Every day major news sources are full of highly critical stories telling us cops are trigger happy, violent and racially biased.
Do you ever wonder if this news is the truth, half truth or simply poisonous propaganda produced by anti-cop hate groups supported by news media because bad-cop stories, violent protests, damaged cars, broken windows and burning buildings sell more news? I would like to share another kind of police story with you. It is a local story. This is the type of story that will probably never be reported by major news sources.
On February 7, 2016, Lakewood Police were dispatched to the Lakewood Towne Center with the report of an intoxicated man making incoherent statements about reindeer. The man was waiving a beer bottle in one hand and a gun in the other. It was like a scene from an old Wild West movie.
The man and his gun were observed in front of various store fronts, making him a serious risk to numerous mall employees and customers.
When officers arrived the suspect stepped out of his car and reached for his waistband. If a suspect fails to comply with a lawful police order such as “Stop!” “Put your hands up.” “Don’t move or I will shoot,” the suspect’s non-compliant behavior provides dangerous body language which foretells the distinct possibility of injury and / or death to the officer or innocent members of the public.
At first the suspect was not compliant. Failure to comply with police orders often creates the need for lawful use of force including use of the officer’s firearm.
If you were contacted by police and ordered to not move, would you reach for your waistband? I would not. It is doubtful most sober responsible citizens would risk such a dangerous move.
Faced with this hazardous situation, Lakewood officers, using maximum restraint, were able to “talk this suspect down”. They used what I refer to as verbal judo. The Lakewood officers successfully de-escalated the incident with words and officer presence. The suspect became compliant and was taken into custody without injury to anyone. A loaded semi-automatic pistol was recovered at the scene.
According to the police report the suspect was obviously intoxicated and smelled of marijuana.
When a man with a gun behaves in a dangerous manner, most citizens run away from the danger. Lakewood Police protect Lakewood citizens by doing that which is counterintuitive. Lakewood police rush towards the danger, thereby putting themselves in harm’s way in their effort to protect life and property.
If things do not work out, the officer may not go home to family. The officer knows that. Professional police officers involve themselves in high tension, high risk, volatile, life threatening incidents because they are dedicated to protecting the citizens they serve.
Had the suspect failed to comply, pointing the gun at the officers or public, we could have had a justifiable officer involved shooting. Every situation is different. No two situations are alike. It only takes 4 tenths of a second to move a gun from no-threat to threat. The suspect, not the officer, drives the final outcome. Any time an officer shoots a suspect, one of our first questions should be, “Did the suspect comply with the officer’s instructions or commands?”
What would you be doing and thinking as an ordinary citizen if you were cornered by an intoxicated man with a gun?
Might we wonder what our Lakewood police officers are thinking? We know what they are doing. But, what are they thinking?
The foundation of officer thinking begins with the Lakewood Police Department Mission Statement. Each officer starts every single tour of duty by exiting the precinct as they head to the police parking lot. The mission statement is strategically posted to the right of the exit door and in several other locations in the precinct including the public lobby. A constant reminder, the first line of the mission statement reads, “Protect Life and Property”. Protect life and property; that is what our officers are thinking.
Protect life and property. That is exactly what our officers did. These officers entered a potential life and death situation, using attitudes, tactics and thinking that support the first line of their department’s mission statement. The officers protected life: the public’s, their own, and the suspect’s.
Chief Mike Zaro put it something like this, “This was an example of our officers facing a volatile situation in which they gave the armed suspect a chance to comply peacefully. The suspect complied. The result was no use of force.”
No shots fired. One in custody.
Good job Lakewood Police.
“No shots fired. One in custody. Good job Lakewood Police.”
Your account Joe of the February 7, 2016 response by Lakewood Police to the intoxicated man at the Lakewood Towne Center, and particularly how the volatile incident was peaceably resolved, does indeed merit a story commending officers and the department on how lethal use of force proved unnecessary.
A couple of other local and semi-amicable endings:
July 7, 2013 – KIRO News: a SWAT team surrounded a Lakewood home and “for five hours, police pleaded with a guy named Robert to come out with his hands up.”
Turns out Robert wasn’t home.
