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dogflight wrote:In the real event, there was no gunfire involved but the "grabbing" officer did fall to the ground, pulling the jumper down with him. The first officer rushed forward and assisted in subduing the jumper, who did not get away as he does in the hypothetical scenario. The threat, both to the jumper and to the motoring public was successfully ended right then and there. The officers arrived on the scene separately and didn't plan the action; they acted based on eye contact as the situation quickly unfolded. An impressive, yet highly risky, bit of teamwork by the officers that ended well.

This is the way these situations are usually handled, including the unscripted teamwork. Each officer knows what needs to be done and has the experience to figure out his part in about a nanosecond.

dogflight wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

dogflight wrote:Scenario:

A man is threatening to jump off a very high bridge into a rocky abyss. While you have his attention, a police officer is able to approach unobserved by the jumper, grab him, and yank him away from the edge. Unfortunately, in the struggle, the man breaks free and the officer is knocked to the ground. The jumper, now more intent than ever on dying, sprints toward the other side of the bridge. You're too distant to catch him and the officer will barely be off the ground before the jumper clears the edge - assuredly ending his life. In a split second, you realize that a) you have a pistol, b) you have a clear shot, and c) the scene is backed by nothing but a 40-foot dirt embankment. You draw, aim in the general vicinity of his knees, and fire.

Questions:

Regardless of the outcome, is your action legal under PC 9.34(b)?

When we have to contort ourselves this far to try to come up with a weak theoretical situation for application, the most likely conclusion is that what we're trying to do isn't a real good idea.

The first half of the story (up to the jumper breaking free), happened a week or so ago in the DFW area. The only important "contortion" in the scenario was the mad dash for the other side of the bridge. The "you" in the scenario was also a police officer, and therefore had a gun, so the scenario's not such a "weak theoretical situation" after all.

(One detail does differ from the real life event: the bridge did not span a rocky abyss, but rather a freeway sporting dense, high-speed traffic. This was changed in order to keep the "Defense of a Third Person" angle out of the equation.)

None of which is to say that the use of a firearm in these circumstances would be a "real good idea". But whether we feel an action is good or bad often carries litle weight in criminal court. I think we can all agree that shooting the man would be an ugly and high-risk proposition. But please do not so casually disregard the fact that the man faces certian death in a jump, versus the (admitedly high-risk) possibility of surviving the bullet of a would-be rescuer.

So, the question remains; would PC 9.34(b) apply to the original scenario?

Even the wildest, most theoretical situation comes around sooner or later - just not very often.

I did not "casually disregard" the fact that the man would have faced certain death if he had jumped into the traffic lanes below. In fact he would have created a risk of killing others by doing so as well.

I don't know how much actual experience you have with making judgments like this, but during my 21 years of large agency law enforcement I have been in the situation you described: physically wrestling with people desperately fighting to jump off a highway overpass into traffic. If those individuals had broken away and run at speed toward the bridge railing and I couldn't catch up, I most certainly would not have used my firearm to stop them, even though their jumps would have most certainly been fatal.

You'll notice that in the situation you cite the police officer did not use his firearm to try to stop the subject from jumping either. That may be because the theoretical 40 foot dirt mound backstop was missing, or it may be because he was trained as I described earlier and understood both the relevant laws and reasonable competing harms analysis.

Those of us who have regularly encountered situations where these judgments actually have to be made in a second or so don't make them "casually". They make them with an understanding of the law and the fact that most of us don't wear batman costumes and can't prevent every negative consequence of people's actions without doing more harm than good in some cases (including to one's self, career, and family).

High consequence decisions with a high probability of catastrophic consequences are usually made casually in armchair academic mode by those who have never faced either the actual circumstances or seen the aftermath in real life.

If you're determined to find an instance where shooting a suicidal person was actually done and know how that turned out in court, I'd suggest a dive into case law on the section you cite. The resources are readily available and, more than likely, someone has tried it and the action was ruled on in an actual case. Here's one news reportfor you, but it's not as "clean" as you might like because the subject was setting other people on fire during his suicide and the justification was more than likely ending a deadly threat to others rather than terminating a suicide attempt.

