Here’s what then happened in the next few seconds:

Look at how fast this suspect attacked the officer with the knife:

05:01:55 – The officer stops his patrol car and shifts into park.

05:00:00 – The suspect exits his car.

05:00:02 – The suspect is slashes the officer in the face with a butcher knife.

If you’ve never seen a perfect example of the Tueller Drill, you now have.  Dennis Teuller was a police officer with the Salt Lake City PD, and he did a number of experiments regarding distance and reaction time.

The classic Teuller Drill essentially demonstrated a subject standing 21′ away from an officer can close the distance and stab an officer in about 1.5 seconds.  The average officer can probably draw his firearm and fire one shot in about the same amount of time.

The distance between the officer attacked and the suspect when he exited the car?  About 22′.

I know there are some people who might think the officers waited too long to start shooting the suspect.  Technically, the criticism would be correct insomuch as deadly force was justified prior to the actual use of deadly force.  However, reaction time isn’t an easy thing to calculate when under stress and in bad lighting conditions.

Reaction Time and Stress

In a reaction time study I reported on here, under ideal conditions, a police officer who knew he was going to be attacked with deadly force (no decision making involved), had a reaction time from threat to first shot of 0.39 seconds.  Keep in mind that is under ideal conditions:  lighting, weather and full knowledge of the threat.

In anything less than ideal conditions, reaction time will become longer.  Officers who are in body alarm response (aka “fight or flight”) suffer from various vision and cognitive effects, meaning reaction time can be slowed as the officers try to see what is in the suspect’s hand and form a proper response to the threat.

Lighting Conditions

As I reported in the article Visual Perception in Low Light, under non-threatening/non-stressful conditions well rested recruits had a great deal of difficulty in identifying known threats in low light.  In low light conditions, objects in the hand are very difficult to identify with any certainty.  In the dynamic conditions of a violent encounter, threat identification becomes vastly more difficult.

The shooting happened at about 5 am.  It was dark out with mainly lights from the patrol cars illuminating the scene.  The white light from the patrol cars were pointed in various directions, though at least one officer pointed his spotlight on the driver’s door (good job!)

The strobe effect of the emergency lights on the cars can also hinder the ability of officers to clearly identify an object or action.

The lighting conditions on the scene may have been enough alone to slow the officers reaction time simply because they were not able to instantly identify the knife.

Lessons:

• An end of the pursuit is not the end of the incident.
• Deadly attacks happen extremely fast.
• Distance is time and safety.
• Never give up.

Ultimately, the officer was injured and the suspect was killed.  The suspect was shot seven times and died at the hospital.  The shooting was ruled as a justified homicide.

Stay safe!

(A full, unedited copy of the video is available for download in the Blue Crew membership area.)

The E7 is built by Carbon Motors specifically for law enforcement work.  Instead of adapting a sedan to police work, they have built a police car from the ground up.  If you haven’t seen or read about these cars, it is well worth your while to visit their website and see them for yourself.  The Crown Vic isn’t bad, for what it is, but having something designed for the job we do would be a welcome change!

The 2008 Pure Justice Tour dates:

Chicago, IL Tuesday, October 14
Indianapolis, IN Monday, October 20
Columbus, OH Thursday, October 23
San Diego, CA Saturday, November 8 – 12
San Jose, CA Tuesday, November 18
San Francisco, CA Saturday, November 22 – 29
Greenville, SC Thursday, December 4 – 9
Jacksonville, FL Wednesday, December 10 – 14
Tampa, FL Monday, December 15 – 19

Stay safe!

The Plate Flipper is a device that installs behind the license plate of a car or motorcycle.  When activated, the plate flips down, rendering the license plate completely unreadable.  The speed is nearly instantaneous.

The device could be used to avoid tolls, as well as concealing the identity of the driver in more serious crimes.

Stay safe!

The police officers in this video were chasing a suspect when he suddenly slammed on the brake, causing a collision with the officer’s car. This is a fairly common tactic used by subjects, with the goal of causing the officer’s airbags to deploy. When the airbags deploy, the suspect can then speed away.

However, in this pursuit, when the suspect is hit by the patrol car, the suspect’s vehicle spins out. What many officers may not be prepared for is the suspect exits his car, moves to the rear of the car, and while using cover, the suspect engages the officers in a gun fight.

After a short gun battle, the suspect gets back into his car and drives off. After the suspect hits a spike strip, he begins to get out of his car. One of the pursuing officers, knowing the subject is armed and all means of deadly force are authorized, rams the suspect with his patrol car.

The two lessons that I take away from this incident are:

1. Suspects do not always run at the end of a car chase. A lot of them do, but some suspects are well armed and use good tactics. Be prepared to engage them with deadly force.
2. Keep all deadly force options available to you. That .40 caliber Glock or .223 rifle both generate a lot of force, but a 3000 (or so) pound cruiser can generate a lot more. If the suspect presents a deadly force threat, running him over is not just a viable option, it may be the best!

Here is the video.

Stay safe!