Hey Passion4Sci,
I enjoy exchanging messages with you since you always make good arguments. Therefore, I wanted to get your opinion on this:
I would imagine there's a different mindset between military and law enforcement in this situation. Is it true in the armed forces, you are trained to eliminate the enemy while respecting rules of engagement? However, if you are a law enforcement official (ie police officer) you are trained to de-intensify the situation and preserve life? Therefore I don't see a police officer coming back and shooting him 5 times while a veteran might? Furthermore, I don't see a well trained police officer shooting the robber in the first place? It seems like the best thing to do is to calm the situation and let the robbers get whatever drugs they want without harming anybody. Then, make a mental note of the suspects, try to get their license plate number and car model and call for backup. The worst thing you want as a law enforcement official is to start a firefight.
I have no background in law enforcement nor military so I would appreciate your opinion and comments.
Hey MRSA,
I'm going to reply to both you and tomk a little bit in this reply, since otherwise it's just going to get messy in terms of quotes and stuff.
Tomk is correct, police and military are trained in very similar ways, and that is to kill. You aim center mass, you do not aim for 'trick shot' targets like kneecaps, arms, or hands like the media would like you to think. LEOs are trained (I am POST certified) to fire only if lethal force is necessary and justified, and thus the intention is to kill. "Warning shots", while common when I was deployed, are not common in the states for law enforcement.
I think your scenario of a veteran
necessarily shooting the robber another 5 times on the way back by is not necessarily accurate, so as to say that if he had been a retired police officer, he necessarily would not have done that, you know what I mean? I have been diagnosed with PTSD and recurring night terrors associated with the syndrome, and my reactions to stressors are not "normal" (One of the DSM-IV hallmark characteristics of someone with PTSD vs. someone without). It is entirely feasible that this pharmacist felt he was under attack from whatever aggressor he fought in combat and thus lost control and could not think rationally... Add to the situation that under any exigent circumstances the human body, no matter how well trained, still operates via our limbic system (fight or flight) to a certain degree, I can certainly see how he could feel angry enough to fire upon the individual again. HOWEVER, Tomk is correct also.
In perspective, I remember a convoy operation going from LSA Anaconda, in Balad where we were stationed to Tikrit in an impromptu EPW exchange. We have very large signs on the tail and lead vehicles declaring, in both MSA and Iraqi Dialect, Persian Farsi, Dari, and Pashto that if you approach the convoy you WILL be fired upon. A vehicle containing what appeared to be civilians disregarded our signs, and attempted to pass us (Convoys typically drive REALLY slow, due to several reasons, and can upset normal flows of traffic). We were authorized under RoE to fire at the vehicle
to disable it. This car continued to attempt to pass, so under the RoE, we fired upon it aiming at the front of the car, to disable instead of destroy. Had we stopped our escort vehicle, turned around, and went back to "finish the job", we would have been court martialed (Had it been deemed to be unproportional and, essentially, murder).
It seems to me, and this is why I'm asking Passion4sci since he's former military, is that military are less hesitant to use their weapons while law enforcement are more critical to using their weapon. Keep in mind this is a function of the environment. Enforcing laws in Oklahoma and keeping the peace is substantially different from patrolling the streets of Baghdad
Definitely took some time to think about how to reply well to this. It's difficult, because I can't say with a blanket generalization that we are "less hesitant" to use our weapons to defend ourselves than a LEO necessarily would be. In many circumstances, our hands are even
more tied than a LEO would similarly be restricted owing to the vast cultural differences that we have to observe while deployed in theater (i.e., if you're pinned down by insurgents and they're shooting at you from a Mosque, you cannot simply fire into the mosque without gaining permission from higher). The short answer is it all depends on the circumstances. Traffic control points are particularly dangerous because you as a Soldier need to decide within a split second whether to send a barrage of fire at a speeding vehicle or simply move out of the way.
Now, are we fired upon more often in Iraq than police officers are fired upon in OK? Of course, that's a non-issue. More often than not, we are fired upon from locations where we cannot directly see our aggressor, and have to return fire in a cover/suppression manner, instead of directly to kill the combatant(s).
If an insurgent runs toward our position at a TCP or a post-raid tieup or a cordon and search, and we fire 40 rounds at him, then that's that. Much different, like was mentioned earlier, than when a police officer fires 40 rounds at a suspect at a traffic stop (even if lethal force is justified). A lot of this owes to the weaponry we have at our disposal. For example, no one tries to impugne SWAT for dumping 300 rounds into a group of 4 bad guys holding people hostage, right?
Listen, this guy was obviously not on active duty at any time in the recent past. I'm guessing a vet.of Desert Storm/Shield at the very most, probably Grenada/Korea more than anything else. This is a group of people who have been abused and shunned by the VA, and have no mental health resources at all available to them. It's sad, but it's true. I'm not saying PTSD would excuse his behavior but it certainly makes it understandable to me!
If a friend jokingly swings at me, I can overreact and flash right back to close-quarters combat raiding houses in Mosul, and do serious damage to him. This is not to say that it happens every day, that I walk around like Rambo with a big machete on my belt, or anyting at all to that nature... But without proper anti-anxiety medication, PTSD can rot and fester and be triggered by any number of things. I still hit the ground when a car back fires. This is an aspect of military existence that civilians mostly never understand, and it's really difficult for us to talk about it.
I really did not want to turn this thread into "he was ex-military so he's okay for blowing that dude away". I'm not saying that AT ALL, so please don't get me wrong here; however, I think people, especially civilians who haven't a lick of idea of what LEO/Military endure on a regular basis, are quick to judge and slow to understand.
I think that's enough of a novel for the more liberal of our posters to rip me apart over, so I hope that helped shed some light on your query, MRSA.
