Shooting a LEO in self defense??? Hypothetical

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Deanimator, care to expound upon that Chicago PD corruption?
I would really like to read up on that.
 
Some people are a**h***s
most LEOs are people
if someone shot my dog I would return fire
fortunately most of the local Police around here are decent people, some of them attend my target shoot/B-B-Q every summer. one time one of the local LEOs whom I had only met once came over to my house, seems his duty pistol was down for repair and his partner recommended he borrow one of mine:what: I loaned him my RIA 1911 he didn't like such an "old" pistol but was otherwise impressed with my collection (which was a bit larger then) and since then he comes over about once a month to borrow a gun for a day of shooting, it may not be possible in some places but making friends with LEOs is a good way to keep yourself out of trouble
 
most LEOs are people
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And most people tend to do what they think the traffic will bear, at least up to a point.

The police in my town don't have a reputation for committing violent crimes. Why? Because they aren't allowed to. An apparently high standard of behavior is set and enforced. No home invasions, no kidnappings, no murders. At worst, they're sometimes lazy about investigating types of crimes with which they have no experience, such as check forgery, check kiting, etc. Do I have a tangible reason to fear encounters with them? No.

Contrast this with my hometown of Chicago. I avoid ANY contact with the police AT ALL. I wouldn't even report a crime if I saw one. There wouldn't be any point. My family has called the Chicago PD, to no purpose whatever. All I'd be doing by interacting with them would be creating a potentially dangerous situation for myself without much chance of a favorable outcome.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

Aren't most aspiring policemen cautioned in training never to say words like "I'm going to kill you!" to people they accost, because we all retain the right to defend against an imminent killer?
 
Anyone know someone who has had off-duty cops pick a fight with him in a bar, then proceed to brawl with him and his wife?
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There was an odd case last year where a Rockford cop got into a bar fight outside his jurisdiction but in the same county. He ended up dead.

At first the SA refused to press any charges other than involuntary manslaughter against the other brawler. The police union got involved and eventually much stronger charges were filed.

It is hard to tell what really happened or why, because one guy that was involved is dead and the other is not saying much except to his lawyer, but it appears for some reason they managed to knock heads in the parking lot at 1 a.m. Its not clear who started it, or why.

Incidentally,the most serious evidence they have is from a tape made of him calling people after the incident while sitting in a police car. It seems that the local police did not even handcuff him after the incident, just asked him to sit in the squad car. While sitting there he made some cell phone calls that got recorded by the video camera in the squad car. One would think that not handcuffing him implies the local police did not consider that a serious crime had occurred. It was only after it was determined the dead guy was a cop that anyone made a big deal of it.
 
I'm not sure what part of the brain thought this up. But are there any circumstances that you could claim self defense against a LEO?
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My great-uncle killed a policeman in self-defense.

This was before I was born, but the story is that a drunken cop came into a bar and began beating patrons with his baton; my uncle (one of the patrons) took the baton away and killed the cop with his bare hands.

He was acquitted, because there were many victim/witnesses.

Ironically, my great-uncle became a policeman himself, and went on to a distinguished career as a detective.
 
The police in my town don't have a reputation for committing violent crimes. Why? Because they aren't allowed to. An apparently high standard of behavior is set and enforced. No home invasions, no kidnappings, no murders. At worst, they're sometimes lazy about investigating types of crimes with which they have no experience, such as check forgery, check kiting, etc. Do I have a tangible reason to fear encounters with them? No.
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Where the political system does not tolerate LE misconduct, it is not as common. But we all knew that already. I don't worry too much about the county sheriff in my county. They seem like decent enough folk. The city police make me a little nervous, but for the most bad, the worst of the bad eggs usually seem to get dealt with.

Contrast this with my hometown of Chicago. I avoid ANY contact with the police AT ALL. I wouldn't even report a crime if I saw one. There wouldn't be any point. My family has called the Chicago PD, to no purpose whatever. All I'd be doing by interacting with them would be creating a potentially dangerous situation for myself without much chance of a favorable outcome.
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Places like Chicago have virtually no effective supervision of police. The politicians do not want it. I would not report a random crime in Chicago either, unless there was no way to avoid doing so. A fair number of POs in Chicago are actual gang members, and there does not appear to have been any effort made to get rid of them. They have instituted a rule requiring a college degree for CPD on the theory that gang members don't generally have college degrees, so presumably in 20 years or so, all the gang member POs in the CPD will have retired.

