the officer lip or anything like
that but he decides this guy's got
enough stuff that i got to get him out
of the car
now as the officer is approaching to get
this guy out of the car i just want to
remind all of us who are not law
enforcement and that includes me
how dangerous this job can get for law
enforcement very very quickly
and especially when they're going to ask
you to get out of the car things are not
going well at this point
and this is the point where officers get
hurt where they get assaulted where they
get killed
and so it makes them very very jumpy so
for all of us as private citizens
i just can't say enough do the things
that help an officer to know that they
are in no danger from you if you have a
firearm on your person
declare it keep your hands on the
steering wheel you know tell the officer
officer i have a firearm it's you know
and my smaller back or whatever and then
let the officer decide what to do from
there instead of what goes down here now
the guy is going to get out
and i do think it's really important
here that we notice first of all that
the eyes may be the windows to the soul
but the hands are the windows to the
intent dude has his hands behind his
back
and his hands are where the officer
cannot see them that is a huge danger
sign
and is going to say to the officer bad
things are coming and we do know there
are bad things coming
there's a gun coming from the behind
this guy's back so again keep your hands
where they can see them
when you are interacting with law
enforcement officers i do think it's
incredibly important we're going to see
the officer here
move to his gun at the sound of the
slide racking on this gun and and i
think that paying attention
is so important and it's more than just
your eyes everyone it's the totality of
everything that's going on around you
including using your ears
the sound of a chambering gun is so uh
you know known in this world and so
known in the defensive training
community
that that he heard that go down and
decided nope i'm going to go get my gun
out here
and i think that was incredibly wise it
may have saved him from an actual
gunfight here
so pay attention with more than just
your eyes make sure you're paying
attention with your ears as well
now notice that the dude pulls a gun
puts it at his side but i want you to
notice the man's left hand here just to
the right of the officer's hand he's got
his hand
up like this and the gun down in front
of him now
if the officer heard that guy chamber a
gun sees the gun produced and had
decided to shoot him in that moment did
he have probable cause to do so
would he have been justified i think he
would have but he's looking at the
totality of the circumstances
that this guy has been compliant with
him that he has a hand up that the gun's
down
not coming up on him and decides in that
moment to issue a verbal challenge to
try to take him at gunpoint
rather than shoot him and that was a
brave decision of course this guy could
have gotten that gun
up and shot the officer pretty quick but
he chooses not to because that guy is
issuing commands gun
up and on him with good light so he can
see what the guy is doing that's really
good and really important
and now he's issuing verbal commands
again could he have used his firearm i
think he certainly would have been
justified in the moment to do so
but because he saw and read the totality
of the circumstances and read the
cues not as threat cues but as self-harm
cues which is what this were the guy
to go read the news story put the gun to
his own head that officer is i think
incredibly commendable now a couple
things here i do see the officer holding
on to his gloves and his support hand
when he does need that hand on the gun
or at the very least to hold a light so
it's one of the things that we say from
a training perspective make sure that
you
you know train yourself to get the stuff
out of your support hand
other than what you immediately need to
protect your life that's something you
got to do on the range a whole lot
because you're not really likely to do
that when you have that sympathetic
clenching response
but the officer did a really good job
here of changing his angle not being
where the guy expecting him getting to a
place where he has some cover or some
concealment
and issuing commands you heard him say
10 32 on the radio in the first run
through as well
that's a call for a man with a gun and
so he's got you know help coming up and
they're able to get this guy in custody
without shooting him
because again of the threat cues and the
totality of the circumstances
now let's think about this one in east
cleveland again if you go read the news
stories they've heard a gunshot at some
point
and then they just hear the blood
curdling screams of this woman
who is being attacked by a man in the
street and he has attacked an elderly
woman just before this as well
and so there's this huge ruckus so
that's what these officers are
responding to they're just hearing all
these bad things go
down and having heard a gunshot is the
officer reasonable to think
that there is evil afoot and a deadly
threat to people around
absolutely does he know he has to
respond in a moment yes now as they come
up guy focuses on them
and you can see him throw his t-shirt at
the cops so he's making
aggressive gestures towards the cops
with all the other circumstances that
are going on
is it reasonable that the officer says
man there is bad stuff going on here and
i need to be ready to defend myself
to defend my partner to defend the
innocent people that are on the sidewalk
and the answer to that is yes
and that's why all these things come
down to moments and what was
reasonable in the officer's mind in the
moment and how did he articulate what he
saw
and what went down and you notice again
he's coming out of the car here and you
can see
out of the car with a gun in his hand
why would he have the gun in his hand
before he even gets out of the car very
clearly because again they've heard the
blood curdling screams
they've heard the fact that there's a
gunshot that's gone off so he knows man
there's a high likelihood
that i'm gonna need to at least take
someone at gunpoint may end up getting
in a gunfight here
mad props to officers who run towards
the sound of gunfire
now he's gonna get out here and check in
and see okay what's going on with this
woman but he sees the fact she's on the
ground okay not at threatening the
moment
and this guy is coming towards him now
notice he's got both hands on the gun
here
and this guy is charging towards him now
i wish i could say he has the time
to look at this guy's both of his hands
and see what he's doing and see if he's
armed put the gun away
and then use his hands but he doesn't
have time for all that and given the
totality of what's going
he's only got a very brief moment in
time now the guy starts charging him you
see him loading that back leg and coming
at him and this is the point right
here where the officer makes the
decision to fire now you say
well he could have seen that his hands
were empty no he really couldn't
to glance like that to glance at both
hands takes at least six tenths of a
second
and he doesn't have that six tenths of a
second he has a guy who is charging him
down
right now with all the other threat cues
that are coming
i think it's reasonable that the
officers saw this guy as a deadly threat
given
everything that's going on so that half
second comes and here's where the one
shot goes off
now there's some things that we're going
to talk about a little bit later here
the fact that that shot goes a little
bit low
and and it doesn't incapacitate but it
does get the guy
off of the officer because the officer
is moving he's not only going to move
backwards but he's going to move
off the line big thing i want to think
about right here was this objectively
reasonable in the moment
given everything that the officer saw
given human performance standards and
the fact that that he couldn't have
looked at both hands and still maintain
his distance and his ability to react
given everything that transpired before
this that he was reading the threat cues
in the moment
absolutely so if we look at these two
videos together we see how somebody who
does have a gun in their hand
because of the totality of the
circumstances may be seen as
not a deadly threat and be able to be
taken at gunpoint whereas somebody who
does
not have a gun in their hand may be
legitimately seen as a reasonable deadly
threat and
shot instead of being taken and we see
all that here from these two videos i
think they point it out pretty well
so let's make sure that we are very
careful when we look at how these are
adjudicated
and how we see them in our culture as we
learn to cover our asp
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you