This is apparently the new thing in LE by in some areas, and no doubt will expand as time goes on, which will cost lives to LEOs and non. A friend of mine is in a PD that’s close to this one, and they follow the SOP of Seattle and he’s pissed as could be as you might guess. I can’t a imagine a better conclusion to a robbery by a mentally deranged an with an ax than this, yet this LEO is in trouble for how he handled it:
SEATTLE - Newly released video shows a dramatic police takedown, and raises new questions about whether one officer acted courageously or went too far in his attempt to protect the public.
Officer Nick Guzley now faces discipline for how he subdued a man armed with an ice ax. A complaint was filed about his failure to de-escalate the situation. However, other officers have said he made the best of a bad situation, and no one ended up getting hurt.
That has become the standard for Seattle PD. You can do everything right, follow the policy manual and still get bent over for “failure to de-escalate”. A Seattle PD buddy of mine caught paper, they wanted to suspend him for a couple days, when he and his partner put a handcuffed female on her belly after she kicked him in the groin. It was all on the dashcam but the LT still wanted him roasted for excessive force.
Seattle PD supervisors are incredibly out of touch with the guys on the street and they will try to give the patrol officers the Blue Weenie every time they can. All in the name of looking good for the brass and vocal super libs in Seattle. At least Seattle PD is paid well to deal with that level of BS. The rest of us working in King County feel for their struggle. They have also been working without a contract for several years.
The dude with the ice axe would have been shot anywhere else.
In today’s anti-police culture, you’d expect a situation that very well could have ended in deadly-force, that does not, would be praised. I suppose that officer could have given that man 1 million dollars and he’d be in trouble for it not being more.
It’s now spreading to others PDs in the region. To quote my buddy “We are now modeling our program after Seattle police and they have literally told us in training that we want to let the suspect drive the course of our actions which is ridiculous…”
Per usual, that type of stupid rarely remains contained.
Security workers for the store called police to report that a man had just stolen an ice ax, then threatened one worker with it when she tried to stop him from leaving.
Police tracked the man outside the store and called for back-up when they too were threatened.
"He’s been looking back at me, and he’s holding it up like this like he’s going to swing it at me," said one officer during the body camera recording.
In response, the man can be seen on the video turning to face the officers while holding the ice ax over his head.
Moments later, once the man turned back around, Officer Guzley rushed up from behind and made the tackle.
I’m not sure at what point you can menace Store Workers and LEO’s with a deadly weapon and assume it’s all going to turn out for the best?
Honestly, having used an ice ax a time or two, I might prefer not to be hit with one, it’s going to penetrate deeply and if you take it in the torso, its likely as not to kill you dead as a door nail.
I wouldn’t have blamed the officer had he drawn his service weapon and shot the assailant. He truly had that one coming.
We have grown to expect 100% Freedom while being 100% safe at all times. It simply doesn’t work like that.
If you want to be free, it’s going to be ugly, messy sometimes and even dangerous.
Expecting the Police to remain the buffer between Freedom and Responsibility means sometimes it’s going to go hands on. They do that stuff to keep the people who can’t handle Freedom from killing you.
I started reading this thread under the assumption that the police officer shot the man with the axe. He just tackled the guy. The offender threatened lethal force. The officer tackled him and used less than lethal force. I see absolutely no problem with the officers actions. He should get a commendation rather than a suspension.
These type of moronic rules are exactly what keeps qualified applicants from entering policing. It’s tough enough to find people that can pass all the tests and training without forcing this nonsense upon us.
If I were chief for a day I would make all administrators work the street in a marked squad car for one eight hour shift per month. Let’s see how well that Lieutenant could deescalate a situation like this
The fact that anyone, including a police chief, can forget what it’s like being that beat cop is a sign of the times. And it’s not going anywhere positive.
Long gone are the times where towns and counties had the Sheriff or Chief doing anything more than photo-ops, hand-shaking, scolding, and post situation evaluation.
As a third party, it’s a freaky situation. I couldn’t even imagine wanting to be employed under someone not willing to do the same work I have to do day in and out, but still have the audacity to tell me how I have effed THEIR day up with doing the job I was hired to do.