The very next day, July 8, 2013, (TNT) – in fact just 30 minutes after midnight, Lakewood Police officers responded to a home and upon arrival were shot at, police “reported hearing sounds of bullets whizzing past them and hitting bushes.”
Again a SWAT team was called.
Although the 29-year-old man “stepped outside with a gun in his hand,” police did not return fire even though they had been fired upon. “Police said he threw it into the grass when he emerged.
“He then allegedly refused to obey officers’ commands and was eventually shot with bean bag rounds.”
So non-lethal use of force is an option.
Not so fortunate were Patrick O’Meara (toy gun), Daniel Covarrubias (cell phone), or Leonard Thomas (unarmed).
Twenty-eight year old Patrick O’Meara was shot dead at a Tillicum residence by Lakewood Police shortly before midnight June 18, 2013.
On June 24, Lt. Chris Lawler (The Suburban Times) stated the “subject (O’Meara) had an outstanding felony arrest warrant for theft and was known to law enforcement and had a criminal record.
“Officers approached the residence and knocked on the door, announcing that they were the ‘Police’. Other officers were standing at the side of the residence at a window and spotted O’Meara inside, armed with a firearm. Despite repeated attempts to order O’Meara to drop the weapon, he refused and forced officers to fire their weapons.
“Lakewood Officers made entry into the residence and found O’Meara suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers on scene performed CPR until medics arrived, but he was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Lawler’s updated article includes a picture of “the weapon that O’Meara was armed with” that “turned out to be a very realistic looking metal cap gun.”
In the case of Covarrubias, “The threat in his hand we know it to be a cell phone,” said Attorney Ben Barcus representing the family of Daniel Covvarubias, father of seven, killed by Lakewood Police April 21, 2015.
According to Kristen Drew’s report for KOMO news May 8, Barcus said of Lakewood Police, “they hadn’t told us that before but now we’ve confirmed there was no weapon.”
Leonard Thomas, unarmed, was standing next to his six-year-old son when he was shot by the Lakewood Police sniper from across the street. The multi-agency Pierce County Metro SWAT team – including Lakewood – is being sued for $3.5 million in a federal civil-rights lawsuit charged with “overreaction and incompetence, and the use of unnecessary military-style force against an American citizen” according to an article by Mike Carter in the Seattle Times (May 27, 2015).
“The boy was standing just feet away from his father, Leonard Thomas, when Thomas was shot by a sniper who said he thought the child was in danger.
“After a four-hour standoff Thomas agreed to send the child home with his mother.
“Even so, the SWAT team used explosives to blow open the back door of the home as Thomas and the child were standing on the front porch, getting ready to send the boy down the sidewalk to his waiting grandmother, according to the claim and police reports.
“When Thomas reacted and reached to grab the boy, according to the reports, a Lakewood police sniper, Brian Markert, shot him from across the street.”
In addition to the bullet-points of the Lakewood Police Department Mission Statement “strategically posted to the right of the exit door and in several other locations in the precinct including the public lobby,” there is a 16-page Use of Force Policy (UFP) which does not – does not – include the following:
One: There is no preamble or mission statement the purpose of which “is to communicate both to the community and to police officers that the preservation of human life is at all times a central tenet of the policy agency.”
Two: There is no declaration instructing officers “that the use of deadly force is an extreme measure to be employed only in the most limited and extraordinary of circumstances.”
Three: There is not – at least not as much as it should be according to findings of the ACLU of similar documents of police departments across the country – an emphasis upon the de-escalation step in which “an officer may withdraw to a position that is tactically more secure or allows an officer greater distance in order to consider or deploy a greater variety of force options.”
Meanwhile, members of the Public Safety Advisory Committee – upon which committee you serve Joe – have repeatedly stated in minutes and emails their having reviewed Lakewood’s UFP.
April 7, 2014 – the minutes of PSAC’s December 4, 2013 are for the first time made public. Under “unfinished business” following discussion of Lakewood’s UFP by committee members who had each received a copy, then-chair Bryan Thomas “asked if there were any questions, comments or concerns regarding this issue. No one had anything to add. Alan Hart motioned that the committee go on record as supporting the LPD UFP as is. All ayes, motion approved.”
August 5, 2015 minutes of the PSAC – “the committee had reviewed the Use of Force policy (UFP) last year.”
