Furor in Seattle: Did man die for whittling, or posing a clear threat?(WA)

Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 31 August, 2010 | Dave Workman

[Global2010]

I noticed that about the Portland Metro area.

Not so here on the coast.

But this is not Portland for sure.

[Global2010]

I am still wondering what happened to the Plant Nursery/Pastor who was killed by a cop last week.

I mentioned Portland has quick trigger LEO but that seems to be code up in Seattle too.

So folks are accusing the old guy who as you stated was quite the artist in his craft of Totem pole making of being a drunk?

So did his drinking problem cause him to get shot or is that just a lame excuse to shoot the fellow.

Fat people watch out there coming for you next./sarc

[zeugma]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, the cop on the beat was your friend. Those days are long gone.

These days  most departments are an occupying army.

I'm glad my local PD consists of Peace Officers, not LEOs. It makes a huge difference.

[conimbricenses]

The Tueller Drill is pseudo-scientific bullsh*t based on decades of misinterpretation of a self-defense advice column from an early 1980's police magazine.

While it may indeed be true that an agile person can theoretically close 20 feet in a second or two, it is no more a matter of scientific truth that they necessarily (or even likely) will do so than to predict the outcome of a wild west gunfight based on distance between the two gunslingers. The simple truth is that different people have widely different action and reaction times to different events. Just like the wild west, some people are fast draws and some are slow. You simply cannot make a rule and assume it applies equally to all or - worse - assume that because SOME people probably can close a 20 foot gap in seconds means that ALL people necessarily WILL.

Unfortunately, and no thanks to the widespread adoption of the pseudo-scientific Tueller Drill as if it were a matter of unquestioned truth, most cops in this country do assume that because SOME people probably can close a 20 foot gap in seconds means that ALL people necessarily WILL...and they use that as an excuse to go trigger happy on the slightest perceived threat, no matter how fanciful or unrealistic it may be. And that is why we get stories about them shooting a guy for simply holding a common pocket knife.

[Secret Agent Man]

The Tueller Drill scenario, as I understand it given in PROPER context, is about an AGGRESSOR wielding a knife, not a guy sitting there whittling a piece of wood. It has always been discussed in this context when brought up in any CCW class I’ve been in.

As with every situation the criteria you have to have to use deadly force need to be there. As a citizen you can’t just fire on someone that is clearly not threatening you or not directing others to attack you.

What this does tell you is that disabled and partially-disabled folks are in far greater danger from cops than other people. This guy had partial hearing. He had a known history of being an angry drunk, when drunk. Maybe he heard the commands to put the knife down, maybe he didn’t. Probably would have tried a non-lethal weapon first if he just kept sitting there.

And we make general rules of thumb all the time about things. Knowing that in general it could take as little as a couple seconds for a knife attacker to get to you from 20-22 ft away, is a rule of thumb. It’s a general rule. Exceptions, of course. For the person applying the rule who could be attacked, you probably want to consider the fastest time because it will be worse for you if you underestimate how quick they can get to you. And I am not just talking cop/suspect, I am talking law abiding gun owner/ anyone wanting to harm law abiding gun owner.

[conimbricenses]

Your right about the Tueller drill requiring an actual aggressor. The problem is most cops don't see it that way anymore, and a very mistaken and dangerous version of it is taught to them in the academies.

To the typical street cop, the Tueller Drill = anyone within about 20 feet from me is a potential threat who can and should be gunned down if anything he does could conceivably represent the slightest threat to "officer safety."

And that's why people minding their own business get gunned down for having a pocket knife.

[conimbricenses]

For the person applying the rule who could be attacked, you probably want to consider the fastest time because it will be worse for you if you underestimate how quick they can get to you.

That's an extreme and unrealistic situation that encourages cops to severely overestimate the "threat" to their person. It's true that an Olympic sprinter could probably get to you in 1 second. But it is so absurd that it's laughable to assume that the majority of the people on the street have the speed and dexterity of an Olympic sprinter...except that cops essentially do just that by assuming that the fastest possible time is possible for anyone in a 20 foot radius. And because they make that assumption, they view themselves as having free license to shoot anyone who treads close to that radius. It could be an Olympic sprinter, but far more often it's a fat guy who can't even jog 20 feet without breaking into a heavy sweat, or some klutz who couldn't walk 20 feet without stumbling, or simply somebody with knee problems or another medical condition or an aversion to exercise. Put another way, there are far more Americans who are fat, old, suffering mobility ailments, or just plain clumsy than there are Olympic athletes.

It's also almost ALWAYS the case that it takes less time to pull a trigger than it does for the mind to fully and accurately comprehend an emerging situation. That means there's a high probability for error on the part of the cop when cops invariably assume the fastest possible times for the Tueller drill as a rule. In practice, that means the Tueller drill is far more likely to get an innocent civilian killed by a cop mistake than it is to protect a cop from an actual assailant.

[Secret Agent Man]

This case is a clear example of seeing a threat where none to little threat existed.

It’s the mentality shift from “peace officer” to “Law Enforcement Officer”.

To me, and all other CCW folks, the Tueller Drill is not something like an iron-clad legal decision. It is something to keep in the back of your mind that’s used to help you personally determine what threat level you are facing based upon what threat is facing you at the moment. It never was explained to give you carte blanche ability to whip out a firearm and being pumping rounds into someone. For civillians more has to be there as we are not police and don’t get to use “necessary force” nor do we have immunity in our actions.

I don’t think this story really is about the Tueller Drill as much as it is, as we’ve both mentioned, the overall mindset of the police fundamentally changing to view all people as equal threats that require lethal responses.

We hear of stories of people in diabetic shock being tazed because they can’t respond to officers’ commands. we had a guy around us tazed because he had fallen and broke his back. they tazed him 19 times. This guy gets shot because he may not have heard the officer. This whole “everyone’s a criminal” mentality is not the way policing should go.

[r9etb]

Did you look at the pictures at the link? Well .... did you?

[ully2]

In Seattle its illegal to be whittling while deaf in one ear.

[conimbricenses]

Did you look at the pictures at the link? Well .... did you?

Stab wounds are pretty nasty. But so is a bullet hole in the head of an innocent kid who got gunned down because a cop mistook him for a threat and went trigger happy cause that's what the Tueller drill said he should do.

So what's your point?