I do have a certain amount of sympathy for those members of the CPD who are not gang members and are decent human beings and are really trying. But you have no way of knowing in Chicago just which side of the law the cop you are interacting with is on, so your only real alternative is to avoid interaction entirely.
 
Crunker1337 said:
I remember reading an article in which a CCW holder shot an undercover cop after said cop pulled him over for a traffic violation, and for no conceivable reason, pulled his own weapon on the CCW holder's wife.
The CCW holder was not charged.
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Yep, that was a fellow named Treptow here in Minnesota. The cop, Landen Beard, was in plain clothes, supposedly undercover, in an unmarked vehicle. It was more of a road rage incident than a traffic stop. Treptow shot Officer Beard in both legs and the arm as I recall. Bottom line -- so far -- Treptow was released without charge and nobody's been charged with anything, yet. Or fired.

There's a big thread about it on our local forum. I should say, one of our local forums, because the case was at least part of the trigger of a flame war between the "door-kicker wannabes" and the "civil-libertarian cop-bashers" that resulted in a bunch of folks getting banned, the moderator "going on vacation" and a new forum being created to fill the void. So now we have two excellent gun forums in Minnesota as well as a new source of drama, gossip, feuding and that sort of entertainment.
 
Tecumseh asked:

Got any proof that he tried to attack officers?
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Try to find the entire video online, not just the 8 seconds the media looped together. You'll see plenty of attacks against the officers.

The jury in state court that acquitted the officers saw the entire video and had all of the actions the officers took explained to them. For someone who was allegedly brutally beaten he required surprisingly little medical care.

Jeff
 
Rodney King is a bad case to make any kind of generalizations about.

The conduct of the officers was borderline IMO, and King's behavior immediately before his a$$ whopping was not exactly a model of virtue.

Its pretty clear the cops were enjoying themselves to some extent, but to some extent they trying to subue a guy who just would not submit to arrest. If I were trying to arrest a guy who had survived multiple taserings (and I think pepper spray) and seemed none the worse for it, I think I would be seriously worried.

But at some point, it got to be fun, and I think that is why the federal jury convicted.

The bottom line is if there was no video tape, no one would have cared about what happened. Can you imagine Rodney King trying to make any kind of complaint about how he was treated by police?
 
king was lucky it was la pull that in pg md and you go to the morgue
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It is quite possible that his life was saved because a female CHIP trooper happened along. Made for an extra witness they might not have been able to convince to go along with their version of events.

Or not.

Who knows how these things happen. Human beings are complex animals. They often do things that are not readily understood. Sometimes those who did things don't even know why they did it.

Cops hang around scum a fair amount, in LA probably a lot more than most places. Some of it rubs off sometimes.
 
One of the unfortunate side effects of being a LEO, in my experience of interacting with them, is that you give years of your life protecting society only to slip into a malaise of thinking that everyone is a dirtbag.

I think that many of the stories of dirty cops and abuse registers in the officer's head on a very different continuum of right and wrong. They spend day in and day out seeing the aftermath of horrible crimes and hardened criminals, and then watch grown men sob and throw tantrums to get out of a speeding ticket.
It's gotta be rough on the soul. Especially for guys who, traditionally, aren't exactly sitting around pondering the pearls of Sartre or Aristotle's wisdom in their spare time.

But, the stakes are high when a guy starts pushing the bounds of what he can do lawfully. And, with me, knowing how some LEOs can come unhinged and how many of them see the world (with them as the "thin blue line" against evil), I don't think anyone should hesitate to use deadly force to defend their life against an unlawful attack.

After all, that person is a trained killer. And, confronted with any other stressed out god/punisher complexed guy with lots of training, I'd do the same.
Long arm of the law or not.

But, we are talking about the whack jobs. Not the average officer.
 