Email from PSAC member Bob Saul: “In regards to the UFP the last review was actually started in Nov 2013 with discussion at the Dec 2013 meeting. The committee went on record supporting the Use of Force Policy with an all ayes vote.”
December 8, 2015 – my reply to Saul:
Per (1) these statements, that a “review” of the UFP took place; and (2) given the promise of Lakewood City Attorney Heidi Wachter that the Use of Force Policy recommendations I’d made would be “properly considered”; and (3) since the commonly understood definition of “review” is the following, then please send to me any and all documentation of PSAC’s review of the Use of Force Policy.
“Review: a critical article or report, as in a periodical, on a book, play, recital, or the like; critique; evaluation. The process of going over a subject again in study or recitation in order to fix it in the memory or summarize the facts. Implies careful examination of something, formulation of a judgment, and statement of the judgment, usually in written form. A review is a survey over a whole subject or division of it, or especially an article making a critical reconsideration.”
According to the commonly understood definition of “review” above, and my request for substantive documentation to that end which to date has gone unmet, no “review” of Lakewood’s Use of Force Policy ever took place by the PSAC – their protestations to the contrary.
Mr. Anderson:
I guess your point is that you’re upset because you believe the Lakewood Public Safety Advisory Committee didn’t review a written statement. Really? Meanwhile, the article you chose as a host for the parasitic chip you carry on your shoulder was not a good choice. The article only shows me that the Lakewood Police resolved a deadly force situation as good as anybody could and it has nothing to do with your tired old gripe with the PSAC.
To advocate for the inclusion in Lakewood’s UFP for a statement that “the preservation of human life is at all times a central tenet of the policy agency” is, in your words, “a tired old gripe”?
That “citizens (should) have the right to expect that the use of force is the option of last resort for law enforcement officers,” as wrote Ronald C. Ruecker, Director of Public Safety, City of Sherwood, Oregon in the December, 2007 issue of “The Police Chief” is, in your words, a “parasitic chip you carry on your shoulder”?
Holding the PSAC to account to produce something more substantial than a cursory ‘review’ of the UFP – all of 79 words in but one meeting – when 21 months were spent by the same committee pursuing lost shopping carts is to ‘wrongly’ – as you apparently believe – suggest the PSAC has skewed priorities?
And here I thought we were talking about things that matter.
Confronting an armed, belligerent, out of control drunk demonstrates an incredible level of courage and commitment to protecting even our most troubled citizens. These officers are heroes !
Heroes yes, but why would the police have shown such patience and restraint when in the past they were just as quick on the draw? Would their choice of life over death occurred had it not been the light of public discourse which shined on the issue of deadly force previously? Why not just shoot and ask questions later? No, the sensitivities raised by David Anderson and others over the use of deadly force may well have had an impact on this incident, the absence of which could have resulted in another death when other options existed. Are you content to remain silent or worse silence dissent simply because you are tired of an “old gripe”? I suggest you might want to talk to this troubled survivor, his family and friends to see how “tired” they are of hearing this “gripe” which may well have saved their loved one.
7 officers killed in 7 days across the U.S. this week. 6 were gunned down in the line of duty. 13 children of police left grieving.
So until you have spent a week riding along with our officers, until you face what they face Mr Anderson, then you will just be a irritating wind in my ear. Have some police officers abused the power, yes. Have some police officers used excessive force, yes. And those issues need to be addressed but your little rant is not helpful and just continue to be divisive. When you understand the number of “suicide by cop” instances that occur, when you understand that officers lives mean absolutely nothing to some and their whole goal is to ‘go out in a blaze of glory’ or become some sort of urban/suburban martyr, or when you understand that officers have micro seconds to make a decision to kill or be killed then you have no right to talk. Why not get educated about what their day is like and then IF you have constructive suggestions work to make whatever change is needed.
“So until you have spent a week riding along with our officers . . . .”
I’ve been a chaplain with both the Tacoma Police Department and the Lakewood Police Department in which capacity the ride-alongs you referenced were more than met. That I was never shot at, nor placed in positions requiring decisions concerning lethal – or any – use of force does not mean my voice has any less merit than yours.
As a neighborhood association president in Lakewood where one of those individuals mentioned in what I wrote was killed, I have a valid concern with what transpired which, as you admit, suggests an issue to be address.
