Why Officers Shoot Suspects Multiple Times: Johnson City Police Shooting

When reading some of the more glaring headlines regarding officer involved shootings, the media accentuates the fact that officers shot the suspect six times or twenty times and  did they have to do that when they should have shot them one time. The people making these comments usually were not on the scene, have never been a law enforcement officer or never dealt with someone who has been on drugs or even marijuana which has been laced with some other drug. There is a very valid reason why law enforcement officers and military personnel are trained to continue to fire their weapons until the existing threat is stopped.

The reality of an officers life is that they do not begin their day or shift, and this information is from the studies I have read, cases I have reviewed, research I myself have conducted and also being a law enforcement officer for the past  39years, with the idea of wanting to use force and definitely not deadly force. The sad fact of the matter is that research indicates that approximately 600 criminals are killed each year by police officers in the United States. Some of these killings are in self-defense, some are accidental, and others are to prevent harm to others (Mitchell &  Levenson, 2006; Dr. Barone’s Research Project). In 2005 153; in 2011 169 officers died in the line of duty and in 2013 there were 113 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty which was the lowest in 54 years. All of these officers died on duty and the majority were killed intentionally with others dying in on-duty related vehicle accidents or dying of heart attacks while on duty

Apart from the universal reactions and individual personality and history of the officer, certain features of the line-of- duty shooting incident itself can affect the severity, persistence, and impact of post-shooting symptoms and reactions (Allen, 2004; Anderson et al, 1995; Blau, 1986; Bohrer, 2005; Honig & Sultan, 2004; McMains, 1986b). Each officer is different and has a different way in dealing with crisis grief. One obvious factor is the degree of threat to the officer’s life that they face leading up to the use of deadly force. This can operate in two ways. First, the officer who feels that he or she was literally about to die may be traumatized by the extreme fear involved, but may feel quite justified and relatively guilt-free in using deadly force on a clearly murderous suspect. However, in a situation where the danger was more equivocal, there will be less of the fear factor and can create an atmosphere for more second-guessing about what degree of force was actually necessary (Allen, 2004; Anderson et al, 1995; Blau, 1986; Bohrer, 2005; Honig & Sultan, 2004; McMains, 1986b).

Police officers pride themselves in their ability to manage a tense situation and perform under pressure, so they may feel overwhelmed by doubt and self-recrimination where the situation abruptly got out of control and turned deadly. Even if they won’t admit it to their brother officers, many officers feel genuinely sad at having had to take a human life, even if they objectively recognize that they had no choice in the situation and that the perpetrator clearly asked for it (Miller, 2006). This information concerning the feelings expressed by officers after a officer involved shooting has also been demonstrated in the ongoing study by Dr. Barone. Human nature being what it is, police officers and others, such as soldiers, who are trained to kill when necessary, cannot just shed their familial, religious, and cultural upbringing when they don the uniform. Many times we see that an officer who has been involved in an officer involved shooting where a suspect has been seriously injured or killed becomes irritated at his colleagues who want him or her to play the happy warrior, while they have no clue as to the turmoil the officer is going through he is going through. The officer is at a very critical and emotional place at this time and is actually feeling pain and at times hurting and is in need all the support he or she can get during this time of emotional upheaval. With the officer needing their colleagues support and also fearing rejection and alienation they may not want to burst their colleagues’ bubble and the feel compelled to put up a brave facade so as not to alienate this well-meaning support from their peers. Painful as putting up this false front may be, it’s still better than total isolation during this time of crisis (Miller, 2006). The officer is also wondering why they are going through all of these emotional, physiological, psychological and legal issues when they were just doing their job when the suspect decided to place them into a situation where they had no choice to use deadly force to survive.

There is a recent officer involved shooting incident that occurred in Johnson City New York, which is located near Elmira New York, involving law enforcement officers from a  police agency having 36 full time officers. These officers are issued Glock .40 caliber handguns and use .40 caliber Federal Tactical hollow point rounds.

