Family files claim in slaying of boy, 16, by lawmen (Dial 911 and die)

The San Francisco Chronicle ^ | August 25, 2007 | Henry K. Lee

[primeval patriot]

Isn't that another case?

Whoops, my mistake. You are correct.

[DJ MacWoW]

State police are our LEOs.

I wonder if we'll ever get the full story on this.

I think we have all we're going to get. The police wrote their reports directly after the events and the family is trying to make it racial.

I can't imagine being an officer and seeing a 16 yr old threatening his 6yr old brother with a knife. And 3 grown men, including the father, trying to subdue the 16 yr old and not succeeding. This is the stuff of nightmares.

[DJ MacWoW]

When a citizen, especially a child, is killed at the hands of the government the government must prove it acted rightly.

That "child" had a 6 yr old child at knifepoint as a hostage. 3 grown men, pepper spray and a baton didn't stop the 16 yr old from fighting. What should they have done?

[Mad Dawg]

No county cops? Wow! Here we have county and state police.

stuff of nightmares

Amen. I wonder if these deputies were told it was a hostage situation before they showed up? I can imagine trying to work out a plan on the fly while this poor kid is acting crazy and sitting on his little brother.

[Thumper1960]

As a matter of fact, my community does provide advanced training for police. The county has a new facility that trains local paid and volunteer firemen. Neighboring communities aren't always as well staffed or well trained as our local LEO's are. The issue is with the local communities.

By the way, as a taxpayer, legal citizen and one who is law abiding, I believe that does give me the right to raise concerns and even criticize when I feel it is warranted. When LEO's, past or present, retort with the usual red herring of 'you go do it and see how easy it is', I take that as a sign of insecurity in their own abilities to perform a duty that citizens at large charge them with accomplishing.

The people have a right to speak and be heard. This is not the "shut up and pay your friggin' taxes" the Left would hope it to be.

[Mad Dawg]

As a matter of fact, my community does provide advanced training for police.

Great! Are they hiring?

Of course, the remark about training had to do with "a sufficient background in nearly any martial art form". So is your county providing "a sufficient background in any martial art form"?

The issue is with the local communities.

No argument there.

By the way, as a taxpayer, legal citizen and one who is law abiding, I believe that does give me the right to raise concerns and even criticize when I feel it is warranted.When LEO's, past or present, retort with the usual red herring of 'you go do it and see how easy it is', I take that as a sign of insecurity in their own abilities to perform a duty that citizens at large charge them with accomplishing.

Two-parter:
(1) Please look at some of the Criticism" written in this thread. "Barney Fifes", provides what useful information? Somebody pontificating that because he knows some 16 year olds therefore all 16 year old should be as easy to subdue as he believes them to be. How would you respond to such a statement of faith?

(2)I note the words "the duty that the citizens at large charge them with accomplishing." The situation is muddied if (a) the citizens at large do not provide the wherewithal, which includes training; and (b)sue, as happened here recently, an LEO for returning fire when fired upon and actually hitting (and paralyzing) the guy who shot at him (and killed his K-9); and (c) hit us with the "Barney Fifes" instead of a criticism or comment that actually moves the question along.

This is what feeds into my rant about mindless complaining. I will eagerly join with you in complaining about MY Sheriff's Office and PD. The communication is abysmal. The failure to do serious "after-action" reviews" is, to me, frightening and frustrating. The jerking around by whiteshirts is unconscionable and pardonable only because they don't have enough personal insight to see what they are doing. And so on ...

But I invite you to reconsider this situation. One thing that would be very nice to have would be transcripts of the 911 call. Did the deputies know they were coming into a situation that looked like it involved a young child as hostage? In many departments hostage stuff is for specialists. Once they're on scene, can they plan a coordinated approach to the 16 yo kid brandishing the (if his leatherman is like mine) 2 7/8" blade and talking about "kill the kid"?

