Friends there's a simple but profoundly important standard for using a firearm or for drawing one and that is objective
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This is John with today's active self-protection lesson out of Buena Park, California.
Here we are going to see an off-duty Buena Park officer who is going to act in an egregiously
Irresponsible manner with his firearm and we're going to learn
significant and important lessons here about the legal aspects of
Firearms use and the moral aspects of firearms use and when you can and cannot use your firearm
We have something very interesting here in that the victim is actually going to walk us through this and give us a play-by-play
So when he's done, we'll come back and think about some lessons from his perspective and from the officers
I went - I saw some Mentos grab them and I put them on the counter and I gave the cashier $20
-Inaudible (Audio Footage)
How much are these? - One nineteen
So as he's getting my change here he already gave me the loose change as he gives my change
I grab the Mentos and put it in my left
jacket pocket and as soon as I put it in my pocket
Then I hear someone behind me with a loud voice say, "I'm a police officer. Take that out your pocket"
"Hey, give that back, (inaudible) I'm a police officer
"Put it back, put it back; Police officer, put it back"
"I just payed for this"
"Put it back"
"He tried stealing that from you"
"I just payed for this"
"Get your cash and leave"
Hey
"Get your cash and leave!"
"I just payed for this"
Did he pay for this? Yes he paid for it. Yeah. He paid for it?! Are you sure? 'Mmhmm'
My apologies sir, my apologies
I go, "I just paid for that." So I'm trying to explain to him that I just paid for that
And he was just so adamant - about... you know - treating me like a criminal
So just a normal day here until it's not And that's how you're defensive encounter is going to go as we go back and think about
Some lessons here
this guy clearly had done nothing wrong and clearly I think anybody with a brain could see that this was an
Unjustified use of force and should be called out as such. So this guy's just doing his normal thing decides
He wants to buy some mentos and think about now from this officer's perspective as he walks in here
Is there any evidence that there's wrongdoing going on here... you notice here?
I do want to say that the officer puts his hand in his pocket
and that pocket is where his firearm is . I can't tell you enough friends if you have a firearm in a pocket don't put your
Hand in that pocket unless you need to draw the firearm. Don't play with your gun
That's a great time for administrative problems to have a negligent discharges
So that was a mistake from the giddyup tells me he's not thinking about firearms safety very carefully now as things go down
You're gonna see this guy here again. He's just gonna pay for some Mentos. He's paid for them.
Is there any reasonable objective evidence of a deadly threat? There's not whether you're an officer or a regular
CCW, you can't pull a gun unless there is objective evidence that you needed that firearm to defend your life for others
It's the same for officers as anyone else. So he had absolutely no reason to draw his firearm here
Even if the guy was stealing some Mentos, someone stealing Mentos is absolutely no reason to draw your firearm
There's no objective evidence here that this guy is violent or could be a problem in that vicinity
Even if he's a petty thief. So you cannot draw a firearm. I don't care if you're an officer or not
This is not an effective use of a firearm, and not an authorized use of a firearm, and he should be
Certainly fired for it and and and up on charges
Now you notice that when he pulls a gun out of his pocket there. This is from the officer's perspective
pulls it out has a holster but then has to use both hands to get the
Holster off the gun and that is a bad idea
you want to have a pocket holster that stays in the pocket whether it's got a clip or a wedge or something on it that
Keeps it set that you can draw it with one hand
And also notice his lack of firearm safety that he's now pointing a gun at himself
So you got it if you're gonna carry in a perspective like pocket carry or something
You got to know how you were going to go about doing that
Now thankfully at least he doesn't point the gun at him and he has good trigger finger discipline
And I also want to say here from the perspective of this victim notice that he complies. I think that's the right decision here
I mean Obviously, you're not gonna wrestle a police officer for his gun or whatever
But instead of arguing with him instead of giving him a hard time. What are you doing? You can't do that
I'm gonna you know, sue you or whatever. It just complies. Hey, no problem, man
I'll do what you want and then fight him in court let the lawyers deal with them and trust me
the lawyers are gonna deal with this in a significant way and this poor victim is going to definitely earn you know,
Get himself some money for his time and effort and the heartache that he has had to endure it here so friends
listen
I think that was a great decision on the victims part to just comply do what the officer said and get the heck out of
There the officer here needs to be disciplined in a significant way and actually could be brought up on charges for aggravated assault
Because of what he did with a firearm in an unjustified manner under California law, so we'll see how that all plays out
But let's make sure we learn the lessons here only use our firearms in legitimate ways to cover our ASP