Detectives won't face charges in shooting of handcuffed man

Courier Journal ^ | 2/25/03 | Andrew Wolfson

[toothless]

"The police officer is not obligated to "subdue" such a clown in a way as to risk his life and the control of the situation. He subdued him in a very practical way."

A friend of mine was a cop on the New Orleans PD.

He showed me a HUGE scar on the palm of his hand. He said he got it trying to take a knife away from someone. After that when he encountered someone with a knife, he shot him.

[Trailerpark Badass]

My only question is "Why eleven shots?" Either it was overkill or the guy with the boxcutter was one tough, determined dude.

If the officer was justified to fire one shot, he was justified to fire eleven or twelve or whatever. Cops I know are trained to fire until the threat of deadly force is stopped. They are not taught to shoot to wound or subdue.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Both of you guys are right about the weapon - but a real problem here from a tactical, procedural point of view is that the perp should be restrained, and the area cleared of anything usable as a weapon before anyone releases him from continuous physical control. Assuming that what the grand jury heard was true, my main question would address who cuffed him and searched him while scanning the area for weapons.

I'd also have to ask whether these guys spend any time in the weight room at all, and whether they were up to holding down an aggressive perpetrator. Seems to me that these guys were deficient in all these departments, and I have to wonder how either of them made detective.

[adx]

Do we really want to remove the natural right of self-defense? I for one will not second-guess an officer's lawful actions, for I was not there in the crowded room when the perp decided to lunge at the officer.

Gotta agree with you there. I will definitely call the cops on the mat if I think something smells, but when it's a case like this one, I side with the cops. I don't blame the officer a bit for what he did to protect himself. I don't have problems with him emptying a clip into the guy either (especially when the perp's that close with a deadly weapon and momentum would carry him forward even after being shot several times). I do have a problem with the differing standard for using deadly force (if we citizens emptied a full clip into somebody rushing us we'd likely be in trouble), but that's a legal issue, and not exactly open to debate when you have an armed attacker rushing you. Kudos to this officer for doing what he had to do.

One thing I am wondering is how he (the perp) got the handcuffs up so high on his arm. I don't have experience in handcuffing people (or getting handcuffed myself!), but the only way I could see it happening is that this guy must've had pipe-cleaners for arms.

[Lurker]

When I was undergoing LE weapons training, we held a little demonstration.

A trainer holding a rubber knife stood and 5 foot intervals from us, and we had our rubber guns holstered with our hands on the butt.

The trainer asked us how far away we had to be in order to have time to draw and fire the weapon.

Some of us said 10 feet, others said 15 feet. One guy said at least 20 feet and we all laughed at him.

The excersize began and the trainer 'killed' every one of us until he was at least 25 feet away. Inside of 20 feet, none of us could even bring our weapon to bear before we suffered multiple, probably lethal 'wounds'.

I gained a very healthy respect for edged weapons that day, I can assure you.

My personal rule was "If I see a knife in your hand, your going to be dead as close to instantly as possible."

Now, somebody mark this day down on the calendar and make sure that pigs haven't grown wings because I actually agreed with CJ for once.

Regards,

L