Video: Surviving an Armed Attack (Catch, Control, and Neutralize)

MostlyGenius,

Watching the video, I can see what you are talking about. It is hard to tell on video because of the 2 dimensional quality, but the angle of my right leg is close to vertical. When drawing the gun from this position, it should not laser your leg anymore than when you are standing in an agressive stance. Reality sometimes plays out differently, so the trigger finger control is very important. When fighting with a knife wielding opponent, bringing the weapon on target quickly is a high priority, but officers should be aware of good muzzle discipline.

You raise a good point on whether the suspect still poses a deadly force threat once they are on the ground. Herein lies the major debate in many use of force scenarios. Watching the video, can you tell if the suspect is completely immobilized or if I am losing my grip on his arm and feel that I am about to be stabbed? Are you comfortable judging my actions based solely on the video without hearing what I have to say? (These questions are rhetorical and not meant to insult you, because I am confident that you would not pass judgment that quickly) This is going to be different depending on the perspective of the officer in the situation. I have trained a long time with these techniques and I can honestly say that I would feel justified in shooting the suspect if he still had the knife in his hand and he was continuing to try and cut me with it. If the suspect immediately stopped struggling and became passive, it changes the scenario.

It comes down to articulation and what is reasonable from your perspective. I would caution against attempting to disarm the suspect, because if you pass up the opportunity to end the armed assault with deadly force and choose to grapple over the knife, you may end up getting seriously injured or killed. I think controlling the weapon long enough to end the confrontation with deadly force is reasonable and is much safer.

I would be interested in hearing other officers’ opinions on this, so please weigh in on the issue.

Stay safe,
Matt

MostlyGenius,

I think your argument is valid and I am glad to have this discussion. There are definitely times that disengaging and moving to create distance are the tactically superior decision. I choose to show this particular technique where I maintain control and neutralize the threat because many times that officers engage suspects we find ourselves doing it in confined spaces: living rooms with furniture, hallways with limited space, offices with furniture, bedrooms with clutter everywhere, on the side of the road with passing traffic, balconies in apartments, the aisle of a city bus, attics, etc. If I train to disengage and move away from the threat, I will probably be focusing my attention on the suspect when I move out of instinct if nothing else. Obtacles can eliminate the room to move or cause the officer to fall, leaving them vulnerable. This is a foreseeable issue, so I think it is important to have a technique in your arsenal such as the one that I demonstrated in this article.

During the struggle with an armed assailant, officers need to be looking for a window of opportunity to terminate the threat. Since it is definitely a deadly force encounter, I believe that is perfectly reasonable to draw my firearm and fire at the first opportunity if the suspect still has control of his knife and is still attempting to resist and use it against me. I understand your concerns, and I respect your opinion, but I believe it is a court defensible decision made by an officer acting under extremely stressful conditions. Many things that we are forced to do by a suspect’s actions do not look good on video (like shooting a suicidal man who has a gun to his head and is closing distance towards the officer or shooting a man holding a cell phone that an officer believes is a gun). These things do not look good, but are usually completely justifiable.

If you add multiple assailants to the situation where an officer is taking down a attacker with a knife, it vastly increases the threat level to the officer and further justifies the decision to shoot immediately upon controlling the weapon arm. If you choose to pass the window of opportunity to eliminate the threat posed by a suspect who has already tried to kill you with a knife and allow him to get up and go mobile (assuming his does not obey your commands, which is a likely scenario) while his buddies come to his aid, then you are putting yourself into a major tactical disadvantage. Even if you choose to shoot the knife wielding suspect at this point, you have slightly increased the possibility of missing him by attempting to shoot while both you and he are moving and you are trying to focus on all of the attackers. Many experts in armed combat would probably agree on the importance of eliminating one threat effectively before moving to the next opponent. Granted, in the video scenario you would need to fire multiple rounds into your opponent and then quickly disengage to face the other threats. Once again, I believe this is legally and tactically acceptable.

As for the armbar, it can be very effective or it can fail completely. I have trained for a long time in Filipino martial arts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but it is still hard to land an arm bar when the opponent is able to pull his elbow down below your hips. Once the elbow is brought down and the suspect turns into you, which can be an instinctual response from an untrained suspect, you are going to be extremely vulnerable to an armed assault. That is why I choose to use the armbar to simply control the limb and not expect it to end the fight when weapons are involved. The consequences of failure are far too great.

I really do value your opinion in this discussion and I hope I haven’t offended you. When I choose to share techniques like this one, it can raise a whole host of questions and I appreciate you taking the time to watch it and comment.

Thanks,
Matt

MostlyGenius,

Thanks for some good comments!

Matt

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