TheAgitator.com
Don’t Bother Defending Yourself in Maine New Hampshire
Monday, November 16th, 2009
Two people in dark clothes follow you for several blocks. It’s after midnight. You look back several times at them. They say nothing, but they continue to follow. What to do? Well, don’t even think about menacingly gripping that pocket knife you’re carrying to scare them off. They could be undercover cops conducting a training exercise.
A Kensington man was found guilty of criminal threatening for holding an open pocket knife at his side while asking two people who were walking behind him at midnight, “Why are you following me?”
The pair walking behind Dustin Almon, 28, of 27 Wild Rose Lane, were state Liquor Enforcement cops, both in plain clothes without any indicators that they were members of law enforcement, according to testimony during a Thursday Portsmouth District Court trial. Both were also carrying concealed handguns and Tasers, they testified.
One of them, Officer Anthony Cattabriga, said he was walking behind Almon on Chapel Street on Nov. 8, 2008, when Almon turned around three times to look at him and a new officer he was training. It was dark and Almon was twenty feet away when he displayed a knife with a two-inch blade the third time he turned around, said Cattabriga.
“He pointed it down by his side,” the liquor officer testified, while demonstrating with Almon’s seized pocket knife.
When he responded by yelling “police,” Almon folded the knife, clipped it to his belt and complied with all subsequent police orders, Cattabriga testified.
Almon was initially arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, but the charge was later upgraded to criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.
“I feared for my safety,” Cattabriga said from a District Court witness stand.
In summary, Almon was 20 feet away, holding only a pocket knife, which he immediately gave up when he realized the two officers were police. Cattabriga was with another officer, both were carrying both handguns and tasers, and they were following Almon. But it was Officer Cattabriga who apparently feared for his safety.
Thanks to William Anderson for sending along the story.
CORRECTION: As indicated in the headline, this happened in New Hampshire, not Maine.
So, I guess the officers will be charged with same since they placed Almon in fear of bodily injury?
Sounds like entrapement.
Hit the button too soon. One other thing, how does someone with such poor judgement get to be a, um, judge? Note that “judge” is the first part of “judgement”.
Holy crap, what a moron.
What training exercise were they conducting exactly?
The scare the shit out of people who are minding their own business exercise?
Were they trying to tail a suspect without being discovered?
Fail.
Maybe they were practicing how not to be total dicks to law abiding citizens?
Fail.
Of all the stories I’ve read here I think this rates as most ridiculous.
Radley, this has nothing to do with Maine. This happened in Portsmouth, NH to a resident of Kensington, NH.
this is pretty appropriate- demonstrating E German police tactics on the 20th anniversary of the wall’s coming down!
anyone who’s spent any time around cops already knows how this is a great story for the cops to share- ‘…this dumbass shows up to a gunfight armed with a LITTLE pocket knife…’
I’m glad he wasn’t walking his dog.
After all those abuses by King George and his henchmen,
after toiling over the right words in the Constitution and
Declaration of Independence,
I think this is the type of Republic that Jefferson
and his colleagues had in mind.
Liquor Enforcement Police out after midnight in a “training” exercise?
I don’t believe it.
They were out looking for trouble.
Trying to provoke a reaction from some unnerved citizen so that they could either shoot them or Taze them, depending on their mood.
The most telling part is that the judge didn’t say “Training exercise? What do mean? Training for what? Why would you be using unsuspecting people for training in this way?”. It’s just accepted that anyone who isn’t a LEO is at the disposal of police to whatever end they choose. Non-cops have been essentially reduced practice dummies.
Also, I wonder if there was anything that Mr. Almon could have done (other than continue walking at exactly the same pace) that wouldn’t have ended in his arrest. I’d be willing to bet that if he started sprinting away, he’d have been charged with something.
This was in New Hampshire not Maine. You know the “Live free or Die” state.
Gee, you’d think the first two times the guy turned around and looked at them, they’d have figured out that they had been spotted.
The trainee officer learned a valuable lesson! How to make the arrest quota by randomly arresting people!
Only a cop can get away with charging someone with a crime that they themselves were committing.
The tactic is awesome, too. No matter WHAT happens… they have probable cause to arrest the guy.
Let’s go down the possibles:
you’re walking down a deserted street. There are 2 jokers intentionally following you, only 20 feet behind you.