I'm not interested enough to look further because my decision is already made: I have never shot any suicidal people and won't be doing so in the future unless they pose an immediate deadly threat to myself or others as in the article above.

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote: In situations like this it's good to remember that just because you're holding a hammer doesn't mean that everything you come across is some version of a nail.

I am in the Quality Assurance field. We have a similar saying: "When a hammer is the only tool you have in your toolbox, every problem looks like a nail."

That's true. However, it can be self limiting when you do have other tools in the toolbox and other decision options, but you only focus on what can be done by using the hammer.

I think that's the situation we're looking at in this discussion.

dogflight wrote:Scenario:

A man is threatening to jump off a very high bridge into a rocky abyss. While you have his attention, a police officer is able to approach unobserved by the jumper, grab him, and yank him away from the edge. Unfortunately, in the struggle, the man breaks free and the officer is knocked to the ground. The jumper, now more intent than ever on dying, sprints toward the other side of the bridge. You're too distant to catch him and the officer will barely be off the ground before the jumper clears the edge - assuredly ending his life. In a split second, you realize that a) you have a pistol, b) you have a clear shot, and c) the scene is backed by nothing but a 40-foot dirt embankment. You draw, aim in the general vicinity of his knees, and fire.

Questions:

Regardless of the outcome, is your action legal under PC 9.34(b)?

When we have to contort ourselves this far to try to come up with a weak theoretical situation for application, the most likely conclusion is that what we're trying to do isn't a real good idea.

See my earlier comments on the shot to the arm.

Substitute "leg" for arm and "femoral" for "brachial."

The likelihood of the round entering the torso is theoretically lower with a knee shot, but there are still more than enough nightmare endings to this to make it a really bad idea, including bleed out and crippling injury.

In situations like this it's good to remember that just because you're holding a hammer doesn't mean that everything you come across is some version of a nail.

Crossfire wrote:If a person is attempting suicide, you could shoot them in the arm to prevent them from doing so.

That is the example I use, if pressed to do so.

I have to respectfully but strongly disagree.

In my view (and that of every law enforcement trainer I've ever met or heard of), the concept of using deadly force against a suicidal person whose life you are trying to save is fundamentally flawed and should never be considered. My answer to that question from a student would be that a firearm is not the only or appropriate tool for everything.

Here are a few post firing event sequences that illustrate why using a firearm against a suicidal person is not just a really bad idea but a horrible one:

- The person moved as you fired and the round penetrated the torso and transited major organs; the subject died
- You fire accurately but the round was deflected by bone in the arm and penetrated the torso and transited major organs; the subject died
- Your aim was off by just a bit and the round penetrated the torso and transited major organs; the subject died
- Your aim was good and the round stayed in the arm, but it pierced the brachial artery and the subject bled to death.
- Your aim was good, the round stayed in the arm, the subject didn't die, but he lost use of that arm due to shattered bones and nerve damage. His lawyer is aggressively going after everything you now own and everything you may earn in the future because of the pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inability to work he now faces.

I could go on, but you get the idea, and each of those scenarios is a very definite possibility that you can't reasonably say wouldn't happen after you lose control of the situation at the moment your bullet leaves the barrel.

How well do you think the section of law cited would provide protection for you against the taking of that life, and how do you think that idea would fly with the investigating officer, prosecutor, judge, and jury? The section cited would provide some protection for restraining measures or possibly a chokehold or similar measure. I sure wouldn't bet on it for a gunshot, even though one could make an argument that it would based on the literal wording of the statute. When the "reasonable man" standard is applied by a prosecutor, I don't think shooting a person to keep him from killing himself would look reasonable to a jury at all.

If deadly force is the only way to stop the suicide, as terrible as it sounds, your best option is to recognize you can't stop all bad things from happening, and not stop the suicide at all.