The authority to open fire contemplate scenarios of imminent danger, snap judgment and reaction

Oct 24, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I had promised that my last letter would represent my final contribution to the argument on whether Law Enforcement are trained to shoot in a manner that is lethal, or to shoot in a manner that merely wounds or disables.
I apologise for having to break that promise. I do so not merely to respond to the missive of my opponent on the other side of this dispute. I do so to bring further enlightenment to an issue that begs for such enlightenment. Enlightenment which, I might add can be beneficial to our youth in their confrontations with Law Enforcement.
I refuse to allow the absolute ludicrous notion that Law Enforcement are being trained to shoot at the arms and legs of suspects or assailants, or to shoot at them in a manner to avoid hitting vital organs, to become a chance factor in the minds of our youth when they get into situations where they have a choice between running or giving up.
Before going further let me illustrate an example of the double standard that inundates the arguments of my opponent.
He continues to infuse his arguments with the demand that I cite the portion of the Law relating to the use of deadly force, without himself citing any portion of the law relating to shooting to wound.
In other words, he feels justified in forming a construction from his understanding of the Law that the intention in shooting is to wound or disable, but is unable or unwilling to grasp or accept that similar patterns of construction might operate on the other side of the argument. My arguments in this debate are being presented from my understanding of what I was taught in training, and my experiences from wider learning.
Laws and rules are scripted to provide a basic understanding of what is allowed and what is forbidden. From there we proceed to make logical extrapolations which we must be prepared to defend when necessary.
That is what I intend do with the following.
My association of the term deadly force with decision to open fire by Law Enforcement is a construction from my understanding of the circumstances under which Law Enforcement are authorised to resort to such methods, and the instrument they employ to apply such force.
A firearm has no domestic purpose other than that of an instrument of death. It is weapon made for and intended to be used as an instrument of death.
It is not like a knife that has routine domestic purpose and becomes deadly only with the intent of an individual to do harm. A firearm is a lethal weapon.
Nothing in its construction, in the technological thought processes that goes into its advancing development, contains any considerations about wounding. Any resort to its use against another living creature by anyone within whose possession it is at any point and time, amounts to a use of deadly or lethal force. It is ludicrous to argue otherwise.
Now let me use the very sections of the Law produced by my detractor to illustrate my contention that the question of wounding or avoiding vital organs is not under consideration when an officer makes a judgment to open fire on a suspect or an assailant.
I think everyone will agree that the basic condition under which the authority is given to open fire is after all other means had been exhausted. Mr. Carryl’s expressed understanding of the firing authority is encompassed in a statement immediately following its presentation that goes, quote, “Now! These orders are plain, simple and easy to understand.
They do not instruct to which part of the body the fire should directed, but in class and on the drill square ranks are taught that one must always aim at the lower part of the body where no vital organ is located”.
If that is what Mr. Carryl was taught, and what he believes, then I would argue that both he and his instructor at the time naively fails to read and abstractly understand the circumstances under which the authority is being granted to open fire, and the kind of scenario in which those circumstances will always be represented.
The instructions on when an officer is authorised to open fire, except when in riot formation and ordered to do so by a superior in rank, represent a scenario or circumstance where judgment and reaction are of split second durations.
In other words, the rank is “back a wall” so to speak, and reaction becomes instinctive. He or she has exhausted all other means of deterrence. They cannot slow down the scene in order to deliberate on a narrow point of the body at which to aim their fire.
They are not Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, comic book fast guns famous for shooting weapons out of the hands of the bad guys.
They are in a situation where they have to make a snap judgment on whether to fire, or whether to die or allow others to die.
Under such circumstances, is it logical or practical to expect any human being, police officers notwithstanding, to aim anywhere else but at the largest portion of the target? To aim at a point that they are least likely to miss, and where a shot would be more likely to incapacitate and stop the assailant?
Isn’t it logical and practical that since the circumstances under which Law Enforcement officers are authorized to open fire are likely to be in situations where they have to make such snap judgments, that their training will be structured to emulate such scenarios?
Finally, the argument that the police should have shot someone in the foot or arm logically and automatically accepts the officer’s excuse or justification of the shooting. In other words, the policeman or woman was not wrong to shoot, their offence was in where they choose to aim.
So, should they be brought up on charges of murder if they shot someone in chest and that person dies, when they should have shot that person in the leg or the arms, or somewhere else to avoid hitting vital organs?
And how vital is an artery in the leg or arm? From which point of confrontation would it be practical to shoot someone in the arm and miss the chest and the heart or other vital organs?
The “unable to defend yourself by any other means” suffixes to the firing authority contemplate a circumstances of imminent danger and snap judgment and reaction.
It is that scenario that has to be conjured up when examining the logic or practicality in an argument that police officers are being trained to wound. It is, as posited by the then MET Commissioner, “a fictional argument”.
Robin Williams

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