raven wrote:There are two things here that seal the fate of the officer:
1.) Like already mentioned ... Why did he have his weapon already drawn??? Regardless of what the history of the man was. The public will view that certain aspect as an aggressive action on the officer's part.
2.) The officer fired 5 rounds... 4 rounds hit the man. Where did that 5th round go??? As an officer and using Deadly Force, the officer is responsible for every shot he fires and where it ends up at. Public, Moderate Traffic, Citizens in the immediate area ... LIABILITY BIG TIME!!!
There are so many things to look at. The gentleman walking across the street didn't appear to be using the knife in an aggrerssive manner or appeared to be threatening anybody. People walked ahead of him and behind him and didn't appear to be alarmed in anyway???
The history of the gentleman. If Birk had prior contact with the man and knew his history ... Why Didn't He Call for Backup??? As fast as the other officers arrived on scene, it was obvious backup wasn't to far away.
I'm sorry I don't like to put down a fellow officer, but it appears he made a REALLY Bad Call on his part and should've waited for backup. Had he had to use deadly force in a situation where a fellow officer was present ...he would've had a good witness to what took place and the actions of the man. The dash cam only shows him approaching the man with his weapon drawn, then the all we have is the audio. We hear commands given, and the firing of 5 shots. We have no idea what happened outside the view of the dash cam. It leaves things lingering in the imagination of whoever views it and listens to it. The whole situation just wend SIDEWAYS as soon as the officer is seen exiting his patrol unit with his weapon drawn??? I really feel for him.
This is just my point of view of being an LEO and having experienced some of this. It's not etched in stone 
. Other LEOs will have their own opinions and views. Take Good Care All and Be Safe Always.
God Bless :)
-raven-
Yes, I'm sure that other LEOS do have opinions. I really don't follow a lot of your logic on this one, though.
1. Why was his weapon drawn? Well, if the officer is driving down the street and sees a man who is known to be frequently combative and disorderly, and said man is carrying an open knife on a public street with pedestrians (i.e. potential victims) walking near him, I believe his weapon should have been out when he went to question the man. In fact, this is a standard scenario in much police academy training, including some of the officer survival courses I taught. The "apparently not doing anything but carrying a weapon" guy is frequently a subject in training. Standard doctrine in most LEO courses I have attended, taught, or written is to approach with your weapon out and aimed at the armed person. Action beats reaction, and you are behind the power curve if your weapon is in your holster.
2. 1 round missed. Four out of five rounds hitting a target in a close range gunfight is pretty good shooting by most LEO gunfight standards. In real life people miss. Having been in the game awhile and having been shot at more than once, investigated quite a few shootings (including officer involved shootings), and the occasional murder or two, I can say that I would not worry that much about the "missing bullet." You are liable for quite a bit when you put on a badge, and if he hit a busload of nuns coming from an orphanage with than bullet, he would be screwed, but firing or not firing is a judgment call. Once upon a time I did not return fire because my opponent was standing in front of an apartment complex, the range was long, and I had good cover. Also, the guy could not shoot worth a da#$. Had I been at extreme close range and with no cover, it might have been a different matter, despite who may or may not have been in the apartment. Having worked with a guy who had a couple of bullets pulled out of him and nearly died because he did not fire on an armed suspect due to being unsure of his backstop when shooting, and having done a few SWAT entries where shooting inside occupied dwellings was going to be the order of the day when things went bad, I am not going to second guess the officer in his decision to fire while in a public street setting. Also, please note that thinking that you are always going to hit with every round you fire in any real gunfight is as wishful thinking as believing you are going to land every punch in a boxing match. People move and try to hurt you. Paper targets do not.
3. Waiting for backup is also a judgment call. If the officer believed the man was going to "go off" on a public street and possibly attack someone or hold them hostage, then approaching the suspect and attempting to interpose himself between the man and any potential victims/hostages may have been the right call. I have seen people go from apparently normal to batsh$% crazy and trying to kill someone in a time frame measured by an eye blink. Standard doctrine in most situations involving possible violent contact has been to wait for backup. Sometimes the doctrine is "wait for SWAT." However, the first thing on the agenda for the first responder in almost any tactical situation is "containment." Sitting in your car and talking on a radio while a disturbed man walks away, toward a lot of pedestrian "targets" is not containing the situation. Moving to cut off said man while remaining in communication with your dispatch might be.
Now, with all this said, I think this is a screwed up situation. I have no idea what really went on, and the video does not show enough to draw any reasonable conclusions. I have no idea of the department policies in place and whether the officer violated any of them by his actions. I think the case will hinge on whether the police officer can articulate why a reasonable man would have considered the man he shot to be a legitimate threat. I do not know if he can do this or if the man should have been considered a threat. I do know that
if he knew this man had a violent history and was known to be unpredictable and
if the man had an open knife in his hand, contact with the man can be seen as warranted, in order to determine if the man was merely whittling on a piece of wood or having a psychotic episode and mumbling about how he was going to shank all the aliens that were beaming thoughts into his head.
If the man started to turn while holding an open knife in his hand and after the officer had told him to put the knife down, then use of deadly force might be justified. That is a lot of
ifs and it is possible that a lot of the
ifs did not apply and the man should have not been shot or possibly not even been approached by the officer. For instance,
if the officer knew the man liked to sit in the park and do wood carving and
if the officer knew the man had never attacked someone with a knife and
if the man had only been arrested for minor fisticuffs when drunk and
if the man appeared to be sober, the correct response from the office might have been to roll down the cruiser window and say "Hey, Bud, what are you carving today?" rather than get out of the car, approach the man, and tell him to drop the knife.
This situation is far too complicated for anyone to sit comfortably in their chair and type away on an Internet forum and think they have the gist of it. Judging from previous cases where I have been a witness or participant in the legal dance following the lethal festivities, I would be willing to bet that the media "facts" are off by quite a bit, and that many key points in the situation are not known to us here in Internet Playland.
My opinion on the matter, for what is worth (which is not much in this case), is that I simply do not enough facts and evidence to really form an opinion.
. Depending on the outcome of the investigation ... it could be that 2 people lost their lives??? The guy that got shot and the officer ending his career and possibly put in prison.
