Daniel Shaver shooting vid (NSFW)

[Jellybean]

Flame me all you want but this is a good shoot.

Here's my take.....
Cop with the rifle is NOT giving instructions. His job is to cover the bad guy and that was it. The bad guy made a movement to the small of his back for the second time and got lit up. What the cop didn't do was hesitate. Hesitation gets cops killed, period, end of story.

NOW I will critique the guy giving commands....
Guy was a douche.
The longer you give commands, no matter how to the point and specific you are, the subjects get nervous and stressed.
The cops had two jobs. Detain the visible suspects and hold the hallway in case there were others hiding ready to ambush.
The cop giving commands, although he thought that he was doing what he did to be specific and take away the chance to make the bad guy think, confused the hell out of him and essentially got the bad guy killed. It's my opinion that if you want to pin responsibility on who got that kid killed, it was the guy giving commands.
I'll steal Outlander's words and say verbal spaghetti got the kid killed.
I have also seen bad guys work themselves up to committing assault on police. In their minds, they have the weapon to commit the crime but need to gather the balls to make action.

Here's how it should have been done.....
Lay on the ground
arms out to your side
palms up
don't move or you will be shot.
Two guys go secure the bad guys (not at the same time) and one guy holds the hallway.
DONE no one dead.

After 26 pages... I gotta say this sums it up pretty well.
I'm also glad I wasn't the only person to have a "WTF are they trying to get him to do?" moment watching that...mess.
That being said- I'm going to disagree on the first line, that being, this was still NOT a justifiable shoot.

It's almost like group think. He told him that if he put his hand behind him again that he'd shoot him, so when he did the guy not giving orders, but on the gun shoots him.............

This is the problem.
Good, bad... you're the guy with the gun. NOTHING anyone else says should have any bearing on whether you pull the trigger.

When the victim couldn't even put his left foot over his right foot after a couple of tries thats probably a hint that your commands are too much. This was not a good shoot, no matter how you look at it. You can say he was reaching all you want, a civilian would never have been justified if they used that reasoning so why should LEO?

I just don't see anything the suspect did as consisting of a reasonable possibility of a threat OTHER than the fact that Officer Potato "in essence" TOLD the shooter to shoot him if the guy did a certain action. It was clear to me watching the video, before reading everything here, that the guy was mentally compromised. Granted, most people can't find their left foot from their right on a good day, and Officer Potato's convoluted list of contradicting instructions was just...convoluted. I did not see the suspect making movements that would appear "furtive" or suspicious, what I DID see was plenty of confusion and fear, resulting in a couple of initial wrong attempts to carry out the convoluted instructions, which only resulted in Officer Potato continuing to lose his shit, and further riling up his cover guy.

Cover guy is now not thinking- whether from poor overall training, or lack of experience in this situation/stress, or just plain a conditioning to "follow orders", and having been TOLD to "shoot on this action" that has been "made" into a threat without the suspect supplying any supporting action (other than Potato losing his shit the first time the guy screwed up) and so he just reflexively shoots. I mean, we all do it- you train, someone yells "threat!" and you engage- Officer Potato in essence called "threat" multiple times... shooter is now mentally defaulting to that range training, because he's been TOLD the guy is/will be a threat, not came to the conclusion himself as a thinking shooter, based on the suspects actions and overall situation.

Actually I'm going to take that one further- NONE of the SIX officers in that hallways are thinking, because if they were, there'd have been a "Wait a sec- let's handle this differently" moment one of them would have taken charge of... And given the statements that a couple of them knew the situation wasn't going well and didn't assert some control is the truly unfortunate part of this.

[Dennis]

I am sorry I am the only one here with that opinion, but it’s the one I have.

...

After the fact, you can AAR out whether you should have shown less or more restraint, or if it was just right. But you have to keep in mind what things reasonably seem like at that past moment in real time.

...

Anyways,
That should sum up why - in and of itself -
I would not vote for a murder charge for the shooter.

And

Why I think it was within reason to think the guy was reaching for a gun, in a situation where it was reasonable to think the guy had a gun.

I fully agree with ramairthree's last several posts. They are insightful into the instant mindset of the situation with no overlooking the many LE shortcomings.

I have spent the whole of my so far 22 year Reserve LE career working one of the most renowned (notorious?) inner cities in America. I have been through similar but luckily more successful situations hundreds of times as contact and cover officer.

It was a cluster of a contact but I have been the victim of the "Okey Doke" many many times and know firsthand that people are really good at acting innocent until they are not. They can seem irritated, drunk, dumb, loud, quiet, nervous, calm, or even just plain innocent. Luckily for me they usually just run, or are buying time, or other non lethal situation so far...

I know I could have done a way better job giving commands, but I can only hope I could respond better than the shooter did given what we think he was seeing and experiencing at the time.

Dennis.

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[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

This just further poisons the well water, Police are making relations between white people and themselves toxic.
They have already accomplished that with blacks for the most part.
This will not end well.

