Posted on 04/18/2015 5:37:57 PM PDT by Ronald_Magnus
ELSMERE, Ky. —Officer Jesse Kidder has only been on the New Richmond police force for a year, but he did two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine and he's a Purple Heart recipient.
Still, he said he's never been confronted the way he was on Thursday.
"Law enforcement officers all across the nation have to deal with split-second decisions that mean life or death. I wanted to be absolutely sure before I used deadly force," said Kidder.
It's easier said than done, and that has never been clearer than through the lens of Kidder's body camera, when the homicide suspect he was following on Thursday got out of his car and charged.
"He jumped out and he sprinted towards me. I had my firearm already drawn on me, and I told him to put his hands up in the air and he was screaming as he was yelling, 'Shoot me, shoot me'," Kidder said.
Dispatchers had told Kidder the suspect may threaten suicide by cop and that he could have a gun under his seat, but Kidder relied on his own split-second observations to know what to do.
"So he's got his arms at his side while he's running at me and that's the first thing I noticed," Kidder said as he watched the video. "He put his hand in his pocket there, so my eyes are watching that hand right now and nothing else."
(Excerpt) Read more at wlwt.com ...
Video of the incident at the link.
I agree with you.
Two tours in Iraq as a Marine, combat, and a Purple Heart.
It looks like he is a brave cop, and evidently made the right decision.
He’s lucky to be alive. He could have been a politically correct dead man.
Folks who aren’t willing to pull the trigger when appropriate shouldn’t carry a gun. That boy needs to find another line of work.
There goes another $50,000/year to imprison this guy for the rest of his life.
He could have saved the tax payers sooooo much money!
I say he retreated for far too long.
“Kidder said one of his relatives gave him the body camera to use at work after what happened in Ferguson. Harvey said he’s hoping to find funding to get them for the rest of his officers.”
He’s trading his life for a potential lawsuit. I agree, look for another line of work.
I’m sure it wont be long before the narrative is” “Well, if the suspect had been black instead of white,.....”
If the guy really wanted to get shot by the cop why did he surrender to the backups when they came?
The video shows the police officer tripped and fell off his feet when the suspect was approaching him - WTH?
He’s lucky. If you wait till you see the gun, you will most likely see what comes out of it, too....
I agree, ansell. Your sense will tell you what to do. If he had his arms down, he wasn’t a threat and probably really was trying to do suicide by cop but without hurting the cop.
He was focused and ready, and relied on his skills to maintain the advantage should the situation have further deteriorated.
I would suggest that his combat experience was a factor. Every suspicious move is not an aggressive move.
I’m disappointed in some of the comments.
I thought we wanted our police to show judgement, courage, and the ability to discern threats...
Believe me, if the cop had shot him, we’d soon be paying $50,000 a year to imprison the cop.
One thing nobody realizes is that the video works both ways.
There have been some good arrests with body cams, because when the cops come into a place to arrest people on whatever the charge may be, the cams also film everything from drugs spread all over the place to what was clearly child porn on the TV.
Some civil rights group is actually filing suit against the cams...on behalf of the criminals, not the cops.
Sheesh, dogs have more of a right to live than the perp.
I say it's the cop's call because it's his life. And in this case, he has serious combat experience and knows when things click and when they don't add up. To him, something didn't quite add up to the level of pulling the trigger. He literally saw things lesser experienced people would miss, and those things told him the guy was not the threat he ws pretending to be. And he was right - and it wasn't luck.
IMHO, this is the level of care that must be required of the police, precisely because they are not military, and we are not the enemy. And if it can't be achieved under current conditions, then we must change the conditions so that it can be achieved. The alternative is what we're seeing all around us - including machine gun mounted APCs. History is extremely consistent in showing where that leads.
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