Vineland, NJ Officer-Involved Shooting

[Veer_G]

What am I missing? Looks like absolute suicide by cop, but was there no way to approach obliquely and disable?

And why are they releasing footage from this officer's body camera only until the end of the standoff?

Watch:

 

[Veer_G]

Footage from a bystander at a distance. Lots of biased commentary, but shows the aftermath, which the released bodycam footage doesn't.

 

[Deleted member 10043]

It went on long enough to get a nonlethal shotgun. No commands to get on the ground. The dead man was in too much control through the whole thing.

 

[Veer_G]

It went on long enough to get a nonlethal shotgun. No commands to get on the ground. The dead man was in too much control through the whole thing.

That's where I am.

 

[Redmanss]

What am I missing?

Approaching someone who is saying/suspected he has a bomb is about as difficult as it gets, BTDT, and it's nearly guaranteed someone is ending up dead unless the bomber gives up. The absolute last thing you do is get within the possible blast radius, which is 15m for grenade size and up from there, you can't shoot to disable, you can't do much anything else than try to contain and keep everyone out of danger.

While they weren't the best at talking him down in comparison to what a professional therapist/negotiator could likely accomplish, they made many pleas and reasonable "You can get through this and live" arguments with him, while on his end he just wanted them to shoot him. Taser is only good to 15ft, beanbag rounds are inaccurate not much further (and would be questionably effective in any case), and again, he said he had a bomb so getting inside that distance is completely out of the question. Once he rushed at them, there was only one option.

The guy was dead set to martyr himself, and he did just that. I personally lay zero fault on the shooting officer and feel very bad for him that this guy put him into this horrible situation, as well as everyone else involved who are now mired in angst from what was a completely avoidable situation had the guy just turned himself over to proper care.

 

[j-huskey]

^^^^^ real world experience speaks the reality in this incident ^^^^^

 

[Deleted member 10043]

I'm missing something. What bomb? Seriously, ask the guy what kind of bomb does he have and you have a stuttering idiot in your sights. What gets me is the fucking hysterical yelling by police. If you're going to shoot, shoot don't talk. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

 

[Redmanss]

If someone says they have a bomb and wants to kill me with it, I don't call their bluff that they don't have one. I don't expect any Marine, Soldier, or LEO to anything contrary to that either.

Threat was made by assailant without enough evidence to believe otherwise, threat was appropriately countered and a lengthy back and forth conversation occurred in hopes threat would stand down, hostile action was taken by assailant, threat was reduced with only the necessary amount of force to reduce the threat.

Another mentally deranged citizen was lost as a result of their own actions, thankfully nobody innocent lost their life in this case.

 

[j-huskey]

^ Real world experience speaks the reality in this incident. ^

 

[Veer_G]

^ Real world experience speaks the reality in this incident. ^

"jafo" fits you, movie reference or not. Typing the same thing twice adds nothing to the discussion. The police response was SOP, but the situation was far from standard. Perhaps some technological or procedural innovation could have saved this soup sandwich's life. On the face of things, having (presumably) seen as much of him as they did in the video, I'm not convinced that this guy could have managed an M-80, let alone an IED. Those who see CUBO in everything a cop does will be, and are seizing on to this and shaking it like a terrier with a rat.

 

[j-huskey]

I see and recognize the clarity of your point of perhaps there are better options.

Use of force continums are in place, in all departments.
De-escalation is taught.
Easily observed is many commenters like yourself never get to the level in discussions here of these things, of actual national standards taught U.S. wide.
The continuum begins with police presence, as a control factor, step 1, and "can" escalate to step 6, use of deadly force.
In the video. Step 1 and step 2 are met. Presence and communication.
The subject became an active resistor, whose actions move from steps 1-3 to steps 4-6, when he moved toward the officers, and they chose step 6 based on "everything known to them at the scene of the incident".

Redman articulates clearly the reasons a trained responder might perform as these officers did.
My comments emphasize his. They are the reality based on both military and police training that has evolved to date.

If you fail to see that, and choose to respond in a manner denigrating my response (as you did), it shows your failure to understand both mine and redmans comments, and a further fail to carry the topic to the next level that could lead to clarification and perhaps an answer and understanding.

No matter how many professionals respond, and answer to the best of their ability, there will be a group of people who will never accept or understand because they have no concept of what happens on the ground when fallible humans do the best they can and take a life, by all training, to save a life.

