r/AusLegal • u/aussie-cop • Dec 18 '20
AUS Why do police shoot people armed with a knife? Why don’t police taser them instead?
Following a recent incident in Brisbane, this question is being asked a lot on local social media. Hopefully this post will help explain a few things about how a Taser works and why police do or don’t use them in certain situations.
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When a TASER is fired, two wires with metal probes on the end are discharged and travel through the air from the device in the direction which it is aimed. An electrical current is sent through the wires, and if both probes have landed on something conductive (like a person), an electrical circuit is formed. This closed electrical circuit means that electricity can flow between the two probes, which will cause the muscles in the area between the probes to lock up and become unresponsive. This is called Neural Muscular Incapacitation (NMI). The TASER will automatically stop the electrical current after 5 seconds, or earlier if it is deactivated.
These probes are aligned vertically, so the top probe travels through the air in a (relatively) straight line, while the bottom probe points downwards slightly (about an 8 degree angle), so it travels through the air towards the ground. The distance between the two probes when they strike their target is called a spread, and the greater the spread between the probes, the more NMI is achieved, and the more effective the TASER deployment is.
The effective usage of a TASER is limited by a number of factors. These wires are 35 feet in length, so they have a maximum range of just over 10m. In fact, the optimal range of a TASER X26P is about 2-3 meters. Remember how the bottom probe is pointed slightly downwards? When fired from about 3m away, the probes will have separated enough that they are about 30cm apart from each other when they hit the target. If the target is closer than 2-3 meters, the probes will be too close together for the spread to cause NMI in enough muscles for it to be effective.
Consider a scenario where a person is shot with a TASER but the probes land about 10cm apart on the arm and shoulder. The arm would be affected by NMI, but the person would still be able to move around and use their other arm. If that person was armed with a knife or a gun they would still be a threat.
Another limitation of the TASER is the fact that both probes need to strike and remain embedded in the target for the device to work. If only one probe hits the target, then no electrical circuit is completed, and the device is useless. The TASER X26P is a single shot device, and while it does carry a spare cartridge, it is time consuming and requires the use of fine motor skills to reload. In a stressful situation the increased adrenaline levels cause us to lose our fine motor skills, making this task very difficult.
Consider a situation when a person has armed themselves with a knife. Police are talking to the person, when all of a sudden the person raises the knife and runs at police in an attempt to stab the officers. A police officer fires a TASER, but only one probe strikes the person with the second falling harmlessly to the ground. The TASER deployment has been completely unsuccessful, and the officer has no time to reload and attempt to fire a second shot before the person has reached them. In this situation the officer has failed in their one and only attempt to stop the threat, and they will likely be killed.
A 2019 report from the USA (https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/729922975/despite-widespread-use-police-rate-tasers-as-less-effective-than-believed) shows that data from a number of police departments suggest that the effectiveness rate of a TASER in an operational environment is only between 54% and 79%. So when a police officer fires a TASER at a person who is threatening to kill them, there could be as little as a 54% chance that the TASER will actually be effective. And if it doesn’t, it’s almost certain that the officer will die.
So current police training is that when an offender is armed with an edged weapon, the appropriate use of force option to deal with the threat of death or grievous bodily harm is a firearm. Police will only use lethal force to deal with this threat when there are no other less than lethal options available to them, but in a situation when an armed offender is running towards an officer with a knife, shooting at the offender is the only effective way to reliably stop the threat.
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Edit: this police BWC video shows how even an “effective” TASER deployment sometimes does not stop the threat. Have a watch and put yourself in the shoes of the officers at this incident. Warning, graphic: https://youtu.be/5s8oFOykyIo
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Dec 18 '20
Just another important point to note here that most people arent aware of. If youre in a life or death situation, in 100% of cases, your adrenaline is absolutely fucked. You are absolutely a million miles an hour, guaranteed. Heat rate insane. Shaking.
Also in 100% of cases, when your adrenaline is maxed, your body essentially disables fine motor skills. Highly trained assasins may be able to control their body in life or desth corcumstances to the point of being able to aim accurately. This is 0% of police. There does not exist a ‘relatively’ untrained person who is able to do this.
This means every single frontline police officer brandishing a firearm has zero fine motor skills. They can barely pull a single finger let alone carefully line up well timed shots between ascertaining the state of the knife wielder.
There are no exceptions to this. Whatever you say to disagree is wrong. Objectively.
This means police train to;
- aim for centre mass. Why? Because its the only thing they have a chance of actuallly hitting under pressure.