That you dismissively regard my comments as divisive – without evidence to that end – can hardly be more than your opinion which, of course, you have a right to express – “a right to talk” like you would prevent me.
“Working to make changes through constructive suggestions,” is in fact the focus of what I wrote.
Granted when a police officer has “micro-seconds” to react then they must make instant life and death decisions. However I don’t think this was the case in the instances mentioned by David Anderson. The police had options which afforded them many minutes and perhaps hours before making a life and death decision. Indeed when a police officer chooses an option with “mirco-seconds” instead of a more timely and less aggressive option then is not the police officer part of the problem? First thing you learn in boxing is not to lead with your chin or bad things will happen. There must be a different mindset for police officers versus military soldiers. Having served 26 months in combat I can tell you our mission was to kill the enemy. However even then we didn’t unnecessarily put ourselves in danger by doing something rash, foolish or overly aggressive. Guys who did often came home in a box. The public is not the enemy and police must have a different set of values and principles compatible with their mission to protect, preserve and defend their citizens.
The fallacy of the “micro-second” argument:
“The defenders of the police invariably take refuge in what Fyfe (James Fyfe, head of training for the NYPD) calls the split-second syndrome: An officer goes to the scene as quickly as possible. He sees the bad guy. There is no time for thought. He acts. The scenario requires that mistakes be accepted as unavoidable. (This) accepts as a given the fact that once any critical incident is in motion, there is nothing that can be done to stop or control it. But that assumption is wrong.” (“Blink,” by Malcolm Gladwell, p.237.)
As JohnA pointed out in this thread of comments, none of the situations cited in what I wrote in response to Boyle’s article, necessitated peace officers to keep the peace by shooting their way out of a situation the desperate circumstances of which they themselves may well have created.
It was this very concern – the lack of de-escalation – that prompted the ACLU, in its 2012 investigation of Use of Force Policies of departments across the country to conclude, among other findings, that “officers should recognize that their conduct immediately connected to the use of force may be a factor which can influence the level of force necessary in a given situation.” Said recognition recommends “that an officer may withdraw to a position that is tactically more secure or allows an officer greater distance in order to consider or deploy a greater variety of force options (derived in part from the footnoted Denver Police Department Use of Force Policy, 105.01(1)(a)(2010).
As to whose voice gets a right to be heard in this most important matter, literally life-and-death, the answer is: everyone’s, and especially – especially – the community’s. Their voice, individual and collective, is most reasonable of all.
The Director of Public Safety, Sherwood, Oregon, Ronald C. Ruecker wrote in “The Police Chief”:
“Our communities cry out when use of force is juxtaposed against the community’s expectation of necessity. They reasonably ask, was there another way that officers could have defused the situation? Was the use of force consistent with the level of threat confronting the officers?
Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor believes likewise. He wrote that the community served by police should have a “frank discussion.”
In Pastor’s May 29, 2015 issue of “The Sheriff’s Log”, addressing the subject “Avoiding Responsibility and Blaming the Police,” Pastor wrote that he “welcomed questions” about Use of Force, etc. and that he believed the law enforcement community – and the community it serves – should “address head-on” related matters in a “frank discussion,” including the need – and the promise – for law enforcement to “step up to self-examination and work to improve our game.”
The Lakewood Public Safety Advisory Committee itself, at least on its website, invites – yes, even – “gathers information from experts, opponents and proponents (including members of the community) to help guide the Council in both the development and monitoring of public safety policy.”
The Seattle Police Department, in a sweeping set of reforms to its Use of Force Policy in 2013, was done so to ensure “that the people of Seattle have a police department that respects the Constitution, secures the safety of the public, and earns the confidence of the community.”
And just today, in the TNT, Tacoma’s Project P.E.A.C.E. “grew out of turmoil in other cities after officer-involved killings” with the consequence that “community meetings resulted in an action plan of ideas.”
It’s your job, and mine, and all who call Lakewood home, to speak up.
When you choose confrontation instead of contemplation you bear responsibility for the consequences.
Mr. JohnA,
You have contributed an intelligent comment, but we must recognize the concept works both ways.
