Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

Please Don’t Hesitate, Lady

Accord­ing to Law Enforce­ment Tar­gets’ flacks, 

I found while speak­ing with offi­cers and train­ers in the law enforce­ment com­mu­nity that there is a hes­i­ta­tion on the part of cops when deadly force is required on sub­jects with atyp­i­cal age, frailty or con­di­tion (one offi­cer explain­ing that he enlarged pho­tos of his own kids to use as tar­gets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a dras­ti­cally new expe­ri­ence while on duty). This hes­i­ta­tion time may be only sec­onds but that is not accept­able when offi­cers are los­ing their lives in these same situations.…If that ini­tial hes­i­ta­tion time can be cut down due to range expe­ri­ence, the offi­cer and com­mu­nity are bet­ter served.

(Reason.com.)

Here’s one of the tar­gets he’s talk­ing about:

Woman in Nursery Target

I guess there might be a sit­u­a­tion in which the cop in the nurs­ery fac­ing the armed preg­nant woman could be in the right. I can con­ceive of a sce­nario in which by tak­ing the life of the woman and her baby might bet­ter “serve the com­mu­nity” than by hol­ster­ing his gun and back­ing away. Such a sce­nario is highly unlikely, and hardly worth spend­ing 99¢ to buy a tar­get to pre­pare for.

Man With Shotgun in House

(Image via Infowars.)

More likely, the cop fac­ing the preg­nant woman with the gun in her house has screwed up to get him­self into that sit­u­a­tion. “No more hes­i­ta­tion,” say the cops, but unless you think a cop’s life worth more than that of a human being pro­tect­ing her fam­ily and her prop­erty, hes­i­ta­tion is appropriate.

Good rid­dance to the cop who wants to learn not to hes­i­tate, and espe­cially to the badged psy­chopath who “enlarged pho­tos of his own kids to use as tar­gets.” May a hos­tile older man get you before you screw your chil­dren up too badly.

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About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

8 Responses to “Please Don’t Hesitate, Lady”

  1. Charles B. "Brad" Frye says:

    As a young lawyer, the police atti­tude of “us vs. them” used to bother me. I got over it. In fact, I adopted it.

  2. Mark's Dad says:

    It didn’t take you long to get results. This is from the Law Enforce­ment Tar­gets web­site min­utes after you posted the blog:

    https://www.letshooting.com/let/spotlight_image.php

  3. Ric Moore says:

    God for­bid, some­one hes­i­tates to pull a trig­ger. It’s also a good prac­tice to shoot the fam­ily dog when it growls at a police “intruder”. Damn that hand lick­ing Bor­der Col­lie. BANG! Who’s next?

    “Sarge, this 6 year old looks mean, can I shoot him?” “Don’t HESITATE!!”

  4. Brad Walters says:

    Appar­ently the cops in LA who were after Dorner had this kind of no hes­i­ta­tion shoot before you know what is hap­pen­ing train­ing when they opened fire on three indi­vid­u­als who did not come close to the descrip­tion of a 235 lb black man. Oh well the tax­pay­ers can afford a few mil­lion in pay­outs for assault­ing inno­cent cit­i­zens rather than pro­tect­ing and serv­ing them. I don’t like that offi­cer safety is some­how more impor­tant than mine or yours.

  5. Rob Robertson says:

    I clicked on the link in Mark’s Dad com­ment and note that the tar­gets have been taken offline. Funny how the bugs scat­ter when you turn the lights on.

  6. Mark Kernich says:

    Some­one needs to get the guy who put his kid’s faces in front of his gun before he does more harm. That is really creepy. I’m sure if he wasn’t in uni­form there’d be grounds to do some­thing about him. Then again, with guns and Amer­ica any­thing goes, right?

    :)

  7. Ron in Houston says:

    A very promi­nent fam­ily law attor­ney with a dis­tinct lib­er­tar­ian bent was bemoan­ing the mil­i­ta­riza­tion of our police force. The best cops I know have a good dose of com­pas­sion. I sup­pose this fits with the whole idea of psy­cho­pathic cops. The less empa­thy and com­pas­sion a per­son with power has, the greater the dan­ger to those they inter­act with.

    • Ric Moore says:

      Sounds like you’re describ­ing an inmate in a Super Maxx. Same mind­set. I was taught that if your mind­set was “False-Normal”, then you would be put into “Forced Nor­mal” … with “Nor­mal” being a healthy mind­set. Hrm­m­m­mmm… at least that is what I was taught in a rehab group. :) Ric

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