Any rational person would be frightened. You glance behind… once, twice… a third time. They’re still right on your ass.
So! You:
1) Start running. Whoops! That’s resisting arrest! You’re taken down hard, probably tasered.
2) You quickly cross the street. Whoops! That’s probable cause that you’re a drug dealer! See number 1.
3) Walk faster. Which leads to 1 or 2.
4) Confront them in any way. Whoops! That’s “Interfering with official police business” which is the PC that segues into “Resisting Arrest”, the crime you’re actually arrested for.
So… if you’re walking along at midnight, and 2 guys start following you… you’re fucked! If they’re crooks you’re fucked, if they’re cops you’re fucked. (Wait… that’s redundant) About the only way you’re NOT totally fucked is if they’re Mormans or Scientologists who just want to give you the 411 on their awesome religion.
It’s lose lose across the board!
Lets hope the appeal goes well for him.
When you train new guys and McDonalds, you show them how to make the shakes. That’s their job.
And when you train new guys at Ford, you show them how to attach the doors to the cars. That’s their job.
And when you train new police officers, you show them how to fuck with the peasants. That’s their job.
While I agree this is a ludicrous arrest and charges, I have to take issue with your assessment that a cop carrying a gun is in no danger from a person 20 feet away with a drawn knife. One of the staple law enforcement firearm training exercises, the Tueller Drill, is constructed to illustrate this exact situation, and emphasize to trainees that an attacker can close 21 feet and stab them multiple times before they can draw a hip-holstered sidearm — not even a concealed one — and fire it. So I don’t blame the cops for thinking that they were in significant danger at that range — they were, had he been inclined to attack.
I do fault them quite severely for a complete lack of judgment in this situation, however. A person who believes he’s being stalked at night is quite reasonable in drawing a weapon to defend himself when confronting multiple potential assailants, and the officers don’t seem to dispute that he held the knife at his side, not brandishing it in front of himself as an overt threat. This case is a travesty.
I’d really like to think that, this being NH, he was charged with criminal stupidity for bringing a gun to a knife fight. But I’m not too hopeful.
Son of a bitch, we are soooo fucked!
If this can happen in the “Live Free or Die” state, imagine the possibilities.
So, a couple of cops stalk someone late at night, scare the heck out of him, and when he decides to begin possibly defending himself, gets arrested. Unbelievable.
Time and time I hear, “But ours is the best justice system in the world, blah, blah, blah.) What I want to know is this: If the USA has had the world’s best justice system, why in the world do we want to turn what we have had into a system that is akin to that in a Third-World dictatorship?
“I feared for my safety,” Cattabriga said. That should have been Dustin Almon`s defense.
“Liquor Enforcement cops” .. Does their training include looking for people brown bagging it? Shouldnt they be going into bars looking for underage drinkers, or sending cute teen girls into stores trying to buy?
Again, I fear for my safety around cops. Can we start shooting them yet?
Thanks to all the Massholes moving north, NH ain’t what it used to be.
“Liquor Enforcement cops” .. Does their training include looking for people brown bagging it? Shouldnt they be going into bars looking for underage drinkers, or sending cute teen girls into stores trying to buy?
Nah, New Hampshire Liquor Enforcement cops real job is to make sure that nobody is trying to muscle in on the state run monopoly on liquor sales.
Two of them, one of him, and he’s armed with a 2-inch knife, and they think they are in significant danger?
To hell with America. It can’t be fixed.
I’ll bet he’d have gotten a similar result even if he only brandished his fists.
Amen, M.
There is no end to charges every cop has at his command to throw you in the pokey if he wants.
Free State Project, my fat ass.
Someone must have traduced Joseph K…
“Free State Project, my fat ass.”
Seriously. Where are all of theses freestaters we have been hearing about? We at least need something to balance out the inflow of Massholes.
The last sentence of the article says they intend to appeal. I should hope so. Reading this made me nauseous.
Unbelievable. Total travesty. Stories like this make me crazy.
He’s clearly not guilty by the the actual working of the law (emphasis added).
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/lxii/631/631-4.htm
631:4 Criminal Threatening. –
I. A person is guilty of criminal threatening when:
(a) By physical conduct, the person purposely places or attempts to place another in fear of imminent bodily injury or physical contact;
District Courts in NH can be a joke. They are roughly the equivalent of municipal court, and mostly deal with traffic tickets. There are no juries (only available at Superior Court), and seldom any lawyers involved except for the judge (the prosecutor is usually a police officer).