Most officer involved shootings are preceded by the suspect “choosing confrontation” rather than “contemplation”. It is then the suspect who must bear responsibility for the consequences.
Saying the same thing with the fewest number of words reads, “Comply or die.”
All the shooting victims have to do is comply. It can be that simple. Parents, schools and society are all failing shooting victims by not teaching them how to respect authority and how to comply with lawful orders.
JoeB
Your suggestion that “Most officer involved shootings are preceded by the suspect “choosing confrontation” rather than “contemplation” presupposes that the only response by police is one of confrontation. Your statement “comply or die” implies that those are the only two options available to the police. This is far from the truth. There are cases where an instant use of deadly force is required but I wonder how often it is the only option. Even in war (my experience in Vietnam) we had the Chieu Hoi program that encouraged enemy soldiers…..the kind we would otherwise kill on sight……to surrender peacefully and come over to the Allied side.
“Comply or die” may be appropriate in a combat situation against an enemy but is totally incompatible in peacetime dealing with citizens who are not your enemy when other options exist. To what extent is the failure to comply completely and instantly to the police officer’s satisfaction a death sentence for a citizen? How about a situation where the police officer is at least in part responsible for elevating the situation to where a citizen’s death becomes inevitable?
For instance: a depressed man is alone in his mobile home armed with a knife after retreating there from a domestic dispute for which the police were called. Several police officers arrive and secure the area. A late arriving officer after only a few minutes on site decides to rush the suspect, breaking into the mobile home and confronts him in this confined space in close proximity and kills him. You mean to say that contemplation wasn’t an option in this case? If that be the case than any police use of deadly force can be justified regardless of the officer’s responsibility for the situation developing to that point. Police have to be better at recognizing their options than the suspects they are otherwise so quick to confront.
JohnA,
I agree with your statement related to a depressed man who is inside a trailer all alone and has no opportunity to harm anyone but himself. I would easily vote for your plan to wait him out. I would see no reason to rush the trailer.
If the same man is in front of a grade school he needs to drop the knife or I would shoot; comply or die before he rushes inside the school and takes out staff and students.
Each case needs to be evaluated on its own merits.
Joseph Boyle
Bravo Joe!
I’m sad that you are so negative toward the police Mr. Anderson…
I’m not negative toward the police, I’m positive toward life – all life.
Except for the police; you’d rather they pause and ponder every life threat against them so that more of them will die from gunfire. Why don’t you try and go through some simulated shooting scenarios and see who you do? A ride along does not make you an expert in any sense. You do a lot of quoting of other writers and you say they know the truth like a New Yorker staff writer, but don’t believe James Fyfe, head of training for the NYPD? The largest Police Force in America. Which do you think knows the truth and has the real knowledge to educate a police officer? You do not so quit preaching please! Maybe you should keep to the subjects that you know like baseball and boats.
10 Officer lost there lives already this year, 8 by gunfire. A tragedy.
James Fyfe has been the New York City Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner for Training since May 2002. He is responsible for administering all training for the NYPD’s 51,000 sworn and civilian employees, and has led the first major revision of the NYPD’s recruit curriculum in 30 years. He holds a B.S. (1971) and an honorary doctorate of laws (1999) from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and M.A. (1972) and Ph.D. (1978) degrees in criminal justice from the State University of New York at Albany.
“You’d rather they pause and ponder every life threat against them (police officers) so that more of them will die from gunfire.”
Your conclusion is wrong but the “pause” part is correct. In fact, James Fyfe agrees.
“If you have to rely on your reflexes,” Fyfe – who has testified in many police brutality cases – wrote of police officers in shooting situations: “someone is going to get hurt – and get hurt unnecessarily. If you take advantage of intelligence and cover, you will almost never have to make an instinctive decision.”
In his own study, the head of training for the NYPD himself – James Fyfe – said that officers, in their approach to the scene, “were terrible.” As reported in Gladwell’s book “Blink” (pp.235-237), the officers “didn’t take the necessary steps to steer clear of temporary autism.”
“You don’t want to put yourself in a position where the only way you have to defend yourself is to shoot someone,” Fyfe says.
I do, in fact, believe James Fyfe.
“Courage is the price you pay for poor planning.”
John Arbeeny
Major (R), US Army
1967-1988