And these people you mention do seize it, attack it, and continue to shake it. Sometimes there is no answer that will satisfy.

 

[Veer_G]

I denigrated the repetitive nature of your response, and I am not looking to add anything to the inimical atmosphere that has predominated such discussions hereabouts in the past. The deceased was looking to die. I just lament the fact that it's easy to oblige him in such circumstances and that there isn't something in between. I do try to avoid second guessing, and the thread was begun in the hopes of getting informed opinions, whether or not they meshed with my Chutes and Ladders desire for an alternate outcome.

 

[Redmanss]

Being charged at by someone claiming to be armed with a deadly device, while they are acting homicidal and suicidal at the same time, gets a standard response. Someone being homicidal/suicidal is a common callout for LE. The only people who get all the facts and can make a decision on a case is the judge and jury, everyone involved before then has to deal with the information or lack thereof and make a decision for the best of the community on the spot

If someone goes into a bank and tells them they have a gun in thier coat pocket while robbing them, then gets tackled on the way out and it's discovered they had no gun at all, they're still charged with armed robbery because the statement of being armed is equal to actually being armed. The media is taking hold of this saying "Unarmed black man shot by police", fanning the flames once again because it gets them viewership and clicks, which gets them more ad dollars. Those protesting are clamoring that he was unarmed and this was just another case of white cop shoots defenseless black man for no reason, ignoring all the facts of the situation and assigning zero guilt to the one person who instigated it all. Meanwhile, he "armed" himself when he said he had a bomb. If he isn't buck naked with open hands, nobody out there should believe otherwise until what he was holding in his hands was placed on the ground, he moved away from it, and a physical search of him is conducted.

Veer, you say you're not convinced he could have pulled off an M-80, but if you were the one trying to contain him from running loose in your neighborhood, would you sure enough in that assessment to call his bluff and try to tackle him down? Would you get inside the potential kill radius to hit him with a taser when the initiation device could very well be a positive or negative pressure trigger? Most anyone could put together an explosive device with a google search and a trip to Home Depot and the gas station. They could do it with a TOR browser and never raise an inkling of suspicion to any intelligence agency, at least nothing actionable, and low yield HME in a device that can be handheld is scary easy to make yet very effective.

While it's disappointing situations like this continue to occur, something in between that can be deployed to the 18,000 different LEO agencies in the US that can instantaneously incapacitate an assailant without being lethal, just doesn't exist.

He had one option to come out alive, put it down and give himself up to be given the proper treatment he needed. He chose an alternative course of action.

 

[j-huskey]

@veer
I appreciate and respect your response, more will follow.

 

[Veer_G]

I'll be back later. Don't take temporary silence for disinterest or apathy.

 

[j-huskey]

In this case, there are two options to contain a suicidal subject as you would wish.
Net and sonic. In both of these options, a. net delivery is not perfected, and b. Sonic projection is neither far enough developed to be on a individual officer street level, or proven to work 100%.

However, if, he did have a bomb, and releasing it would detonate it, net and sonic would create bang. This was not a net or sonic option situation, or beanbag, if he had a bomb, and all officer comments clearly state he had "something" he kept saying was a bomb.

This was clearly a negotiation situation. And the officers did that until he escalated.

Both net and sonic need further serious development, because they could save some of the suicide by cop individuals.

Previously, officers have used wet sheets and blankets, as well as nets to take down a certain level of individual. Firemen "used to do it" on mental people, but how many people remember firemen rescuing people and taking control of mental people ?
Fire paramedics used to handle a lot of things until it became "too dangerous" to the firemen and too litigious civilly to municipal government. Put anything that resembles use of force on the police.
When did it become a true police responsibility and why ?
Some of us remember emergency room attendants restraining violent people in the ER. Now, it's on the police to restrain people in the ER and remove them from the premises, even, untreated. How did we get to this point....
The only way hospital people "seem" to want to use force now is on "lawfully" committed people. If not lawfully committed, the patient who refuses treatment doesn't get any.

Do we have any emergency responders here who can add to or clarify ?

I would like to hear an emergency medical responder speak up here on solutions.

In this specific incident, the "bomb threat" (which hindsight shows wasnt), changed the dynamic for the worst and changed the level of response.