The sheep in this country are so irrationally fearful of sheep dogs that they treat them like wolves.
I used to drive a local delivery truck and there was a spot behind a hotel which was used as a short cut by a lot of drivers. A bylaw enforcement officer who mostly hung out in the hotel bar was notorious for making his stop and inspect quota for cartage licences by making easy stops behind the hotel. One of our drivers, a recent immigrant from Greece, noticed this officer (plainclothes) following him – so he got out of his truck waving a 2 by 4 and told him to back off.
This was in Canada, so the officer apologized and asked for his cartage licence, inspected it, and sent the Greek (that’s what we called him) on his way. I shudder to think how that little encounter would have unfolded in an Amerika where the Tories and their authoritarian henchmen have undone the Revolution to such an extent. What’s wrong with you fucking people?
The cops created the dangerous scenario by their behavior, and the guy had a reasonable reaction. It’s pure corruption that the cops did this, filed charges, the DA gave it a green light, and the judge arrived at his (pre-determined) decision. Let’s not beat around the bush, Team Law knew EXACTLY what they were doing — showing a peasant his proper role in the pecking order. Private justice is the solution.
KBCraig: I disagree with your interpretation of the statute. He intended to show the knife to warn off his potential assailants. What I have trouble with is not THAT statute, but (a) that there is no appropriate defense (b) that there is no common sense. I would do the same as him any day.
[...] and they were following Almon. But it was Officer Cattabriga who apparently feared for his safety. Don’t Bother Defending Yourself in Maine New Hampshire | The Agitator Original Story – Man who held knife at side guilty of threatening liquor cops | SeacoastOnline.com [...]
“While I agree this is a ludicrous arrest and charges, I have to take issue with your assessment that a cop carrying a gun is in no danger from a person 20 feet away with a drawn knife”
Irrelevant. The fact is that the cop has the gun and is legally empowered to carry AND use that gun at will (save a few minor and easily surmountable exceptions), whereas a commoner on the street is not. Cops therefore AUTOMATICALLY have the advantage in virtually every dangerous situation they will ever encounter.
They have the advantage in tools (a gun) in most situations, the absolute worst case scenario being that the other guy has an equal tool by also carrying a gun. And in that situation they still ALWAYS have the advantage and legal immunity/impunity of their badge, even when they are committing crimes.
I have absolutely no sympathy for any cop who claims his job is difficult or dangerous. Cops face nowhere near the danger that any common citizen faces by simply stepping out his front door because, unlike cops, that citizen’s right to protect himself and carry the necessary tools to do so is severely constricted by the government and enforced upon him by those very same cops, as this story proves.
Sometime soon, a similar story like this is going to play out. The news lead will be “2 dead police found in alleyway. No suspects yet.”
And I could also add that the so-called “Tueller Drill” is based on a completely unscientific advice article that a cop wrote for a popular police magazine about 25 years ago.
It’s only underlying basis is a casual and unscientific observation that a fast, fit, and competent attacker could gain 21 feet on his victim in about 1.5 seconds. As a matter of self defense this is completely practical and valuable advice. But cops have long since turned it into an excuse to use deadly force or claim that they feel “threatened” by just about any living thing that steps within 21 feet of them.
Wonder why the police report in this case said the guy with the knife was 20 feet away? It’s not like cops walk around with measuring tapes to calculate that stuff. They wrote he was 20 feet away to make their “guesstimate” consistent with the pseudo-scientific hypothetical of the “Tueller Drill,” which is in turn the likely basis of department policy for being able to claim that they felt “threatened.”
Police reports are filled out by formula with the explicit intent of making them hold up in court. They are aggressively taught and trained to write them that way and make sure all parts of the formula are met, whether true or not.
If I were this guy, I would have called 911 while I held my pocket knife at my side.
“Don’t bother defending yourself.”
WTF? You have “defend” yourself by brandishing a weapon just because someone is walking behind you while wearing “dark clothes.” Seriously?
It sounds to me like the guy is a douchebag who panicked and the arrest seems fine to me.