On March 31, 2014 the department’s dispatcher received a phone call at approximately 7:00 AM from a business called Southern Tier Imaging and the person on the line advised that they should send the police because people are going to die. The further stated on that there’s a dirty bomb in the MRI machine and that is how the terrorists are getting them in.

In the background of the 911 call employees are heard trying to talk to someone named Clark. The dispatchers receive another call from the same location on the 911 system advising that they need the police because there is an irate man on the premises. No description of the suspect was provided and both callers did not remain on the line to provide additional information.

At approximately 7:03AM a 18 year veteran Police Officer, David Smith, arrived on the scene of the call for service and made the error of driving past the entrance and the suspect who was exiting the building Officer Smith did not see the suspect and when he exited his patrol vehicle he did not see the suspect coming up from behind him. The suspect ambushed officer Smith from behind and repeatedly punched officer Smith and then yanked officer Smith’s weapon from his holster and shot the officer at point blank range essentially executing him with his own service weapon.

The mistake by Officer Smith is one that provided the suspect with an easy and unsuspecting target. Officers responding to any in progress call where there is any possibility of aggression or violence requires the officer to stop before the location so they can obtain a true vista of the scene and what may be unfolding or individuals exiting the scene that may be involved in the situation. The issue here was the condition of the suspect; which even if Officer Smith would have stopped before the front of the location the condition of the suspect would have more than likely neutralized the cautious actions of Officer Smith.

As Officer Smith fell to the ground, after being executed with his own weapon, a back up officer arrived and parked his vehicle some 30 feet behind Officer Smith’s vehicle. As the back-up officer spied his fellow officer and the suspect, who were both to his front he saw officer Smith’s lifeless body fall to the ground with the suspect standing in front of the lifeless body. The back up officer then saw the suspect straddle the lifeless body Officer Smith and shoot him a second time in the head. The suspect then looked up and saw the back-up officer and then started towards him firing the remaining rounds in Smith’s pistol at the back-up officer.

The back up officer waited for a clear target and shot the suspect 7 times from 30 feet away and the suspect fell to his knees but was still conscious.  The back up officer began shouting out orders to the suspect to get on the ground; however, the suspect did not comply. The back up officer approached the suspect while keeping his gun trained on him and when the back up officer got close enough he attempted to kick the suspect to the ground instead of shooting him again.

The mistake that occurred here with the actions of the back-up officer was that he did not continue to fire at the suspect until the threat was gone. It is clear from the information obtained during the subsequent investigation of the shooting that the suspect was not compliant, he had just shot and executed a police officer, and was just shooting at the back-up officer and was not being compliant with the orders of the back up officer which equates to a continued resistance.

Critical questions arise at this point involving the actions of the back-up officer are concerned with his decision not to continue shooting and to approach a suspect who has just shot and executed a police officer with his own weapon after taking it from him; had just been shooting at the back-up officer and was not being compliant with the orders of the back up officer which and still resisting. What was going through the officers mind at this time is what is critical to understanding the type of additional training officers need to be provided with to keep them alive and to keep others alive that may have been involved in this incident had the deadly situation unfolded inside the facility.

It was at this point that the suspect grabbed the back-up officers leg and pulled him to the ground (after being shot 7 times) and the suspect got onto the back-up officers back and put him in a bear hug while trying to grab this officers gun. The back-up officer was able to roll onto his right side and shot the suspect in the torso under his arm pit (this was the eight bullets in the suspect). At this time the back-up officer was so fatigued and exhausted that he could not retain possession of his handgun and the suspect managed to get his finger onto the trigger and fired a round that did not hit anyone. The weapon did not cycle and the weapon malfunctioned leaving an empty casing in the chamber.

