“Hero” charges into gunfight and is killed by police

[Jeff White]

Warrior mindset.

That is not the warrior mindset. Warriors train, warriors study to learn their craft. Warriors don’t make that kind of mistake.

Alpha male sheepdog.

Sheepdogs are those people with a duty to act. The term was coined by Dr David Grossman for his Bulletproof Mind seminar that he presented to law enforcement officers. Private citizens have no duty to protect anyone.

Always have a plan to kill those you meet.

What exactly does that mean? It sounds really good but it’s just chest thumping bravado, the kind of talk you hear from young soldiers. There is a lot more involved than owning a gun, being good on the square range and quoting pithy sayings.

One of the missions of this sub forum is to encourage people to move past that stage.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Another blue on blue casualty. Police officers ambushed, armed citizen charges out of a nearby store and engages the gunman. Armed citizen shot and killed by responding officers.

Not a lot of information on what happened in this article but we need to remember that this same situation happens way too often when off duty or plainclothes officers intervene.


'Hero' killed while confronting gunman was 'died from police bullet'


https://mol.im/a/9726149


Everyone, sworn or private citizen needs to think of how they are going to look to responding officers and plan to engage from cover if you decide to engage. Two good guys dead as well as the bad guy. One of the good guys apparently killed by friendly fire.

Tragic.

 

[old lady new shooter]

We will never know what Hurley thought. It’s never a good idea to be visibly armed when responding officers arrive, especially when they are responding to an officer down active shooter call.

I have seen numerous SD videos where the good guy kicks the BG's gun away from BG but doesn't pick it up. I never thought much about this before but I guess the potential problem with only kicking it away could be if there is another BG you don't know about.

ETA: I wrote the above before reading the rest of the thread, in which there was at least one post saying don't even kick BG's gun away, you want the evidence to be exactly where it was at the time of the shooting. What if BG is down but not dead? If the weapon is still next to him he could grab it and continue his mayhem.

(In movies when BG goes down, that's the end. But not always in real life. I remember a surveillance video from Israel where a terrorist ran his car up onto the sidewalk to hit his selected target, then began stabbing him... an armed citizen ran over and shot the terrorist at close range, not more than 5 yards. The terrorist went down but shortly thereafter GOT UP AGAIN. Armed citizen shot him again. Terrorist went down a second time, then AGAIN GOT UP. Armed citizen shot him a third time, after which he finally didn't get up any more.)

 

[Double Naught Spy]

That is not the warrior mindset. Warriors train, warriors study to learn their craft. Warriors don’t make that kind of mistake.

Apparently given the mistakes, there weren't any "warriors" in this situation, otherwise the cop would not have made the mistake of shooting the wrong person.

 

[Jeff White]

Apparently given the mistakes, there weren't any "warriors" in this situation,

I don’t recall anyone saying there were.

I have seen numerous SD videos where the good guy kicks the BG's gun away from BG but doesn't pick it up. I never thought much about this before but I guess the potential problem with only kicking it away could be if there is another BG you don't know about.

You take advantage of the pause and move to a covered position. Do not approach the bad guy. There is no reason to.

ETA: I wrote the above before reading the rest of the thread, in which there was at least one post saying don't even kick BG's gun away, you want the evidence to be exactly where it was at the time of the shooting. What if BG is down but not dead? If the weapon is still next to him he could grab it and continue his mayhem.

Then engage the bad guy again just like in your example. If he’s capable of picking up the weapon, he’s capable of attacking you when you get close enough to kick the weapon away from him or secure it.

It’s not your job to take him into custody. Your only concern is to stop the attack. There is nothing to gain from approaching the downed shooter. However there is a lot to lose.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I don’t recall anyone saying there were.

No, but cops supposedly do study to learn their craft, don't they?

The reality, however, is that warriors DO make mistakes of all kinds. To say somebody isn't a warrior because they made a mistake is naive, or just plain incorrect.

 

[Jeff White]

No, but cops supposedly do study to learn their craft, don't they?

Doesn’t make them warriors. In fact many of the traits one would associate with being a warrior are not at all compatible with being a good cop.

The reality, however, is that warriors DO make mistakes of all kinds. To say somebody isn't a warrior because they made a mistake is naive, or just plain incorrect.

Depends on how you define a warrior. Your definition obviously isn’t the same as mine. I don’t apply the term as loosely as most people in the gun culture do. We have very few warriors in modern society.

 

[Kleanbore]

Always have a plan to kill those you meet.

Posting that can lead to terrible consequences for the poster.