And while people here are talking about cowards valuing their own safety more than the mission, I'd like to note that where I volunteered if you got, say, cut, in the line of duty, your medical bills were on you. It's not like the community was falling all over itself to back us up.

It frustrates me that we may never get a good, non-tendentious breakdown of what actually happened. But it also frustrates me that with guys like Lt Col Grossman writing his excellent books "On Combat" and "On Killing" and with the very useful "Deadly Force Encounters", there still seems to be very little understanding (or even interest in understanding) of what actually happens when cops come on a scene where a potentially lethal weapon is being brandished by somebody who has means and access and is talking like he has motive.

Mind you, as a complete novice how came to this field after his 55th birthday and was one of the few gun-totin' chaplains since Bishop Odo, it blew my mind that I knew what "suicide by cop" was and my captain didn't.

Yeah, citizens, all of them, have the right to voice criticism. We have the obligation to do so as well as we can. And blanket condemnation of "Barney Fifes" doesn't seem to me to qualify as a thoughtful comment likely to lead, even by the smallest increment, to the possibility of a more satisfactory outcome the next time two enabling parents wait for their child to become really, extremely, way out there crazy before calling 911 - which they do because the chanting and singing didn't provide the reponse they'd hoped for.

Pardon typos. Getting sleepy here.

[Mad Dawg]

	Distractions and aggressive subjects; what a new study and past experience tell us Force Science News #79 August 24, 2007
www.ForceScienceNews.com

Distractions and aggressive subjects; what a new study and past experience tell us Force Science News #79 August 24, 2007

