Recently I have had the opportunity to discuss the use of force (up to and including deadly force) on facebook and in person with a few friends.
There seems to be in my mind a lack of understanding in people's minds of how criminals create situations where the person defending themselves (homeowner in a break in) or the public (the police) is forced to make worst case scenario assumptions in order to effectively defend themselves in the moment.
Two for instances:
There was an article about two teenage boys who were shot and killed by a homeowner while attempting to rob the home for (at least) the second time.
The second was a what if situation that was proposed to my police officer friend, "What if you pulled someone over and they got out of the car with a gun? what would you do?" My friends response, "I would shoot them until they went down and dropped the gun." he received gasps in response.
In both of these situations some members of the public came out to say things like "what they were doing was wrong but they didn't deserve to die for it" or "you don't know what he was doing with the gun how can you just shoot him down? "
What the folks saying these things fail to realize is that these criminals have created a situation where the defender is forced to make a worst case scenario assumption about the criminal's intent. They must make this decision based on the information they have in the moment. To adequately protect themselves from all possible scenarios they must make the worst case assumption. If they don't, they risk the aggressor doing to them the worst possible thing. Let me explain in each scenario.
In the pulled over scenario, put yourself in the police officer's shoes, you just pulled someone over, the normal protocol for this is to sit in your car and await the police officer to come to your door and ask you why you are speeding. However the perp in this case has chosen to violate this protocol, he has chosen to get out of the car which all by itself is odd but doesn't merit use of force. However in this scenario they got out brandishing an instrument of deadly force. As a police officer what assumptions can you make about this situation? Does getting pulled over make you angry? Would it be safe to assume that he didn't like getting pulled over? If you are holding a weapon in your hand it is pretty safe to assume that not only were you mad but you were so mad you decided you were going to do something about it, otherwise WHY would you have a gun in your hand? People don't just carry drawn guns around w/o the intent of using them. Drawing a weapon signifies intent to use it.
As the police officer in this scenario you must assume that this person is willing to use deadly force, and as a police officer it is your job to protect the citizens (not to mention your self and fellow officers) from harm. If someone gets out of a car and threatens to start shooting on an open roadway they are putting other drivers and the police themselves in harm's way. It is the police's duty to stop this person from doing this. The procedure for doing this is to use their training to stop that perp. The appropriate force against someone using deadly force is to answer with deadly force in return. And unlike joe citizen, a police officer knows that he is responsible for every bullet they fire so when they lay down fire only the force necessary to contain the situation is expended.
Now the family of the perp or the perp himself may not realize is that even if he wasn't actually mad, and wasn't actually going to shoot at the cops, he created a situation where the cops had to assume that he was going to. Because if they didn't assume he was going to use the gun, he could have started shooting at the cops or other drivers before the police had a chance to unholster their weapons. the police in this scenario are FORCED to assume he means ill, because if they don't, and he does mean ill and then executes that desire and ends up killing a police officer or another driver then 1) the citizens will rightly fault the police for not protecting the public and even worse 2) an innocent bystander may be hurt or killed.
What seems to be missing from public awareness is how people create situations that imply a threat that might not be intend. People will respond to these threats and in order to be effective, a defender MUST assume the worst case scenario about someone's intentions in order to adequately protect themselves, their families, or the general public from all possible repercussions of this implicit threat.
This is evident again in the first scenario with the home invasion, in this case the homeowner had been robbed several times in the past, at least once in the past by these very intruders, it is happening again, it is the middle of the night and someone is breaking into your home. As a homeowner what assumptions do you have to make in order to adequately protect yourself and family?
[I will state that the article i read did not detail what actually happened in the house so i don't have that detail, so where they were when they were shot, where the homeowner was etc is not available in the article. But lets get back to it.]
As a homeowner, who has been robbed several times before you can likely assume you are about to be robbed again, but what else has happened to people who are victims of home invasion? They have been killed, raped, beaten, taken hostage, kidnapped etc. As a homeowner, to protect yourself you must assume the worst to defend yourself. By breaking into someone's home these criminals are threatening the homeowner with all of these things implicitly. Because they homeowner doesn't know what the criminal is doing, in order to defend themselves they MUST assume the worst just in case the criminal does in fact intend the worst.
[After all, it isn't like you can ASK the intruder their intentions. I mean even if you did could you trust their response? they just broke into your house, does that make them a trustworthy person to you? furthermore it shouldn't be your responsibility to ask them in the first place! you are in your own home!]
In both cases the criminal has created an implicit threat of deadly force through their actions, that the defender is forced to respond to. Whether the criminal meant to or not! When someone threaten's deadly force, the law says that deadly force as a response is allowed (at least here in Virginia). The unfortunate part is that perhaps some perps don't realize they are implicitly creating a threat of deadly force. This is what I feel the public needs to realize. Because it shouldn't be the responsibility of the threatened home owner or police officer to inform them of the threat when they need to be responding to it.
So in the article about the teenage boys getting shot, people responded with things like "what they did was wrong but they didn't deserve to die" or "I didn't know that robbery was punishable by death!" What these folks fail to realize is that they weren't killed because they were committing a robbery. They are now dead because the home owner responded with deadly force to the threat of deadly force that was implicit in the act of force-ably breaking into someone's home in the middle of the night. This perhaps wasn't the intention of these kids but none the less it is what was perceived. And furthermore it was a reasonable perception on the part of the homeowner.
This is even more evident in the get out of a car with a gun scenario. The person may not have meant to get out of the car and start shooting, however, implicit in his actions is the intention to do so. The police were reasonable in their perception that this was the most likely outcome and so they would be justified in using deadly force to prevent this scenario.
Bottom line, certain actions carry with them implicit threats to other people, whether they are intended or not. It is fully justifiable for someone to react in kind to these threats. When your actions imply deadly force, deadly force may be used in response. Those responding to situations where they feel threatened must make decisions based on the limited information they have in the moment. To most effectively protect themselves people MUST make a worst case scenario assumption about your intentions. Not to do so would be irresponsible as it would require ruling out certain scenarios that may require response.
Be aware of your actions and the threats they imply.
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