Here’s the thing: if I am walking down the street minding my own business (perhaps even wearing dark colored cloting!) and some squirrely guy in front of turns around and pulls a blade from 20 feet away, I am drawing my Sig. Best to discourage nervous nellies from drawing blades on people.
PW – I don’t know whether the “Tueller drill” is scientific or not – but I’ve attended firearms training classes that started with an instructor with a (fake) standing 7 yards away from a student with a holstered weapon and it is always just about a tie re whether or not the student can appreciate the risk, clear leather and get on target before the instructor is on him or her with the knife.
I have as much distrust of the police as anyone and I am just looking at this from the point of a citizen walking down the street. If someone brandishes a knife within 20 feet, I’m drawing my weapon while we sort things out.
Perhaps there is more to this story than is reported. Perhaps they were menacing him somehow. Perhaps he crossed the street and they followed him. I don’t know.
“tde4″ — thanks for the rebuttal on the “Tueller drill”. I learned it from the man himself. I would react just as you describe. There is nothing as frightening as (1) knowing the assailant is going to come after you, (2) knowing he has a knife, and (3) being unable to defend yourself before he plants the knife into you.
tj
#43 – Your firearms classes actually demonstrate the fault of any cops who claim they are inherently threatened by 20 feet of distance.
An instructor (i.e. somebody who is highly trained) can indeed reach a novice student before or at a tie with the draw of a gun. But is that necessarily the case with all attackers in all circumstances? I would think that a cop, who supposedly has extensive firearms training (and they all never cease boasting about how they do), would have a faster draw than somebody who is taking a one-time self defense class. I would also expect that an instructor who teaches that class for a living would have a faster attack time with the knife than the random assailant off the street.
My point is that the “Tueller drill” is not a scientific measurement of anything, but cops and cop policies treat it as if it were a matter of uncontested fact.
In reality simple common sense applies – some assailants are faster than others and some people are quicker at the draw than others. And because of that there is no “magic number” in time or distance that can determine whether a danger exists. It is therefore silly and counterfactual for a cop to assert so absent any evidence that the person was actually attacking.
“If someone brandishes a knife within 20 feet, I’m drawing my weapon while we sort things out.”
And if it was a simple misunderstanding where the knife guy thought you were following him, then explaining that you’re a cop on a training exercise and APOLOGIZING for startling him should be more than sufficient to “sort things out.”
The guy put his knife away after all.
Apparently apologizing was beneath these two fuckheads in New Hampshire though, so they trumped up a charge and arrested him.
PW
Not really. I would say that your idea that there is some sort of “scientific” principle at work here is the real mistake. There are all kinds of variables here and it is quite reasonable, in my mind, to treat a drawn knife 20 feet away as a threat. Your idea that someone __isn’t__ a threat because they are 20 feet away is equally unscientific.
Could a well-trained and alert cop clear leather and get two shots off before contact if the guy had charged? Maybe. But who cares?
And I don’t know what “criminal threatening” means and how that is interpreted. Some states have a “brandishing” law that criminalizes just flashing a gun – without actually pointing it at someone.
I would just ask you to do this: Do we, as a society, want to permit (and thereby encourage) people to turn around on the sidewalk, pull a knife, and demand to people behind them that they explain themselves? I don’t think so.
Like I said, the cops may have been up to more than the clip says, of course.
tde4 –
Let me get this straight.
A claim has been put forth that it takes about 1.5 seconds for a knife-wielding assailant to travel 21 feet. Those numbers are also the basis of policy and training at police departments all over the country.
If that is indeed the case, then surely those numbers must originate somewhere. And surely that origin must have some sort of grounding in reality – i.e. replicable, controlled scientific testing of human speed and reaction times in various situations. Otherwise the numbers put forth would be purely anecdotal, and therefore a poor basis for either policy or training.
But – oh wait – we do know the origin of those numbers. They came from a 1983 advice column in a cop magazine, and it was indeed entirely anecdotal. You accordingly have no grounds to assert that a threat necessarily existed simply because the knife guy was 20 feet away.
“Could a well-trained and alert cop clear leather and get two shots off before contact if the guy had charged? Maybe. But who cares?”
I certainly care. Or is it improper of me to expect that the police my tax dollars employ are competent and well trained at what they do? I’m sorry, but a doughnut-huffing fatass with a slow draw has no more business being a cop than a guy who can’t swim has at being a lifeguard.