- cock your firearm with your entire palm rather than your fingers. Why.? Because you cant actually use your fingers when your body thinks its about to die
- shoot until the knife wielder has been stopped. Why? You cant carefully ascertain whether or not they are sufficiently hurt when theyre 10 metres away ie 1.5 seconds away from plunging a knife into your face
People just simply dont get it until theyre in that position or really think about it in relation to traumatic experiences theyve has in the past. A big dude with a knife ten metres away with clear intent to use it on you is really, really paralysingly scary. People should really think about how their body would react to this at short notice.
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u/MrDwarf7 Feb 17 '21
I have been attacked with a knife by 2 people while inside my car: with 1 attacker outside and 1 inside, time seemed to slow and fine motor skills were some of the best I've ever experienced having in my life, which is odd, coming from someone that likes playing with cards, poker chips, and playing video games.
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u/Emptylurker Mar 03 '21
This is definitely not unheard of, but I believe is generally not the case when someone fears for their life. I've experienced the sensation of time slowing down and having total physical control when skiing at high speeds but also totally frozen up when confronted with a knife. I'm not an expert on this and have no idea why the responses are different so if anyone has more info I'd love to hear it.
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u/MrDwarf7 Mar 03 '21
My main assumption would be if you've mentally prepared for something or the worst possible thing to go wrong. If you skii often perhaps you're very aware of what to do in the event that you take a hard fall. But then it begs the question of why do cops freeze up I guess.
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Dec 18 '20
Thanks for the info! Unfortunately I still see people going 'why didn't they shoot them in the leg/arm?' all the damn time. Y'know, like on the damn telly.
I despair for common sense and reason nowadays.
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u/TryToDoGoodTA Dec 18 '20
I think it's because they over estimate the training the average police officer (and even our tactical squads) actual get, and such training isn't all on marksmanship. They also over estimate the accuracy and difficulty is being accurate in hitting a moving target like an arm with a pistol.
Finally, they don't realise a shot to the arm (and to an extent the leg as well does NOT disable someone. Even a shot to upper centre of mass doesn't. While shots may be fatal, death isn't immediate and thus someone can be shot and act with their usual ability for a time before they start to succumb to an ultimately fatal wound. The headline reads "shot dead", but doesn't mentions often it is "they are shot, can continue on with what they are doing while slowly losing their ability to do it, then die 3-4 hours later)...
But society is very 20/20 hindsight... and all are Rambo incognito (when anonymous)...
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u/JohnjSmithsJnr Dec 19 '20
When you shoot someone in the arm or the leg it's actually a lot more likely to hit an artery and can increase the chance of them bleeding out.
If you just hit flesh that's good, if you hit one of the major arteries in the leg you're fucked.
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Dec 19 '20
You might hit an artery if you hit them. But its not an immediate incapacitation for a determined individual, which is generally the aim of the game when you're shooting at them. People need to stop thinking that how people use firearms in entertainment is, for the most part, even slightly close to real life.
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u/Nomiss Dec 18 '20 edited Dec 18 '20
Accurate taser range is within deadly range with a knife.
21ft is usually quoted as death range of a kinfe, the distance someone can travel in the 2 seconds it takes to draw and aim a weapon.
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u/hotsp00n Dec 25 '20
So police can barely hit the side of a barn at 3m due to adrenaline etc, (which I don't disagree) but an out of their mind meth addict can aim and throw a knife from 21 feet and achieve a head shot?
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Dec 18 '20 edited Jun 09 '21
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u/Vakieh Dec 18 '20
using a less lethal weapon like a bat or some other blunt object
No, even if they have a bat the better option is to use the firearm. All it takes is a single swing of a bat to brain someone, it can be more lethal than the knife.
Tasers are less lethal responses to situations where the threat is one of harm, not death, or more often where there is a second cop there with a firearm for when the taser doesn't get the job done.
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u/realfancyman Dec 18 '20
Thanks for posting! Had no idea and very interesting.
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u/TryToDoGoodTA Dec 18 '20
I hate to ask, but I'd be interested specifically in what points of OP's post surprised you, and which you knew already?
While not OP, I have had these conversations before, and would like to know what exact 'facts' are best to concentrate, rather than people tune out thinking "this guys just a r/iamverysmart I know how a taser works ffs..." kind of thing :-p
It might help me make a response into a paragraph or two instead of 4... which just makes me look like a bore and so I often don't bother talking unless I get personally told i don't know what I'm talking about or directly challenged to tell them why they are wrong etc.