Some years a ago, a citizen who was attacked by more than one person was forced to fire to defend himself. No one died.

He was tried twice. and he served white some time in jail.

One of the things that weakened his defense of justification was the existence of a chart with that statement on it in the packet of materials that he had brought home from a class.

We mention that statement in the ST&T Stick thread on internet posting.

 

[P89DCSS]

He didn't have a cognitive appreciation of the situation. He was stuck in a aggressive, dominance mode and probably thought of himself as an obvious good guy. It comes from being a naive firearms user who hasn't thought through one's actions and/or practices them. I'm an obvious hero!! Now I am not blaming him in that sense but explaining it. He also could have narrowed perceptual and decision making abilities being flooded with stress hormones.....

I've been following this story very closely as I'm local. I haven't seen any reports about the Good Samaritan's training or state of mind. Is there a link to support the above narrative?

..... speculation does nothing to further our mission of learning everything we can about an incident.....

Agreed. I'm waiting for the release of the rest of the surveillance video. Local comments in news reports claim there are video cameras in plain view of the Good Samaritan's shooting site.

 

[fastbolt]

He didn't have a cognitive appreciation of the situation. He was stuck in a aggressive, dominance mode and probably thought of himself as an obvious good guy. It comes from being a naive firearms user who hasn't thought through one's actions and/or practices them. I'm an obvious hero!! Now I am not blaming him in that sense but explaining it. He also could have narrowed perceptual and decision making abilities being flooded with stress hormones.

If you look at all the bad decisions involved in similar interactions, it is understandable and why one should avoid such.

Absolutely.

I suspect that's one of the reasons plainclothes/off-duty cops don't expect to be shot by other cops. They know they're the "good guy", but don't always stop to think what they look like to arriving uniforms (or even other plainclothes/off-duty cops who don't personally know them).

I had a leg up on always thinking about that for the last half of my career, when I was assigned to plainclothes and was often working in other jurisdictions almost every shift.

Nowadays, 12 years into my retirement (and 4 years after having resigned from my post-retirement reserve capacity), I think about it every time I'm carrying a retirement weapon. It's simply an ingrained part of my tactical awareness. I know I'm not going to be familiar to virtually any cops I might meet ... (unless I may be visiting my former stomping grounds, but even then the turnover has been tremendous since I left) ... so I'm always thinking about how to not get shot by either armed attackers or cops on-scene. I need to survive intact until the time comes that I'm able to present my retirement ID to the cops on-scene, and not have them find it on my body.

 

[old lady new shooter]

You take advantage of the pause and move to a covered position. Do not approach the bad guy. There is no reason to.

Then engage the bad guy again just like in your example. If he’s capable of picking up the weapon, he’s capable of attacking you when you get close enough to kick the weapon away from him or secure it.

It’s not your job to take him into custody. Your only concern is to stop the attack. There is nothing to gain from approaching the downed shooter. However there is a lot to lose.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Jeff22]

A few thoughts:

(1.) What a tragedy

(2.) Most cops never respond to an incident where a private citizen uses deadly force to defend themselves, either in or out of the home. They might not have ever thought about that situation, and they probably have never received any training on how to respond to that kind of situation.

(3.) If you are a witness or a participant in an incident, you may be on the phone to somebody at the comm center reporting this incident, but in a bigger metro area you'll probably be talking to a call taker who then forwards that information to the dispatcher working the radio. For the information to get all the way along the chain takes time, and often gets garbled in transmission. If the incident happens in a smaller jurisdiction, you may have a single dispatcher who is getting bombarded with calls about the incident and radio calls about the incident and also with radio traffic and phone calls about everything else going on in that jurisdiction at that time. There are lots of things that can go wrong.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Absolutely.

I suspect that's one of the reasons plainclothes/off-duty cops don't expect to be shot by other cops. They know they're the "good guy", but don't always stop to think what they look like to arriving uniforms (or even other plainclothes/off-duty cops who don't personally know them).

And it is the cops who are supposed to have all this training in how to deal with these situations...but they shoot each other. They shoot bystanders. They shoot other first responders. It doesn't happen frequently, but it happens.

 

[Jeff White]

And it is the cops who are supposed to have all this training in how to deal with these situations...but they shoot each other. They shoot bystanders. They shoot other first responders. It doesn't happen frequently, but it happens.

Why don't you develop a training program that will eliminate this problem. "Friendly fire" has been a problem ever since we evolved from only having contact weapons. Or maybe you could invent some virtual reality goggles that will put a little good guy icon over the head of all the "good guys"? You'd be a wealthy man. Every military and police organization in the world would want to buy it. The gun control lobby would push to make it a requirement that all gun owners have one............