“I would just ask you to do this: Do we, as a society, want to permit (and thereby encourage) people to turn around on the sidewalk, pull a knife, and demand to people behind them that they explain themselves?”
They followed him down a dark street in the middle of the night. He turned around and glared at them no less than three times and they continued following him. He also asked why they were following him as he turned around the fourth time, knife in hand in case they intended him harm. That course of action under those circumstances should not only be permissible and encouraged as a basic precept of self defense in our society. It should be openly acknowledged as a fundamental right of a human being to protect his own person from threats.
Those two cops were a far bigger threat to the knife guy than he was to them. And to put it bluntly in case you still don’t understand me: given what we know of how the cops handled the situation, he might have even been justified in using his knife had they persisted further in their antics.
PW
You need to relax a bit.
I don’t have the statute in front of me, but I am guessing that it prohibits conduct that a “reasonable person” would find threatening. You understand that the “reasonable” person is mythical, right? It isn’t “replicable, controlled scientific, etc.” If you get enough people on a jury to say they would have felt threatened, they guy goes to jail.
So I think your focus on the Tueller study or whatever is misplaced. I agree with you completely that it is not scientific. But that really doesn’t matter at all.
The idea that something has to be “scientific” (whatever that is) is pretty alien to interpreting most statutes.
Isn’t it funny how whenever a news story depicts cops in an unflattering light their defenders always appeal to speculative unknowns to shirk any responsibility?
“We don’t know all the facts yet”
“There might be more to this story”
Yet when it’s a cop’s word versus somebody else in a news story, those excuses strangely seem not to apply.
“Or is it improper of me to expect that the police my tax dollars employ are competent and well trained at what they do?”
Probably, unless you like to be disappointed.
“They followed him down a dark street in the middle of the night.”
Did they? Or were they just walking behind him? The clip doesn’t say.
“He turned around and glared at them no less than three times and they continued following him.”
So he was “glaring”? The clip says he “looked” at them. Anyway, what is your proposed rule here? If person A is walking down the street in front of you and he or she turns and “glares” are you supposed to stop? Turn and walk the other way? And, remember that the story said it was dark so even if the nervous nelly was “glaring” the two cops might not have been able to notice. Heck, they might not have even known that he turned to look at them.
“He also asked why they were following him as he turned around the fourth time, knife in hand in case they intended him harm. That course of action under those circumstances should not only be permissible and encouraged as a basic precept of self defense in our society. It should be openly acknowledged as a fundamental right of a human being to protect his own person from threats.”
What was the threat, exactly? Walking behind him? Wearing “dark” clothes?
“And to put it bluntly in case you still don’t understand me: given what we know of how the cops handled the situation, he might have even been justified in using his knife had they persisted further in their antics.”
What were these “antics” again? Perhaps you know more about this situation than I do but last time I checked it was permissible for people to walk down the street after dark even if there is someone walking in front of them.
Yawn.
The New Hampshire law is posted right above you in #32. It specifically requires that the threatening act be purposeful. A defensive draw of a knife against suspicious persons who are later learned to be cops is not a purposeful threat.
New Hampshire law also allows a person to act in self defense if he believes he is being threatened by another, as the knife guy clearly thought of the men following him.
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/LXII/627/627-4.htm
As for the “Tueller Drill” – it is not accurate to call it a study as it was not a study of anything but rather an advice column on self defense – if it is not scientific and relies only on anecdotal guesstimation then how can you advocate basing a policy with life and death consequences upon it? That is all I am asking of it, and the answers you are giving border on the absurd.
“This was in New Hampshire not Maine. You know the “Live free or Die” state.”
Too many Massholes moved in. It’s now the “Try to Live Free and Die” state.
Advice from someone who lived in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn: When your only weapon is a jackknife with a 2″ blade, the proper response to being followed late at night by two men is to run like hell.
//I would just ask you to do this: Do we, as a society, want to permit (and thereby encourage) people to turn around on the sidewalk, pull a knife, and demand to people behind them that they explain themselves? I don’t think so.//
Suppose the people in back weren’t cops, but merely innocent people who hadn’t intended to intimidate or distress the person in front. In such a scenario, would it not be better that the person in front show his armament and intention to resist attack, while there is enough distance for the parties to safely reconcile their misunderstanding, than for him to wait until the people in back were closer?