The ability to fight or to struggle for your life is something that cannot be continued for a very long period of time. If you look at wrestlers you see that they do what are called three minutes drills where they try to spin around the back of their partner for three minutes to build up their stamina and cardio ability. If you look at hockey players they are shifted in a game for 20 to 30 second shifts due to them going all out in their skating and checking up and down the ice because of the fatigue factor which even affects these types of extremely well conditioned professional athletes. This state of physiological exhaustion is called “fatigue threshold” (Hunter, Duchateau, & Enoka, 2004).

Fatigue threshold can be defined as the sudden physical exhaustion experienced during a force encounter when an officer cannot effectively perform to either control a suspect or defend himself. This condition is also known as “hitting the wall,” and it is when the officer experiences a sudden depletion of strength. It is more prevalent and occurs quicker today due to what today’s officer are required to carry on their belts, the type of uniforms they wear, and the heat retaining bullet proof vests they are required to wear.

The fatigue threshold is not a contrived concept but an actual physiological phenomenon. Normally when a person is exerting him or herself physically, such as jogging, riding a bike or an elliptical machine, they are performing what is known as an aerobic exercise. During these types of exercises the person’s body is generally able to sustain such workouts for long periods of time. The reason the body can sustain the workouts for sustained periods of time are because it is able to keep a steady flow of oxygen and fuel to the muscles which are essential to continue the body’s movement Donetelle, 2005). When examining the word aerobic it is seen that it literally means to exercise “with oxygen.” When examining the word anaerobic exercise, which is different in both duration and intensity of the muscular contractions involved, it is seen to be in contrast to aerobic. Anaerobic exercise is faster and more intense and it is similar to strength, weight training or sprinting (Hunter, Duchateau, & Enoka, 2004).

The key difference between aerobic and anaerobic is that the muscles are contracting so quickly and/or powerfully that oxygen the body is taking in cannot provide enough fuel to sustain it aerobically (a condition known as hypoxia). Instead, the body tries to keep up by using glycogen or sugar it produces and processes without the advantage of oxygen to feed the muscles. This is a far less efficient process than aerobic exercise, but when the body is exerting too much explosive muscle movement too quickly, the anaerobic process is the only alternative and this is what occurs when officers are battling with suspects for their lives similar to what the back-up officer was engaged in when the two security guards interceded and assisted in taking the suspect into custody (Donetelle, 2005).  

Hitting the fatigue threshold is not the same as just being tired. This is the very scary experience which involves sudden exhaustion to the point that you cannot physically function or even move. This state of being occurs because the body is required to produce energy so quickly to feed the insatiable fast twitching muscles, it correspondingly builds up a waste product faster than it can expel it and this causes a real physiological problem for the body. The waste product is lactic acid. If the body is unable either to keep the muscles fed (through respiration and blood flow) and/or remove the lactic acid during the lactic acid fermentation process (lactic acidosis), the muscle will simply stop contracting and when this occurs the just simply shut down (Hunter, Duchateau, & Enoka, 2004). A good example would be the engine of an automobile. If someone were to stick an object in the tailpipe of a motor vehicle, cutting off the exhaust’s ability to escape the engine, the car would simply stop running. One second it’s running, the next it’s stopped. Normally it takes approximately 30 seconds of maximized and intensive exercise or exertion before this shut down can occur and at times it can be up to 120 seconds depending on the condition of the officer and the level of consistent exertion being accomplished (Donatelle, 2005).

If an officer or any person, involved in this type of activity, gets to this point and the person they are battling with has demonstrated the desire to seriously harm them this is when a person or an officer realizes that they can be killed if they reach the point of fatigue threshold, and more than likely not knowing what they are experiencing is actually called, that they could die and they must do what is necessary to stop the threat and attack by the suspect to include shooting them or taking their life. The back-up officer was very lucky in this situation in that before he was able to hit this threshold he had the two security officers respond to assist him. The United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor (1989) advised that “The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.”