The fact is, psychology and physical science have yet to come up with a solution to make Adrenalin charged human beings make the right decision in every armed encounter. We spend hours in F.A.T.S. simulators, we develop policies and SOPs and it still happens. As long as we put human beings in these situations "friendly fire" incidents are going to continue to happen. The best we can do right now is to recognize that first contact with responding police officers after a shooting, especially an active shooter incident is fraught with danger and take precautions like not being visibly armed to mitigate the risk.

 

[GEM]

Good post, Jeff.

 

[fastbolt]

And it is the cops who are supposed to have all this training in how to deal with these situations...but they shoot each other. They shoot bystanders. They shoot other first responders. It doesn't happen frequently, but it happens.

Yep. Just like with non-LE students, though, not everyone with a badge who attends training takes away the lessons, the critical knowledge or the skills. Human nature. Human nature also means mistakes can happen under stress and duress.

Then, there's the whole question of the selection, hiring, training and retention of people in all the 18,000+ LE agencies in the US.

 

[shafter]

Posting that can lead to terrible consequences for the poster.

Some years a ago, a citizen who was attacked by more than one person was forced to fire to defend himself. No one died.

He was tried twice. and he served white some time in jail.

One of the things that weakened his defense of justification was the existence of a chart with that statement on it in the packet of materials that he had brought home from a class.

We mention that statement in the ST&T Stick thread on internet posting.

I've always thought that to be a weird statement. Unfortunately it's being taught in police academies to recruits.

 

[GEM]

Here's a nice analysis by an expert that some posters need to read and appreciate:

https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/post-shooting-procedures-for-the-active-killer-gunfight

 

[Blackstone]

Are the quotation marks meant to denigrate? I do not think the gentleman's decision was wise, but it does seem to meet the textbook definition of heroism.

When words are enclosed in quotation marks in a headline or news article, it denotes that the word or phrase is a direct quote from the people involved in the incident being reported. In this case, it's because the police have referred to the Mr Hurley as a hero. News articles should only report the facts that are known, so it would be inappropriate for the report's author to call him a hero.

 

[.38 Special]

There are no quotation marks in the headline that I can see. It had appeared to me that the OP had added them himself, hence my question - which already has been answered.

 

[The Glockodile]

Unfortunately it's being taught in police academies to recruits.

Jeez. That makes it worse.

If you'd stroll down any of the other gun - related (and truck) forums - these kinds of mindsets (from their discussions - and signatures!) are legion.

My worst personal experience was with an NRA Instructor who was offering the basic pistol class to satisfy CCW requirements... He went totally tangential in one segment, demonstrating with his folding knife how he'd incapacitate an opponent if he got too close for the use of pistols...

I can recall thinking - as soon as I get your dumb*** signature on my certificate, and I’m so very outta here...

 

[shafter]

I get the mindset behind the saying but it needs to be worded much differently. For one, I don't want to kill anyone, and secondly, I don't want people I'm talking to think that I'm somehow planning to carve them into little pieces if they look at me the wrong way.

It should say something more along the lines of be polite and courteous to everyone you meet but be prepared to defend yourself if ever attacked. The other version sounds like a serial killer.

 

[reloaded_in_pa]

I can not find any information on what happened when the shooting officer(s) arrived. Was Mr. Hurley ordered to drop the weapon or shot immediately? Was he pointing the weapon at officers? I've read that there were no body cams but what about dash cams on the cruisers ?

 

[Kleanbore]

I can not find any information on what happened when the shooting officer(s) arrived. I've read that there were no body cams but what about dash cams on the cruisers ?

Te department has said that any video that has not already been released will be reviewed before it
is released. Keep in mind that there is an ongoing investigation,

Was Mr. Hurley ordered to drop the weapon or shot immediately?

This is just conjecture, but considering the circumstances, I tend to doubt that any commands would have been issued.

Was he pointing the weapon at officers?

That has not been released. It may not matter.

 

[Phaedrus/69]

Warriors don’t make that kind of mistake.
[...]

They seem to make that mistake quite regularly. Not an indictment, just an observation that the situation is usually fluid and chaotic. Frankly it's hard to even figure out what's considered "professional" in the professions-of-arms anymore.

What exactly does that mean? It sounds really good but it’s just chest thumping bravado, the kind of talk you hear from young soldiers.

In this case, that "kind of talk" talk came from a former Marine general and Secretary of Defense, although the poster didn't quote the entire phrase accurately. Not that it's any less idiotic coming from a four star general.