The police claim that they felt threatened is preposterous if, as they claim, they were walking toward the accused and the accused was trying to walk away from them. By the time the police reacted to the guy’s knife, it should have become clear that he wasn’t a threat; if he would have intended to attack them without their advancing further upon him, he would have already done so.
“As for the “Tueller Drill” – it is not accurate to call it a study as it was not a study of anything but rather an advice column on self defense – if it is not scientific and relies only on anecdotal guesstimation then how can you advocate basing a policy with life and death consequences upon it? That is all I am asking of it, and the answers you are giving border on the absurd.”
Many, if not most, of our criminal laws and civil torts are based on a “reasonable person” test which not scientific and relies on anecdotal guesstimation. That’s the way it is.
“In such a scenario, would it not be better that the person in front show his armament and intention to resist attack, while there is enough distance for the parties to safely reconcile their misunderstanding, than for him to wait until the people in back were closer?”
That sounds like a bad idea, to me: people pulling out their weapons to display them to insure there are no misunderstandings. It seems to me that “misunderstandings” multiply once the weapons are out. Just sayin’.
“Advice from someone who lived in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn: When your only weapon is a jackknife with a 2″ blade, the proper response to being followed late at night by two men is to run like hell.”
Yep.
Agreed supercat. Too many people get arrested or worse for indicating they have the means to protect themselves, so I wouldn’t do that (though I might make sure I have my keys in my hand) but at 20 feet the proper response is “It’s cool, we’re just heading to _____, sorry to have alarmed you.”
There was a PSA in the early 70s where some guy is being followed down the streets by two teens, getting more and more nervous as they get closer, then they pass a streetlight and he sees they’re Boy Scouts. None of it is unlikely.
“But – oh wait – we do know the origin of those numbers. They came from a 1983 advice column in a cop magazine, and it was indeed entirely anecdotal. You accordingly have no grounds to assert that a threat necessarily existed simply because the knife guy was 20 feet away.”
That drill is a staple of self defense classes. The guy or gal with the knife almost always gets to contact distance before the defender draws, which is the point – even if you have a gun, someone with an edged weapon at that distance is a very credible threat, and you need to be moving, deflecting, etc. while you draw.
I would add that the student defenders are, IMHE, at least as competent as the average officer (in the ones I have taken, some of the students are officers trying to upgrade their skills), and aren’t using a retention holster either (retention holsters slow your draw down a little bit).
That said, prosecution seems unwarranted if he reasonably believed the officers were a threat, if they had followed after he crossed the street, etc. That’s a totality of the circumstances thing, and I don’t know all the circumstances. You do want people to be restrained about pulling out weapons. Suppose you’re following someone because they happen to be going the same place you are. When they turn and draw their gun, do you draw yours? As the saying goes, what could possibly go wrong with that?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brandish
brandish: to shake or wave, as a weapon; flourish
Having a firearm visible isn’t brandishing, whether the word is in quotes or not, because brandish means to have it in your hands and pointed in someone’s general direction.
The Tueller Doctrine is a number picked out of air, and is impossible to scientifically prove that 21 feet is the right number. I believe it’s intended more as a general number, not THE exact number. However, this assumes that one doesn’t move while the attacked moves towards you. It’s best to use as a guideline, as anyone at about that distance could be a threat. However (again), cops use it rigidly and jump at their own shadow and get away with blurting out “21 feet” and “I feared for my own life” without question. They know they are lying and saying the magic words, and shouldn’t be cops if they’re so damn scared. But we all know that some cops got into that line of “employment” so they could put their boot on your throat and up your ass for no reason other than “I can”.
#60 – Well put. That’s exactly the issue with the whole Tueller thing. It’s fine and in fact very useful as a piece of self defense advice. That’s actually how it was originally conceptualized – a cop wrote about it as a self-defense strategy for other cops in dealing with attacking criminals.
But cops don’t use it that way. They use it as a magic number to determine whether they perceived a threat. And as long as anything is within about 20 feet of them they can say they “followed procedure.” That’s absurd because they are taking an anecdotal piece of wisdom, the Tueller drill, and treating it as if it were a scientific standard to determine whether or not their life was in danger.