Researchers from the University of Kentucky confirmed recently what skillful cops have known for years: well-timed, well-crafted distractions can derail difficult suspects from violent intentions. The researchers tested this theory with drunks, but according to behavioral scientist Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center, their findings are relevant to a wide variety of tough-to-handle subjects, including the drug addled, the mentally ill, and the emotionally distraught or irate. Lewinski teaches distraction techniques in the law enforcement program at Minnesota State University-Mankato. "Distraction works well if you can pitch it right," he says. And in an interview with Force Science News, he offers some practical guidelines for doing so. [Please note the opportunity at the end of this report to share distraction strategies that have worked for you and that could be helpful to other officers.] First, the Kentucky study: THE PREMISE. With an assistant, Dr. Peter Giancola, a psychology professor at U.K. in Lexington, recruited 48 healthy male social drinkers between 21 and 33 years old, to test the hypothesis that well-timed distraction can help curb violence associated with intoxication. As LEOs well know, "acute alcohol consumption is [often] related to aggressive behavior," Giancola states, with "alcohol involved in about 50 per cent of violent crimes." According to a psychological theory called the attention-allocation model, drunkenness narrows a person's field of attention so he or she "can really only focus on one thing at a time." In hostile situations, drunks who are inclined toward violence tend to focus on provocative, aggression-facilitating stimuli rather than on inhibitory cues, Giancola says. Of course, not everyone becomes aggressive when they drink, he explains. "Many people become sleepy and happy. So, this theory only works for people who already have traits that put them at risk," such as impulsiveness, irritability, and a personal acceptance of violence (the belief that "beating my wife and kids is a good thing, because it keeps them in line," for example). "Alcohol doesn't make you do different things," Giancola says. "It just allows what is already inside you to come out. It takes the brakes off." THE TEST. Giancola and his associate used a laboratory computer-game simulation to determine whether distraction might help defuse volatile, alcohol-fueled conflicts, such as bar brawls, by diverting drunks away from provocative cues. He claims this was "the first systematic test of the attention-allocation model" as it relates to intoxication and aggression. Half of the Kentucky test subjects were given alcohol-spiked orange juice that brought their average BAC reading to 0.10. The other half were given a placebo drink and remained sober. All engaged in what they thought was a computer game that measured their reaction times against those of an unseen "competitor." When the test subjects supposedly "lost" a speed drill, they received a mild electric shock. When they "won," they could deliver a shock to their opponent. A subject's physical aggression was determined by the intensity and length of shock he chose to deliver. To simulate distraction, half the drunk subjects and half the sober group were told to perform an "important" memory test during the game and were promised a cash reward if they did so successfully. This involved remembering the sequence in which small squares randomly appeared on the computer screen and clicking on them in the proper order. THE FINDINGS. Both the intoxicated and sober groups experienced a decline in reaction time when they had to tend to the memory-task distraction. However, the sober subjects "had sufficient attentional resources to attend to both the distracting and the provocative stimuli." They showed about the same level of aggression as sober subjects who were not distracted by the memory test. There was significant difference, though, between the distracted and the nondistracted drunks. The former exhibited far less aggression than the latter. Giancola concluded that being mentally diverted left the drunken subjects with "less cognitive space [in their attention capacity] to house and process hostile cues." With further testing, the researchers found that the degree of distraction is important. If the attempted diversion is too mild, it won't attract enough of the subject's attention. If it's too intense or confusing, it "might engender more aggression due to frustration," Giancola reported. Lewinski concurs that distraction can be a valuable tool in curbing aggression. "On the street, it can work not only with drunks but with sober people who are emotionally aroused," he says. "If you can capture their attention and pull them away from whatever is stoking their agitation, you may be able to get them to work with you instead of blowing up on you." Distractions come in 2 varieties, he explains: physical and psychological. PHYSICAL DISTRACTION. In the physical realm, Lewinski recalls a veteran Minneapolis officer who wore a powerful lifeguard's whistle on a thin thread around his neck. When he walked into a heated domestic or a bar fight where the players were "intensely emotionally engaged" and paying no attention to him, he'd let loose a shrill blast of the whistle and yell, "Everybody out of the pool!" "People couldn't intentionally ignore him when that sudden, loud whistle blew," Lewinski says, "and he added a little humor with the pool command. Together, they were enough to break through the subjects' emotional barrier and get attention focused on him and off the escalating agitation." Similarly, officers sometimes find that flicking room lights on and off during a nighttime domestic, for example, can be "a powerful attention-getting technique," Lewinski says. "Subjects are distracted from their battle temporarily, trying to figure out what's going on." A physical distraction may even help you connect with delusional or hallucinating subjects. He cited a study conducted on psych wards in Michigan that discovered that attendants could often break through a patient's psychotic shell by clapping loudly and simultaneously shouting at them "while maintaining a calm demeanor. The noise shifts their attention and the calm appearance suggests that someone non-threatening is there to work with them." Sometimes your challenge will be to eliminate physical distractions that compete with you for a subject's attention. Examples: • "A loud radio can be especially distracting and agitating to people who are drunk or drugged," Lewinski says. "Get it shut off, along with the TV." • Flashing red lights on your