IN THE NEWS

I want to begin this column talking about a few developments that occurred recently that are begging for additional comment, and who better to provided that commentary than yours truly?

The first comes out of the state of Arizona, where the legislature recently passed a bill making it a misdemeanor offense for anyone filming a police officer within eight feet after having been warned to stop doing so. The bil,l signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey, is intended to create a buffer to prevent clashes with police and bystanders in tense situations.

My initial reaction when I read this story was, it’s about time. We have all sat and watched demonstrators and rioters get right up in the face of police officers who are standing in a police line and yell obscenities, spit at and throw objects like rocks, batteries and urine- and feces-filled balloons at police when the officers are doing nothing more than holding the line, as they say. You also have undoubtedly seen bystanders with their cellphone cameras where police are conducting a field interview or a traffic stop. This is an officer safety issue, as it distracts officers away from the subject they have detained and thus have to watch both that person and the crowd or the group heckling police. Every state should enact such a law. Officers are trained to keep people out of their lunge area-that amount of distance between them and a subject. That area keeps distance between someone going after their gun or other piece of equipment that once obtained can be used against the officer. What I find peculiar, however, is how they determined 8 feet as the distance. They should have made it an even 10 if for no other reason than to give police a few more feet of protection.

The next news story comes out of Miami, where a Miami-Dade officer conducting a traffic stop on a motorist not wearing a seat belt made an utterance that has many people including the media losing their mind. During the exchange the officer asks for the driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance and told the driver to turn off the engine. That’s standard. The driver could not find his license or registration and didn’t turn the car off as ordered. The officer, after receiving the driver’s license, says in the on-going exchange, “A simple thing man, this is how you guys get killed out here.” OK. Not the smoothest way to talk to people but not the worst things I have heard cops say in dealing with the public.

Now the vultures are circling overhead in this anti-police environment trying to make it on the level of some of the other high-profile incidents involving police. Yes, over this. Now everybody is giving their opinion of what the officer meant by that statement. My reaction is, yeah, I heard the officer say it. Who flipping cares? That officer will have to defend what he meant by his statement. And now the Metro-Dade police have started an internal investigation and have removed the officer from street duty and placed him on administrative leave desk duty. Seriously? Over this? That reaction by the Miami-Dade Police Department feeds into the hair on fire reaction from the cop-hating crowd. An appropriate disposition here would be for the officer’s supervisor to counsel him with a verbal warning about interpersonal communication, maybe even order some additional training on it. The chief of the department should have said to the media soon after the incident, let’s move on.

Speaking of how guys get killed out here, another police deadly use of force in Akron, Ohio has captured national attention. Although each incident is intricately different, there are some similar aspects. This involves a police stop for a traffic violation, the driver refusing to pull over and stop, the driver leading police on a high-speed pursuit during which it is reported that he fired shots at pursuing officers.

Additional facts are that he finally pulls over and continues to flee on foot. Oh, and another thing: He was wearing a ski mask over his head. Like that is normal behavior.

Now, let’s unpack this. Fleeing from police according to a Supreme Court case, Illinois v Wardlow, is the height of suspicious activity and police then have reasonable suspicion to pursue to find out why the subject is fleeing. Leading police on a high-speed vehicle pursuit puts the officers in grave danger as well as other motorists in the area. And then there is the firing on pursuing officers. As the suspect is fleeing, he turns toward the officers making eye contact. That is called target acquisition, a move necessary for the armed subject to complete before firing on them. It is reasonable for officers responding who have already been fired upon to conclude that he would shoot at them again. They opened fire, killing the suspect. The suspect’s gun was found inside his vehicle. Now comes the typical knee-jerk reaction from the media, the family and other cop haters.

About 60 shots were fired by the reported seven or eight responding officers during the incident. Everybody is up in arms about the number of shots fired. I am not. The suspect was armed, as I indicated, and fired on officers during the pursuit. As far as I am concerned, all bets are off. Nothing in the law on use of force indicates the number of shots officers can fire after being shot at. They are allowed to use a level of force to overcome the resistance, not equally meet it. I know how officers train in these situations in a sterile environment of a shooting range. We train them to fire two to three round bursts then reassess.

Anybody who thinks that that will actually be the case in a high-adrenaline situation where you have already been shot at is out of their mind. I have investigated police officer use of force shootings. Most time they cannot even tell you how many times they fired. That is normal as parts of their brain shut down. They are not counting their rounds like on a firing range. They will get to explain their actions. Under what I have just described however, the Chief of the agency should get out ahead of this to frame a narrative that gets into the minds of the public before the lies and misinformation that will come from the media and the cop-haters.

Here are a few example headlines from major news sources on this incident: “Video shows Akron Cops Kill Unarmed Man In A Hail Of Bullets”, “Sickening Footage Shows Akron Cops Kill An Unarmed Man In A Hail Of Bullets”, “Jayland Walker was unarmed when 8 Ohio officers opened fire.” One story even pointed out that suspect Walker was unarmed and running away. Obviously, certain important facts were left out of these stories like the fact that he refused to comply with officers’ commands to take him into custody and instead led police on a high-speed pursuit, and Walker firing on officers before they fired on him and that he was wearing a ski mask.

The investigation is ongoing, but my experience in investigating these police use of force leads me to believe that these officers acted reasonably under the circumstances.

And like the Miami-Dade officer said, that’s how these guys get killed out here.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of Americas Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com