It's gotta be rough on the soul. Especially for guys who, traditionally, aren't exactly sitting around pondering the pearls of Sartre or Aristotle's wisdom in their spare time.
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And the rest of us do?

After all, that person is a trained killer. And, confronted with any other stressed out god/punisher complexed guy with lots of training, I'd do the same.
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I think you hit part of the nail on the head. There are a fair number of cops who really cannot get past the idea that it is just a job. It has to be some kind of moral crusade with them. And when that crusade fails to produce the desired results, they have a tough time of it.

The good ones understand it is just a job.
 
Of course it's okay to shoot a LEO in self-defense. The Supreme Court allows it and the law of society demands it.


" Instead of saying that plaintiff in error had the right to use such force as was absolutely necessary to resist an attempted illegal arrest, the jury were informed that the policemen had the right to use all necessary force to arrest him, and that he had no right to resist. He, of course, had no right to unnecessarily injure, much less to kill, his assailant; but where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no such right. What might be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.

The plaintiff in error was undoubtedly prejudiced by this error in the charge, and the judgment of the court below must therefore be reversed, and the case remanded with instructions to grant a new trial." JOHN BAD ELK v. U S, 177 U.S. 529 (1900).


"Saturday, Oct 20, 2007 - 12:08 AM

By JAMIE C. RUFF
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
FARMVILLE -- A Farmville man was found not guilty yesterday of shooting a town policeman in the leg during a 2005 traffic stop, the prosecutor said.

The jury deliberated about an hour before deciding that Russell Smith was not guilty of attempted capital murder, malicious wounding and two counts of use of a firearm in the Oct. 21, 2005, shooting of Farmville police officer Johnny Garrett, Prince Edward County Commonwealth's Attorney James R. Ennis said.

The trial lasted two days.

Garrett testified Thursday that he had learned Smith's license had been revoked and the officer was preparing to administer a breath test to determine Smith's alcohol level when he saw Smith raise a .38-caliber handgun just inches from the officer's chest.

Garrett said he was shot in the thigh when the gun fired as he slapped it down. Garrett said he heard several other shots as he fled for cover, and returned fire. Garrett was treated at Southside Community Hospital and released. He is the first town officer shot since 1974.

Defense attorney John Mann insisted the gun went off accidentally and Smith fled as Garrett fired on him.

"He wasn't intending to hit anybody," Mann said of his client. "He left [because] the officer was trying to kill him."

But Ennis noted during questioning of Garrett that Smith did not throw the gun out of window, put up his hands or say it was an accident.

In late January, a mistrial was declared in the middle of closing arguments when Smith's defense attorney, James Sheffield, said he lost his train of thought and could not continue. "
 
My simple rule of thumb for ALL cases of self defense is this. Assume the WORST case secenario, if I shoot, I will be arrested, prosecuted, possible found guilty, IMPRISONED, my defense will probably bankrupt my family, and I will not see my kids except on visiting days in the clink. I weigh that possibility against what will happen if I DON'T pull the trigger. Obviously that would be a tough decision to make at the spur of the moment so it boils down to this. If someone (LEO included) threatens to KILL or cause serious bodily injury to me, my wife, my children, or people in my direct care, they are in even graver danger of meeting their maker. Short of that I still have two feet and two fists that I can either run or fight with.
 
In 1985 this situation occurred in San Diego, DPRK. A man named Sagon Penn was acquitted of killing an LEO and wounding another on the basis of self defense. They were in the process of giving Mr. Penn a mahogany shampoo when he grabbed one cop's gun and shot them both. 2 trials- 1st hung jury, 2nd- acquittal. SDPD made his life miserable for years afterward.
 
.

But are there any circumstances that you could claim self defense against a LEO?
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Yes, there are.

The questions implies that there may not be circumstances that you could
claim self defense against a LEO, which is of course utterly ridiculous.

I am completely bewildered at the notion (which seems to have gained some
traction here) that LEOs are above the law, or may be deserving of more
respect simply because they have a badge and gun.

I'll not participate in such nonsense. They are men and women just like we
are, and are subject to the same treatment.
 
