Ten years ago, after a controversial case in which a LAPD officer shot and killed a man armed with a knife, the department offered me the opportunity to virtually experience what it is to make a split-second decision about when to shoot. .
I received a crash course on LAPD’s lethal force policy, and then I was sent to a video simulator room, where I was handed a service belt with a semi-automatic Glock. Then they started a video in which a series of actors played threatening suspects, and I had to decide whether to shoot or not.
It was not easy. Deciding when a suspect can be a threat to an officer or others can be difficult. And it was in a video game, not in the real world, where the pressure has to be intense.
In one scene, a suspect in a domestic dispute shot and killed me before reaching for my gun. In another, I shot and killed a man who was attacking me with a knife, but my coach said I waited too long and that the suspect could have been injured or killed.
The last scene came to mind last week when I read a story from my colleagues Jim Rainey and Andrew J. Campa about a Los Angeles Police Department officer who shot and killed a man with a cutter on April 22, just south of downtown Los Angeles. The story quoted force use expert Ed Obayashi, who defended the fatal shooting of carpet fitter Daniel Hernandez, 38, by officer Toni McBride, 23.
Obayashi called it “a clear and justified shooting” and said, “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this officer faces an immediate threat to his life.”
I’m not an expert just because I had a few minutes of video simulation training, but I see things a little differently. Before explaining what I mean, I must point out that the story of Rainey and Campa offered an interesting story about Officer McBride:
“A plethora of online videos show the … officer shooting targets, with award-winning speed and precision, at a shooting range in the foothills of the Simi Valley,” the story says. “She bragged and bragged, sometimes in full view of Hollywood glitterati, who used the same shooting range to perfect the shots they would use for movies and television.”
McBride is the daughter of Jamie McBride, the face and mouth of the Police Protection League and an occasional actor who plays tough cops and street thugs. When the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police led to protests across the country, Jamie McBride’s response was to post a Facebook post with video of former LAPD chief Daryl Gates, who led the department. during some of his most brutal and alienating years. “The boss! Never sell and back the troops! McBride wrote.
The father’s sins should not be attributed to his offspring, and perhaps Toni McBride has very different attitudes than her father. But, fairly or not, her role as a model with firearms and a shooting gallery Doyenne has led to additional scrutiny of the shooting on April 22, and two relatives alleging wrongful death and civil rights violations have been brought forward against McBride and the city by relatives of Hernández
McBride’s attorney told The Times that the officer admirably handled a fast-moving incident, but a lawyer for the deceased’s family replied, “Do we want police officers to be gunmen, or do they follow the police motto? of the Angels?” To protect and serve. “
According to the LAPD account, which includes body camera videos of officials and civilian witnesses, McBride and a colleague answered a call when they encountered an unrelated multi-vehicle accident. They were told that a truck driver was still in the vehicle and was trying to hurt himself with a knife.
McBride attempted to handle the chaotic scene, ordering civilians to stay out of the way. He called for reinforcements and asked his partner if they had less lethal weapons, but no response was heard on the video. Hernandez got out of his vehicle and walked slowly in the direction of McBride, ignoring his calls to “show your hands”, “stay there” and “drop the knife”.
“Leave it,” she said as Hernandez took another step toward her, and shot twice. Hernandez fell to his knees, bounced, and McBride shot him twice more, knocking him down. Then he shot twice more. Hernández, motionless, was handcuffed by another officer. An autopsy found methamphetamine in his system.
By ignoring the orders and moving towards a police officer, Hernández certainly put himself at risk, and McBride had to quickly decide how to respond.
“She was scared at all times and was shooting at someone who felt they were coming at her and … at the other citizens who were out there,” said McBride’s attorney.
But when she first shot, Hernández appeared to be about 20 feet or more away from her. If he had a gun, the shooting could be easier to justify, said a police officer who asked not to be identified.
A box cutter can certainly be a deadly weapon, but from a distance, it couldn’t do much damage. So should McBride have tried more to reduce the situation, possibly by covering up behind his vehicle?
Sure, she was at risk, but that’s part of the job, and couldn’t multiple officers have subdued a single suspect who didn’t have a gun with a force, batons, Tasers, anything less lethal? And once Hernández fell, were the last two shots necessary, particularly given the spectators who could have been hit if McBride failed?
The law enforcement official I spoke to predicted that the LAPD investigation into the matter could find that the shooting was technically within deadly force policy, but that the tactics McBride used could be guilty.
I contacted a lethal force expert named Chet Epperson, a retired police officer and chief of police who served in Illinois and is now a police policy consultant and president of the Americans for effective law enforcement. He watched the video and emphasized that he doesn’t know what additional evidence exists.
But based on what he saw, Epperson said it’s fair to wonder why no further reduction was attempted, why McBride didn’t know if less lethal weapons were available, why he didn’t hide behind his vehicle to buy time, and why She fired the last few rounds after the suspect fell, the threat diminished, and passersby were still in danger of being hit.
“Without making any measurements, it seems to me that there is a certain distance between the shooting officer and the suspect who has the gun,” Epperson said.
“It was not in his hands,” he added of the rounds fired after Hernández fell. “I wasn’t running towards the officer. He did not draw a weapon. He was not throwing knives. I would very much question the additional discharge of firearms against a suspect when he is fallen, obviously fallen, not in a combat position but in a wounded position. “
It could take up to a year to complete the official review of the shooting, and that’s hard to understand. It is too long, especially now that the deadly force against people of color is under a microscope. And this is not the only recent use of force case in Los Angeles County that raises questions. A month after the Hernández shooting, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy shot 18-year-old Andrés Guardado five times in the back in a case with at least as many unanswered questions.
Sure, it’s easy to guess police actions from a safe distance. But when taking lives, it is a public duty to ask why and to question the answers.
And even if Toni McBride is found to have acted appropriately, I think, as a general rule, if you want to be a cop who demands trust and respect, it’s not a good idea to be a modern Annie Oakley on social media, happily cutting every target to the view.
