No gloomy music, no smart remarks, no warning from the attacker….
It went from a simple car accident to a deadly shooting ultimately determined to be Suicide by Cop as it seems the attacker had mental health problems.
One minute and thirty-five seconds from the moment the officer went inside the house to shots fired. That is the equivalent of three TV commercials where the situation went from apparently stable to use of deadly force.
Just think about all the time we are distracted with menial things and we might not see something coming.
Shit happens that fast…faster sometimes. Prepare according.
Wow. Yeah, sad to say it but I agree; suicide-by-cop. The officer did everything by the book.
I feel sorry for the mother and the officer.
How can it be suicide by cop? if the dude HAD mental issues, why is it assumed he was thinking right enough to create a situation that would threaten the cop enough to make him shoot?
The guy was walking and the cop had a clear way to back out and retreat. My initial viewing leaves me thinking the cop didn’t have enough threat present to shoot. I’ll read more of the story and see if that changes my mind.
Depth is hard to tell from the video, but it looks like at the time of the shooting the cop had backed to the doorway, and the attacker was less than 8 feet away.
I would NOT be backing down a set of rickety stairs on a small porch where a panicking person is sitting/standing when a deadly threat is present.
I’ve talked with some people who have second guessed this situation.
I can’t sympathize with them. Cop was putting his best “Officer Friendly” forward to a man who had broken the law and had a knife.
Cop was smart to have his gun out when he was in the doorway. To transition to another tool in the time given could have been enough to get his ass killed, and again I wouldn’t have backed down those steps, nor would I have EVER turned my back on a known threat.
Also this guy apparently did all this over a minor accident. No sympathies for him either.
I had an extremely similar situation when I was a cop, except it occurred outdoors, on a big, grassy shoulder of the interstate. I had the luxury of plenty of room to maneuver, and was able to keep a safe distance from the suspect…who also had a knife. I had always considered that had my scenario happened indoors, I would have almost certainly had to shoot the person.
Sunwolf, indoors at the distance where the officer first made contact with the suspect…it was already too close. A committed attack would have almost certainly have resulted in the officer being cut or stabbed, and maybe killed, even if he was able to shoot. There was sufficient threat present to shoot, from the moment he first comes in contact with the guy.
He does not have to wait for that decisive attack before he defends himself, at the risk of being injured or killed. He actually exercised great restraint in waiting as long as he did to fire…risking himself in the process.