And, given that, the subject created the response by failure to comply, and ....

I think 200+mil of the 300+ mil in America really don't give a shit... as long as that remains in place, the mentally ill solution probably wont be adequately addressed in my lifetime. I wish it were different.

 

[Veer_G]

Send in the zookeepers. *Click* *Whooosh* *Owie* *Thud* *Zzzzzzz*

But I hear you. We dismantled mental health services in their traditional forms, because voters got a case of the ickies and great minds were at the beginning of this big swinging sixty year phase of "progressive" acculturation. Beautiful Society, indeed.

 

[Redmanss]

A tranq isn't instantaneous, would be real cool if they were, but they're not.

Old school MH institutions were dismantled for good reason, the treatment of patients in many of them was inhuman. There's needs to be some sort of replacement, but we still come back to due process and individual rights, where if someone isn't homicidal or suicidal, you can't involuntarily confine for being crazy.

 

[j-huskey]

A tranq isn't instantaneous, would be real cool if they were, but they're not.

Old school MH institutions were dismantled for good reason, the treatment of patients in many of them was inhuman. There's needs to be some sort of replacement, but we still come back to due process and individual rights, where if someone isn't homicidal or suicidal, you can't involuntarily confine for being crazy.

Off topic of the shooting, but on topic of mental health, either of you know where the 1920's eugenics movement of forced sterilization to control the spread of morons and mentals was most done ?

 

[Veer_G]

Off topic of the shooting, but on topic of mental health, either of you know where the 1920's eugenics movement of forced sterilization to control the spread of morons and mentals was most done ?

I'm going to take it that you don't mean post-Weimar Germany?

 

[j-huskey]

Correct Veer, in the U.S...

Of you who watched the footage more than once.......
How much crowd comments could you hear ?
Did I misread that he escalated as the police were trying to move the crowd back ?
Could crowd refusal to move, loud comments, and behavior agitate the subject and have precipitated his escalation ?
Was he playing to the crowd and losing his audience precipitated escalation ?
How much did crowd response to the police attempt to move them back, play a part in elevating the adrenaline of the officers, thus changing the dynamic ?
More will follow.

 

[Veer_G]

A tranq isn't instantaneous, would be real cool if they were, but they're not.

Old school MH institutions were dismantled for good reason, the treatment of patients in many of them was inhuman. There's needs to be some sort of replacement, but we still come back to due process and individual rights, where if someone isn't homicidal or suicidal, you can't involuntarily confine for being crazy.

I was being sarcastic. And yes, they needed to correct the inhuman aspects of the system, not dismantle it entirely. Finding the balance between societal protection and the rights of the individual isn't easy.

 

[Veer_G]

Correct Veer, in the U.S...

Of you who watched the footage more than once.......
How much crowd comments could you hear ?
Did I misread that he escalated as the police were trying to move the crowd back ?
Could crowd refusal to move, loud comments, and behavior agitate the subject and have precipitated his escalation ?
Was he playing to the crowd and losing his audience precipitated escalation ?
How much did crowd response to the police attempt to move them back, play a part in elevating the adrenaline of the officers, thus changing the dynamic ?
More will follow.

They seemed to have a grabasstic amount of perimeter control, and I saw at least one clear opportunity for crossfire.

 

[j-huskey]

They seemed to have a grabasstic amount of perimeter control, and I saw at least one clear opportunity for crossfire.

I heard officer attempt to control the perimeter more than once try to move people, and I heard him try to prevent crossfire.

 

[j-huskey]

I'm going to take it that you don't mean post-Weimar Germany?

That would be the democratic bastion of San Francisco...

 

[Strykervet]

They tried, the guy even asked him about a taser or something and said it wouldn't reach. One guy was even gonna try pepper spray when he fired it looked like... When he told him if he came closer, he'd shoot, he stopped backing up and then came forward again. He was begging for it, suicide by cop indeed.

 

[Deleted member 10043]

Nah, these cops let the dead man control the situation for way too long. That is what lead to the ultimate conclusion. These sort of hysterical reactions are contagious and unproductive. Look, cops are getting too quick to shoot to protect themselves and hesitate and make excuses when they are the first on the scene and unarmed citizens are cornered and being gunned down. Cops are peace officers and that block looked nothing like a war zone. When it is a war zone we are seeing a much different approach by police when every second counts.