squad car "often have the same effect. If you can turn them off without jeopardizing your safety, that may help you gain and keep a subject's attention." • Dogs and little kids "are terrible distractions when you're trying to work with parents. Getting them into another room or into the care of a neighbor or some other responsible person will help free the adults to concentrate on you." PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRACTION. The key to psychologically shifting a subject's focus is hitting on a distraction that is important to them, "something that's enough to influence them," Lewinski says. "Otherwise, you may confuse them, anger them, and make the situation worse. You will appear to be uncaring or not listening to what's concerning them." Say you're in a private residence, trying to deal with a mother whose son has been caught up in troubles with the police. She's becoming "more and more agitated about what you're doing to her child. Allowed to continue working herself up, she could become violent. "If you see athletic trophies in the room or pictures of the son in a sports uniform, you might acknowledge these mementoes and try something like this as a distraction: 'We're talking about the trouble your son's in. I know he's also been a good boy. Can you tell me about that?' "This is something important to her. It may deflect her from her agitation and help you establish enough rapport to get back to the problem on a more logical and influential basis. Certainly it's likely to be more effective than trying to distract her by talking about your bowling scores, which have no importance in her life." In contacts that eventually erupt in violence, "officers often miss that the subject is escalating emotionally through self-agitation. They're not sensitive enough to recognize this and proactively intervene to ease the situation and it just gets worse. "Good officers, by contrast, start reading the level of a subject's emotional intensity from the beginning of the encounter and are always looking for cues to psychological strategies that might help control the situation." For example, if you're dealing with a drunk who's starting to get worked up but is still at a relatively low level of agitation, you might tell him that you need to know all the addresses where he's lived for the last 5 years, Lewinski suggests. "This can be a challenging intellectual task for someone in an altered state, and may fully consume his diminished mental capacity." On the other hand, subjects displaying a high emotional intensity-a couple bent on tearing each other apart in a domestic dispute, for instance-"may require a distraction that's much more visceral. You might say, 'Just a minute. I know you have children. Before we get into your situation, can you tell me if your kids are safe and where they are?' This distraction is likely to be important to them and offers an opportunity to calm them a bit while they respond." One officer, sensing that an agitated suspect was building toward a physical attack on him, diverted the suspect by asking him how he thought other kids would taunt his children at school the next day if got himself on the news that night for assaulting a police officer. "There are many reasons people may want to cooperate with you," Lewinski observes. Sometimes an apt distraction at the very beginning of a contact can keep the interaction on an even keel throughout. Lewinski offers these real-life examples: • When officers in one Canadian province stopped individual bikers from a gang known to be troublesome, they found that they encountered less hostility when they started their face-to-face contact by admiring the violator's motorcycle and getting him to discuss its attributes a bit-including its ability to "go really fast." Often they could segue to this pertinent question: "How fast do you think you were going just now?" "By then, they'd built enough rapport to defuse the situation a bit." • When Lewinski worked with Arizona patrol officers on a project involving the mentally ill and homeless, he always carried water and fruit in his car. "Drinking mostly alcohol and caffeine, these subjects are usually dehydrated, and they don't eat much," he explains. "You can distract them by asking if they're hungry or thirsty, and while they're engaged in eating they're calming down. You come across as a caring individual, and when you start talking about the problem they're having or presenting, you're seen as less threatening." Similarly, in cold climates "you can frisk them and then invite them to sit in your car and warm up for a few minutes, then engage in the problem that brought you to the scene." Obviously, such ploys should be reserved for times when they seem to be strategically to your advantage; your job isn't social work. And in some situations, there won't be time to attempt distractions; immediate physical intervention may be necessary to establish control. Remember, too, that distractions don't always work. Lewinski recalls a case in which officers were dispatched to a house where a man was randomly firing a deer rifle from the screened-in front porch. Later it was learned that he was experiencing an emotional meltdown over the recent death of his father. Once the officers persuaded the distraught suspect to put the gun down, they gathered around him and worked at calming him down. Noticing an magnificent elk's head mounted on the porch wall, one officer directed the subject's attention to it and asked him about it, thinking to distract him from his grief. Turned out it was a prize bull the dead father had bagged and probably the most iconic relic he'd left behind. The subject went ape all over again. "Sometimes, it's just the cut of the cards," Lewinski admits. "But good distractions have proven successful enough that they're worth trying in appropriate circumstances. Just be prepared with other options in case they fail. Nothing works perfectly all the time." NOTE: We'd like to hear about successes and failures you've had with distractions. Your experiences could be helpful to other officers in critical situations. Just shoot us an email at cr@pixelhype.com and we'll print a representative sampling in a future issue of Force Science News. ===== For another summary of the University of Kentucky study, see "Distraction Can Defuse Drunken Violence" [Read it now.] A full copy of Dr. Giancola's study, "Alcohol and Aggression: A Test of the Attention-Allocation Model," is available for a fee in the July 2007 issue of Psychological Science, archived here.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Legally a child. In the real world a lethal weapon.