It is very important to understand that in this type of situation a reasonable officer understands that any suspect who is willing to fight the police with such intensity that he can bring the officer to the limits of his strength is dangerous and cannot be allowed to overcome the officer, gain the upper hand or control the outcome. This is particularly valid if the suspect has a history of violence, has threatened the officer, or possesses a weapon. It is at this time that is may be necessary for the officer to consider and then actually employ greater levels of force than may otherwise appear objectively reasonable, up to and including deadly force. Unfortunately when these situations present themselves they rarely look good on video; however, it must be remembered that undue influence from the public or from family members of the suspect and those with an untrained eye should never dictate our standard of objective reasonableness and the totality of the circumstances that these actions must be judged by at their conclusion. The law requires we place ourselves in the officer’s shoes, taking into account his physical condition at the time of the encounter..The fatigue threshold may play a prominent role in such an analysis and must be applied consistently.

It was at this time, when the fatigue threshold was beginning to set into the back-up officer, that security guards from the hospital arrived and put the suspect, who now had nine rounds in his body, in a choke hold from behind and the suspect was still resisting at which time a second security guard arrived and finally the back-up officer and the two security guards were able to finally get the suspect secured in hand cuffs.

The suspect was placed onto a stretcher and as he was being wheeled into the hospital he was still ranting, raving and struggling. After the suspect was in the emergency room for a while one of the detectives spoke to the suspect to get s statement from him and he stated that he shot him with his own f---ing gun. The suspect died a little while later and when the results of the toxicology report came back it showed only THC (marijuana in his blood and there was a second round of toxicology being worked up and the results are not available at this time. The current speculation is that the marijuana may have been laced with another drug; possibly fentanyl. An alternate speculation is that the suspect was taking a prescription testosterone drug called Andro Gel which an overdose may have caused the zombie like behavior exhibited by the suspect that day.

                                                                Conclusion

Law enforcement officers are confronted with dynamic flowing incidents that come about instantaneously and at times without warning and have to respond instantaneously in the proper manner and within prescribed protocols and legal restrictions with the knowledge that every action they have taken will be examined and Monday morning quarterbacked; however, the officers and agents continue to perform their duties risking their lives for the residents they have sworn to protect. There are so many different variables that can be present when officers encounter individuals who are armed and who intend to inflict violence and horror on society. Proper assessment of the issues and all of the existing circumstances that the officer encountered at the time of the shooting must be properly and fairly assessed by the reviewing individuals and All variables must be explored if the system is going to work properly.

                                                                  

                                                              References

Allen, S.W. (2004). Dynamics in responding to departmental personnel. In V. Lord (Ed.), Suicide by Cop: Inducing Officers to Shoot (pp. 245-257). Flushing: Looseleaf Law Publications.

Anderson, W., Swenson, D. & Clay, D. (1995). Stress Management for Law Enforcement Officers. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Blau, T.H. (1986). Deadly force: Psychological factors and objective evaluation: A preliminary effort. In J.T. Reese & H.A. Goldstein (Eds.), Psychological Services for Law Enforcement (pp. 315-334). Washington DC: USGPO.

Bohrer, S. (2005). After firing the shots, what happens? FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September, pp. 8-13.

Donatelle, R. J., (2005). Health: The Basics, 6th Ed., San Francisco: Pearson Education, Inc.

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, at 397 (1989).

Honig, A.L. & Sultan, E. (2004). Reactions and resilience under fire: What an officer can expect. The Police Chief, December, pp. 54-60.

Hunter, S., Duchateau, J., & Enoka, R., (2004). Muscle Fatigue and the Mechanisms of Task Failure, 32(2), Exercise Sport Science Review,

McMains. M.J. (1986b). Post-shooting trauma: Principles from combat. In J.T. Reese & H. Goldstein (Eds.), Psychological Services for Law Enforcement (pp. 365-368). Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.

Miller, L. (2006). Practical Police Psychology: Stress Management and Crisis Intervention for Law Enforcement. Springfield: Charles C Thomas.

Mitchell, J. T. & Levenson, R. L., Jr. (2006). Some thoughts on providing effective mental health critical care for police departments after line-of-duty deaths. International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, 8(1), 1-5.