#3 What do you call a lawyer with an 80 IQ?
“Your honor.”
“Many, if not most, of our criminal laws and civil torts are based on a “reasonable person” test which not scientific and relies on anecdotal guesstimation. That’s the way it is.”
No. That’s actually not the way it is at all, and your thinking otherwise suggests you are someone who possesses a passing acquaintance with the law that one might expect from those silly “criminal justice” night classes at the community college that cater primarily to cops seeking a promotion to a bigger city department.
In reality “reasonable person” is simply the most basic summary generalization of how a written codified law, including some very specific written codified laws with even more specific and stringent standards, are read and interpreted in the public sphere and before the court. Specific crimes have specific degrees of severity, specific codified defenses and exemptions, specific conditions to define their criminality, and specific instances of case law governing their application. Most of these very specific characteristics are designed and intended to reflect equally specific variations in the mind and intent of the accused as he was committing the alleged act.
But who am I to comment on that. Practically every cop I’ve ever known considers himself an “expert” on every last detail of the law, irrespective of the truth in that claim.
“No. That’s actually not the way it is at all, and your thinking otherwise suggests you are someone who possesses a passing acquaintance with the law that one might expect from those silly “criminal justice” night classes at the community college that cater primarily to cops seeking a promotion to a bigger city department.”
Oh I see. You think I am a cop or something like that.
And now that you’ve demonstrated that you don’t have a clue what you are talking about, you’ve decided to move on to insults.
Good for you Timmy [pats head].
If there’s any state where that guy would be acquitted by a jury, it’s New Hampshire. Find a good lawyer Dustin, demand your 7th Amendment right to a jury trial, and fight the good fight.
@#36 | SJE | November 16th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Even the police testimony said that he held the knife (all two inches of it) point-down alongside his leg and made no threatening moves. Police testimony said that as soon as they identified themselves, he closed the knife, clipped it to his belt, and obeyed all their commands.
This was a training exercise, all right: how to write up a report to create a crime where none existed.
Thanks for all the comments pointing out that the Tueller Drill, while a valuable training aid, is smoke and mirrors when it comes to police reports.
The chief fault of the Tueller Drill is that it requires drawing a gun in response to a knife. There are alternatives.
The Tueller Principle may have been stumbled upon accidentally during a police training exercise, but it has been tested extensively and scientifically since first publication in SWAT magazine in 1983. It has also been tested extensively and practically if not scientifically by thousands of people attending handgun self defense classes. YOU can do the drill with a group of friends or family members, and you’ll find that the results average out just as Lt. Tueller said they did 26 years ago. The informal studies have everyone from college football players to septuagenarians closing the 21 foot gap in under two seconds. Search YouTube for “Tueller Drill” and you’ll find plenty of practical demonstrations of the Tueller Principle.
The Tueller Principle is accepted in self-defense arguments in courts throughout the US to establish a clear and present danger to anyone. Police may set policies based on the Tueller Principle, but civilians benefit from it by having an established guidline for threat assessment.
Those cops? Certainly cretins.
@66: Drawing a gun in response to a deadly threat is merely sensible. The Tueller Drill doesn’t “require drawing a gun in response to a knife.” The Tueller Drill demonstrates the need to be conscious of threats at a greater distance than an untrained individual would normally consider. Most people think that a knifer isn’t a threat except within extreme close ranges. That’s a potentially fatal misconception which the Tueller Drill dispels. A knifer is absolutely dangerous within 21 feet. It’s also just plain stupid to consider a knife to be a significantly less deadly threat than a gun. A knife in the hands of anyone with murderous intent is terrifically effective, and the wounds it produces horrifying. Drawing a gun is a very prudent response to a knife wielding loon. After reading the article here, click on the link to graphic images: http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2006/02/tueller-drill.html
Personally, I’m not interested in ever being the slashee.
Where the Tueller Drill and Tueller Principle fail is that they haven’t been adequately expanded to cover other hand weapon threats. What if your attacker has a claw hammer, hatchet, nightstick, collapsible baton or baseball bat? Do the ranges change significantly? Are you unsafe at 25 or even 30 feet if your assailant has a 32″ aluminum baseball bat or 9 iron?
There are other alternatives to drawing a gun in response to a knifer’s threats, none of which are as safe for the victim as defensive use of a handgun.