[Thumper1960]

A former co-worker of mine, tired of the construction trade and went into law enforcement. It so happens he also teaches many officers, including in my township, a form called hapkido.

[Mad Dawg]

Your guys are very lucky, and I'm envious.I hope you get a chance to skim the article I posted. These guys are VERY interesting.

[Thumper1960]

If you've ever heard of Lancaster County, you'd get the idea we're pretty much law and order types.

Except for the city.....those loons shoot each other way too much.

[Mad Dawg]

As in Lancs., PA?

I'm serious. Your LEOs are very fortunate.

Here in Albemarle Cty we are going from Red to Blue. Here is where I guy I know, a good, pious (in the best sense) cop, was shot at by a burglar, the shot killed his K-9, he returned fire, paralyzing the burglar (COM - hit spine), and was away from his "real" job for more than a year while the whole thing was investigated and then was sued. I think the verdict went his way, or maybe it's still being litigated. I would know if he got nailed, but I am a tad out of touch.

I once got a needle stick-- nothing serious, it was a sewing needle, but still -- while searching a handbag at Juvenile and Domestic Relations, and had to pay for my own blood tests. No giving blood, no communion wine, and no smooching of the wife for a year! And I get to pay for it!

But more than that: because I was a gun-toting lay chaplain to the Sheriff's Office, I blitzed as much material as I could find on the psychology of LE. Not only did I soon know more than the sheriff or the chief deputy, but they resented it. As soon as I knew my job, I became a threat to them.

THIS is the kind of LE which citizens are right to mitch and boan about. There is a LOT of very good material availalbe to the interested person about how to keep your cops healthy and sane and how to equip them to do the job. It's understandable to me that the macho cop on the beat might not be interested in that stuff, but the leadership MUST be interested.

/rant off.

[Thumper1960]

Yep, Lancaster, PA. Dutch country. We've had a Republican House seat since.....I dunno, the unCivil War, I believe. Thad Stevens was our Rep. during the late War betwixt the States. I'm not sure, but I do believe that even during the bolshevik presidency of that bastid FDR, may he rot in H#ll, we didn't go majority for him.

To say it's a Conservative region is to make an understatement.

[allmendream]

They tried non lethal force. It didn’t disarm the psycho.

Cops have a tough job already. I don’t think wrestling 16 year old psychos with a knife is part of the job description. They tried it though (kudos to them), it didn’t work. Bullets work better.

[paul51]

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Take on a guy with a blade with a baton. I’m no big fan of the police but I wouldn’t expect them to deal with deadly force with anything but deadly force in return. A 16 year old with a blade qualifies

[semaj]

A staff weapon, even a short staff such as a baton, when wielded by someone properly trained in its use, can be very effective against a knife.

[paul51]

if you were a cop would you want someone to tell you to take on a guy coming at you with a blade that has already persisted through spray with a baton?

[semaj]

I wouldn’t want to but I also would do everything I could to disarm the person without killing him or anyone else. With proper training it can be done.

[dooltotheend]

It’s so easy to be empathetic, caring and holier than thou. In the absense of any other info I bet this kid has a history of bizarre and self-destructive behavior—probably exacerbated by alcohol and/or drugs. Let’s suppose the cops didn’t kill him. Where would this have gone? First the kid would be jailed. Then he would go to court. Judge would sendence him to rehab—afterall he didn’t kill anyone. After rehab kid returns to drugs and/or alcohol. Now he’s a couple of years older. He goes off the deep end again and this time kills someone. The plot is a cliche, but it is reenacted thousands of time in this country every day.

Personally, I try to save my energy and compassion for people that will actually benefit from it. I would love to see all the “caring” people responding to this post expend their compassion on stopping the killing of millions of innocent babies than this disturbed person.

This tormented individual is now in a place where he cannot hurt anyone—not even himself. That is not a bad thing.

[paul51]

I wouldn’t want to but I also would do everything I could to disarm the person without killing him

There is no reason to believe that wasn't the case. To expect it as a routine outcome under these circumstances is unreasonable and unrealistic