Lethal force against nudity?

[MNMGoneShooting]

George Zimmerman should love reviewing this story. Apparently, if you are a police authority, nudity equates to the presumption of immediate life threatening danger and authorizes lethal force??!!!

http://usat.ly/OdESTg

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[SpanishInquisition]

...ummm... maybe he was hiding a RPG or M1911 in his urethra?

[grumpyMSG]

I can see two possible scenarios:
1. He had a "gun" in his hand, or was it just a "pee-shooter"?
2. It was another one of those naked zombie attacks.

[VACoastie]

Now my feelings on this differ from the disabled wheel-chair guy with a pen in his hand. Why in Gods name would you shoot a naked dude? Obviously he's got no lethal weapon - so less than lethal matters would be appropriate... This here is a great example of abuse of power. Feel sorry for the kid, even if he was using illegal substances.

[Kreutz]

Thats ironic Coastie, I'd consider this one justified, and the one armed wheelchair dude murder.

From link:

Once outside, the officer was confronted by a naked man acting erratically.

Authorities said the man repeatedly charged the officer, who pulled his gun and retreated several times in an attempt to defuse the situation. When the man made a final charge, the officer shot him once in the chest.

The cop appears to have exercised proper restraint instead of just unloading on the guy as opposed to the op with the pen wielding amputee who could just be tipped over.

As a side note, do they teach cops unarmed combat? Why not just knock the nudist to the ground and put a boot in his scrotum? I don't care if you're on PCP thats probably gonna register.

[VACoastie]

Well I wouldn't expect any less Kreutz - for arguements sake.

I don't know about PD's, but as far as the Coast Guard goes, we have what we call 6 levels in the Use of Force (UOF) Continium. I can't talk about them because it's For Official Use Only (this isn't official on this board). But basically the first two steps are Officer Presence (us being there), Verbal Commands, then you escalate to putting your hands on a person with pressure points or busting out a baton, then you move up to Deadly Force. With the CG we deal with drug runners daily that even freaking shoot at us, and I can't recall the last time we even shot back at someone. Granted, we'd be shooting another nations citizen so we have to take extra care, but who says the U.S. PD shouldn't take that same care? We'll draw down on people for compliance, especially in during LE cases (drugs) - we'll do warning shots and shoot out engines before we even think about shooting at a live target.

The guy is naked... yes, they get trained with hand-hand manuevers. Putting the guy into an armbar, using OC/Pepper Spray, using his baton/billy stick... I could think of a lot more things he could have done against an unarmed "assailant."

As stated: Abuse of Power. I'll even as nice to say inadequate training. If you keep going with the updates, you'll probably find him kicked off the force.

[VACoastie]

won't let me Edit my post for whatever reason, but here's something I also found on CNN.

"Bonnie Collar said she did not know why her son was acting that way when he was killed. She said he weighed 135 pounds and was 5-foot-7 with a wrestler's build." - That doesn't scream the wrestler build that's being thrown around about his stature... that's like a toothpick. I'm 6'0" 165 lbs, almost comparable - I've been able to bring down guys with proper control techniques almost twice my size. Try digging your knuckle into your Mandibular Nerve with just a slight amount of pressure. That'll gain compliance from anybody REAL quick. That's just one of many simple things you can do on a drugged up/drunk naked unarmed person.

[FiremanBob]

Don't nearly all police officers carry Tasers now? If he had one, why use his weapon when a Taser would suffice?

[Reverenddel]

I was thinking "What kinda 'bludgeon' did he possess?!!?"

I quote Sam Elliot, ask "Wade Garrett" from the movie "Road House":

"You take out a man's knee, he's going down."

[dorminWS]

I guess you could stretch a point and say the guy was "brandishing a weapon", but it probably fell a right smart shy of being a dangerous one. Hard to justify this use of lethal force, IMO. The cop wasn't a female of the militant feminist persuasion, was he/she?

[davasmith]

Chesterfield lcoal pd has a 3 level escalation of force policy. First is verbal, second is non lethal and or brandishing with verbal commands third is lethal force. I probably would've put the man down after the third warning but I would have shot low or just took him down with self defense procedures. Jmho though.

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[Kreutz]

Well I wouldn't expect any less Kreutz - for arguements sake.

Heh, no, not for arguments sake. The other case (in which you defended the cop) involved a dude with one arm and one leg in a wheelchair refusing to let go of a pen. There were probably 60 other ways to deal with that not involving shooting the guy.

In this case at least the cop appears to have tried to avoid shooting, but no, that still doesn't make it justified in and of itself, but just noteworthy.

As for the rest of your post, thanks for sharing, we only have 1 Coastie in our family (stationed on Long Island naturally), its nice to hear about your service, he always complains the Coast Guard is the invisible branch, yet he swears they see more action on a daily basis than the Navy (search and rescue, etc).

[heyrakes]

here is another reason that LEOs should be disarmed. they already have the color of law and tasers an whole posse to back them up. seems they are just wanting to shoot someone.

[VACoastie]

Yup rakes, that's exactly what 100% of us want to do.

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[dorminWS]

Yup rakes, that's exactly what 100% of us want to do.

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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm confused. When you use "us" above, it seems to me to indicate you consider yourself to be law enforcement. But didn't you just cob my @ss in another thread for overlooking that the Coast Guard is MILITARY?

[CowboyT]

There is LE in the military forces, e. g. the MP's in the Army and Marine Corps, and the SP's in the USAF.

@VACoastie, no, not all officers want to shoot someone. I know plenty of cops and thus know otherwise. Sadly, there are enough who have demonstrated trigger-happiness and an unprofessional "authoritah" complex, and no, that's not good. That's probably where rakes's comment came from.

[VACoastie]

Dormin, you obviously have no clue... USCG is LEO. We're the only MILITARY force with LEO authority. Thanks to 14 USC 89. Now ya know... Our LEO authority goes well beyond what MP's are given. I can arrest joe schmo on the water the boating under the influence, I can seize vessels, I can terminate recreational voyages, and yes, I can arrest people. Same as any other cop except on the water. If the Navy wants to do any Law Enforcement operation such as you may see every now and then the Navy getting drug seizures, it's because they have Coast Guard LEDETs on board (Law Enforcement Detachment). Also "I" in this context means "coast guard" not simply just myself.

Cowboy - I know, I was just givin him a hard time haha.

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[mamabearCali]

It really depends on exactly what happened. Is it possible that a naked man posed a lethal threat to the officer, sure. It all depends on what he was doing at the time. Was he chewing someones face off, was he saying I'm gonna tear your blankety blank head off and closing fast. Was he lying there looking at the stars. In this case he ran at the officer.....would I prefer the officer to have used a tazer, sure, but I am not going to say that this was outside. I am sure there will be a review. In this case it appears, at least, that the officer tried to avoid lethal force.

[dorminWS]

OK, ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAYBE THERE ARE CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE LETHAL FORCE AGAINST NUDITY IS JUSTIFIED. JUST LOOK!

[MNMGoneShooting]

OK, ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAYBE THERE ARE CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE LETHAL FORCE AGAINST NUDITY IS JUSTIFIED. JUST LOOK!

Now I am beginning to understand!