They needta grow some balls and push back. The Admins should come out and tell the public: “Suck it up. He’s lucky we didn’t shoot him.”
Some years back I was behind on a few reports and was leaving the substation/ precinct to grab food to sit down and complete my paperwork for the shift. While pulling out, a teen ran full speed in front of my cruiser yelling, “he is chasing us with an axe”. That is the sort of thing where it is hard to avoid “getting involved”. I put it out over the radio, and began to do an area search for an the suspect. It had been a very busy shift, and even with an overlap and two squad working, there were loads of calls pending and every car was on a priority call, which simply meant there was no back up available in my district, or even in near by districts.
I found the guy (this was around 2200hrs) in the dark walking down a side street. He matched the clothing and physical descriptors, and was a W/M 6’ large build with his hand behind his back wearing layered clothing. I did the usual police thing, stop the cruiser a ways back, active my overheads, and call in the location. I yelled at him to stop, he refused. Multiple times he refused, and advance straight towards me with a pissed off look on his face, gritted teeth, and shoulders rolled forward. I could now see he had a large hatchet / small axe in his hand which had previously been behind his back.
Having been involved in a very many high level use of force altercations, I keyed my radio and advised the suspect was advancing and was refusing to drop the axe. The idea behind this is obvious, I wanted it to be very clear that when I had to resort to using my sidearm, there would be evidence that I was trying to stop him and hadn’t just jumped out of the car and shot him. The individual continued to advance, and while I was continuing with verbal commands, I was now also using hand movements to direct him to stop, which had him slow fractionally for a quick moment.
In the eyes of the public, perhaps the answer was to keep walking backwards for a few blocks and wait for additional units to arrive. Maybe that is the deescalation of force that the public wants to see. I have no doubt that the teens who were chased by the guy with the axe didn’t want him loose. I doubt the residential area we were in (rows of houses on top of each other) wanted this guy loose attacking people.
[b]I would ask you guys, based on the below known facts, what do you think the proper use of force would be, and what would you demand from your local police? What do you feel Officer Stick should do?
Information was given by multiple teens who appeared highly credible
Information of suspect description was an exact match in both clothing and physicals
Information given about suspect being armed was a match though the axe was more of a large hatchet
Suspect was armed
Suspect refused to drop weapon after multiple verbal and physical/ hand gestures
Suspect continued to advance towards officer who was in uniform and had exited marked police vehicle with over head lights activated
Suspect had attack indicators observed including clenched jaw, 1000 yard stare, shoulders up and weapon held tightly in hand with other hand clenched into fist.
Innocent persons were still on the street and area
Unholster your sidearm, stop moving backward, take aim and give one more verbal command.
At that point he’s making the decision for you. Some folks have it coming because they don’t stop when they should have.
If you had a Taser, maybe Tase. But that concerns me if he was “jacked out of his mind like the above video where the guy took multiple peppers and kept coming” . The use of a sidearm is warranted.
As a trained officer you have to consider what is happening, or what you know has happened, to determine if you need to use lethal force.
The difficult thing in answering this question is not so much whether you would have been justified in using lethal force, rather, was it your only reasonable option.
In this case, without lethal cover, less-lethal alternatives are not applicable.
In the situation you describe, most officers wouldn’t have secured their unit. So leaving the area and giving general members of the public access to the unit and the weapons it contained would be a no go.
If the guy was content to maintain distance and just pretty much zombie walk after me, well, that’s why we do cardio, I’d try to loop him in circles in the general area of the unit. I’m okay with assuming reasonable risk to my safety to in order to resolve something without lethal force, so I’d walk and try to keep him in the area of my unsecured unit rather than force the issue by stopping and letting him close the gap. If he makes effort to close the gap, well, he has made the force decision.
That willingness to assume reasonable risk, extends only to me. If this fellow changes focus, makes any move which I determine creates a risk of serious harm to anyone, I have to intervene with lethal force. That means if he turns and begins walking towards someone on the street I create an angle for the shot that doesn’t endanger them. That’s the duty I have to them.