.

My family has called the Chicago PD, to no purpose whatever. All I'd be doing by interacting with them would be creating a potentially dangerous situation for myself without much chance of a favorable outcome
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I have had similar results with my local constabulary.

: my comments edited because I wouldn't want to offend any "good" LEOs
reading this board.
 
Anyone know someone who has had off-duty cops pick a fight with him in a bar, then proceed to brawl with him and his wife?
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Yep, but they didn't proceed to brawl with my wife--but they did with my partner, who was female.

A female agent and myself had been undercover for almost a year working outlaw motorcycle gangs--the one percenters. The female agent was "my old lady" and we'd been a team for quite a while.

One eveing, in a major U.S. city, we'd grown tired of hanging out at biker dives and wanted a decent, quiet bar to have a few drinks in. We're sitting at the bar, minding our own business when a couple of guys walk up and start making "long-hair" remarks, then "tattoo" remarks, and then finally, "biker trash commie hippie" remarks. The remarks kept getting cruder and cruder, and then the suggestion was made that they (the two guys) oughta kick our asses right here, right now.

We had no idea who they were. Clean cut, early to mid-30's white guys.

I turned around and looked at them and told them to "Eff off" and suggested they move on down the bar or find a booth or find another place to drink, and that it was in their best interest to leave us be.

The "leader" of the two turns to my partner and refers to her as the "c" word. I turn around and am getting ready to take these two boys to the floor and I'm met with two badges. The two guys finally ID'd themselves as officers (one was a sergeant) with the ------- Police Department.

My partner informs them that we haven't done a damn thing wrong, have not violated so much as an ordinance let alone a law so why don't they just move along and take their badges and show them to someone who might be impressed.

At that point, the second guy reached out and literally slapped my partner across the face. When she jumped up, reflexively, the leader took a swing at me and the fight was on.

My partner had kneed the second guy right in the crotch--and HARD. He was swearing and in between gagging, yelling at HIS partner to "Shoot these *******s! KILL THEM, G--DAMNIT!" And as bad cop number one reached for his gun, I stuck mine in his face and announced who WE were.

We had to have the bartender call the local FBI and U.S. Marshal's office to send out agents because we didn't (obviously) have any handcuffs or restraining devices on us and we had every intention of arresting these two yo-yo's.

Want to guess what happened to those cops?
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No need to guess. They went to jail that afternoon. In the morning, they went in front of a U.S. Magistrate. That afternoon, they were being interviewed by their department's IAD boys and girls.

Both lost their jobs and both served almost a year of federal camp time. Both are convicted federal felons.

During my time at Quantico during basic academy and during subsequent undercover assignments, the civil affairs counsel at our USA's office repeatedly drilled into our heads that although we were cops, if we abused our discretionary authority even in the course of our (undercover) duties and were subsequently injured or killed as a result, the chances of the USA's office filing charges would be slim.

I worked with a lot of local cops during my years in the government. Without exception, every local cop I worked with told me that his/her department stressed the incredible duty and importance of proper and legal conduct on and off-duty.

Many of these departments/agencies required that officers identify themselves as such when off-duty and responding/interceding in virtually ANY incident or instance.

I know the OP's question was hypothetical, but the results of following through on his question are very real and anything but hypothetical. In most instances, cops are ashamed and embarassed by dirty cops. And if a dirty cop is killed in a matter of self-defense by a righteous citizen, there isn't a whole lot of backlash against that citizen.

Good cops are just that--Good cops. They do not like the dishonest among them. They do not like the cops among them that are on the take or who do the "protection" rackets. They have disdain for the cops who coerce sexual favors in exchange for "tearing up the ticket."

I've arrested more than my fair share of dirty cops and rare was the occasion that once presented with the (normally overwhelming) evidence, their partners or other squad members would not stand by them and cooperate with us even BEYOND the call of normal duty.

The bottom line is that you have the right of self defense regardless of who may be threatening or attempting to injure you or end your life.

Jeff
 
If the officer is not acting witin the scope of his or her duties, and threatens you with serious bodily injury or death...take it from there.
 
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