L.O.L. You are entitled to your opinion, 100%. I meet people everyday in my job that thank God almighty we exist, and they are of all colors and creeds. In fact, it's about the only reason I do the job, meeting and helping genuinely good people. Your world view is small and tainted by the media, or at least it would seem.

[WillBrink]

Actually I'm going to take that one further- NONE of the SIX officers in that hallways are thinking, because if they were, there'd have been a "Wait a sec- let's handle this differently" moment one of them would have taken charge of... And given the statements that a couple of them knew the situation wasn't going well and didn't assert some control is the truly unfortunate part of this.

It's my understanding the person giving the commands was the ranking officer in that hallway. I'd imagine it's very difficult, especially in such a situation for anyone to break rank and speak up to tell him his approach is clearly not working and another approach (like leave him there face down etc and they can close the distance) given the dynamics of such situations. Many here may claim they'd be that guy to say screw it, and tell the Sgt it's not working and they should consider a different approach, but we also know few if anyone will actually do it such a situation considering how deeply institutionalized and deep rooted is the concept of not questioning that authority. Does not make what happened in that hallway right, and there's indication the shooter was more than happy to be given an excuse to light him up anyway. I hope I'd be that guy able and willing to not have blinders on in a stressful situation like that with Sgt barking terrible orders to say something that may break the downward spiral there, but I'm not going to lie and say I could guarantee that's what would happen.

Some here may have first hand experiences being that guy, and what the result was of it.

[WillBrink]

L.O.L. You are entitled to your opinion, 100%. I meet people everyday in my job that thank God almighty we exist, and they are of all colors and creeds. In fact, it's about the only reason I do the job, meeting and helping genuinely good people. Your world view is small and tainted by the media, or at least it would seem.

No vid like that changes my position one iota: the thin blue line is not a metaphor and I'm damn appreciative someone is willing to that job so that I may go about my business and life without having to deal the barbarians myself. I'd like to see better training and more ongoing training for LEO, which would probably help reduce such events (nothing will eliminate them...) and I don't think an LE here would disagree with that sentiment. But sad as it is, it's probably cheaper to pay out for those rare events than improve on the training and pay for ongoing training, etc., which some lawyer some place has no doubt run those numbers...

I know it's complicated and easy to say when you have opposing forces, unions, etc, etc.

[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

No vid like that changes my position one iota: the thin blue line is not a metaphor and I'm damn appreciative someone is willing to that job so that I may go about my business and life without having to deal the barbarians myself. I'd like to see better training and more ongoing training for LEO, which would probably help reduce such events (nothing will eliminate them...) and I don't think an LE here would disagree with that sentiment. But sad as it is, it's probably cheaper to pay out for those rare events than improve on the training and pay for ongoing training, etc., which some lawyer some place has no doubt run those numbers...

I know it's complicated and easy to say when you have opposing forces, unions, etc, etc.

I agree with you on all counts Will. We need better training across the board, hands down. Some of us need more restraint, others need less restraint, and yes, some of us need to be fired or quit. Sadly, its a human job dealing with humans. Not all goes perfectly to plan.

I recovered a stolen truck today. It was nice to get the case closer to being finished, and I was happy to help the RP and make his day go better, but I never thought I'd see anything from it. I got an IM later in the day from our front office ladies saying I had a present waiting for me. When I got back, they RP and his girlfriend had brought me a cake. That made my week. Those are the moments that I live for in this job.

[Jellybean]

It's my understanding the person giving the commands was the ranking officer in that hallway. I'd imagine it's very difficult, especially in such a situation for anyone to break rank and speak up to tell him his approach is clearly not working and another approach (like leave him there face down etc and they can close the distance) given the dynamics of such situations. Many here may claim they'd be that guy to say screw it, and tell the Sgt it's not working and they should consider a different approach, but we also know few if anyone will actually do it such a situation considering how deeply institutionalized and deep rooted is the concept of not questioning that authority. Does not make what happened in that hallway right, and there's indication the shooter was more than happy to be given an excuse to light him up anyway. I hope I'd be that guy able and willing to not have blinders on in a stressful situation like that with Sgt barking terrible orders to say something that may break the downward spiral there, but I'm not going to lie and say I could guarantee that's what would happen.

Some here may have first hand experiences being that guy, and what the result was of it.

Oh, I totally agree, and that was why I ended the statement with it being "unfortunate" instead of specifically laying blame on any one actor.

[RobertTheTexan]

I agree with you on all counts Will. We need better training across the board, hands down. Some of us need more restraint, others need less restraint, and yes, some of us need to be fired or quit. Sadly, its a human job dealing with humans. Not all goes perfectly to plan.

I recovered a stolen truck today. It was nice to get the case closer to being finished, and I was happy to help the RP and make his day go better, but I never thought I'd see anything from it. I got an IM later in the day from our front office ladies saying I had a present waiting for me. When I got back, they RP and his girlfriend had brought me a cake. That made my week. Those are the moments that I live for in this job.

I’m glad someone chose to thank you in a tangible way like that. I believe we need to do more of that to counter the anti-PD movement. In my circle folks love their PD. But we need to do more.


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