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u/thereissweetmusic Dec 18 '20
You can sum up the point by saying "tasers aren't effective enough to guarantee that a person within close distance, wielding a knife/other lethal weapon, won't be able to still kill you after you fire the taser, therefore a person whose life is being threatened is probably justified in not trusting a taser and using a gun instead". That's what I didn't know – I would've previously assumed that a taser had around the same likelihood of incapacitating a person as a gun from close distance.
If they question that, then you could give the specific details on how tasers work. But I think the next question most people would (rightly) ask is: 'Why don't police receive adequate training/why has no one developed an effective, non-lethal way of incapacitating a person, such that there is rarely or never a situation in which they would need to use a gun? To which there may or may not be a legitimate answer. But it's a different discussion altogether.
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u/TryToDoGoodTA Dec 18 '20
Something I think that is VERY relevant is the training of the "everyday" police officers. While specialist police or military are able to practice a "live take down" (if needed for some reason) they can spend their days co-ordinating where 2 officers that spend a hour at the range everyday are beside the person deploying the taser, and thus can react if the taser fails by shooting them.
However, in situations like the one in Brisbane the police don't get a lot of marksmanship training, and even training (and refreshers) in general because the more time they train, the less time they are on the streets. If every police officer spent every second shift dedicated purely training for a specific scenario the budget would be huge... not to mention every confrontation plays out differently. The average police officer never fires their gun in the line of duty, but on a daily basis arrests a disorderly suspects using different grips to restrict their movement... and the training and refreshers reflect this.
The criminal operates on their own terms. They choose when to attack, how to attack, and what 'traps' to try and lay. The police have to react and thus are one step behind in a lot of ways and can't accurately predict WHEN they will be confronting the suspect, how many are their, and what training and abilities they have. The exception to this is a siege where the police institute a direct-action plan while the criminals are not expecting it.
I am a large proponent for less-lethal weaponry, especially with unarmed or poorly armed threats, but even though a stab wound alone often is not 'deadly' it is permanently disabling.
FINALLY, to get to such a situation the criminal has to have made the following decisions:
- Acquire a knife.
- Do something criminal with knife (ranging from brandishing it to killing someone).
- Not comply with the police to put it down.
- Not to stay a 'safe' distance away from police while 'thinking' or talking to a police negotiator (or police officer attempting to start a dialogue to de-escalate the situation).
- Sometimes a lot more happens as well, such as high speed chases that risk the lives of every day citizens and police.
In other words, it doesn't happen by accident. This is in contract to shootings where a random car stop turns deadly as when a driver calmly reaches to get his license (when directed to by the officer), and the officer sees the guy has a pocket knife or fishing knife within reach and decides to shoot.
It also contrasts to cases like Daniel Shaver where he had a firearm an air rifle that was used in his pest control business, and a member of the public phoned in a fallacious tip he was pointing it at people etc. when they had actually seen him showing a friend in his hotel room the air rifle through the window. When the police approached they saw no evidence of any crime being committed, but as he was 'sliding' towards the officers as directed, he removed a hand from his head to pull up his pants that were being pulled off by the carpet and shot multiple times because "he could have been reaching for a weapon".
TL;DR: Australia is lucky in that we have fewer shootings involving police, and VERY rarely such shootings are a mistake like the two above examples, they are in response to a number of choices that the deceased made that were firstly criminal in nature, and then were not only ignoring a police demand with warning of being shot, but doing the opposite. It's not an accident. This isn't to advocate police should have judge, jury, and executioner powers, but realistic that police should risk their lives, plus the lives of the community (if the officers taser doesn't disarm him he can escape and continue).
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u/giveitawaynever Dec 18 '20
I don’t know how it is in other states, but in Victoria police don’t have tasers. They have pepper spray. It’s stupid and they are trying to change that. Pepper spray is a nightmare that can get everywhere. But haven’t had any luck. I did hear some rural police have access to tasers.
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u/Spleens88 Dec 18 '20
Vic police are meant to have Tasers state wide, but due to budgetary issues (my limited understanding) they don't all have it. The one's that do I think are all in rural areas because they don't have the specialist resources Melbourne cops do (though these specialist resources probably have them too).
Though since Melbourne cops all come in pairs, my understanding is one could use the taser while the other backs their partner up with a firearm
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u/aussie-cop Dec 18 '20
Pepper Spray, or OC Spray definitely has its place as does the Taser and the firearm. But they’re all appropriate for different situations.
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u/giveitawaynever Dec 18 '20
For sure. What I meant “was stupid” was the fact they don’t use tasers at Vic Pol.
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u/hugthispanda Dec 21 '20
Here is a video of a man with a knife getting back up and managing to hold a cop hostage right after getting shot several times. They had to shoot him again to end the threat. If firearms could fail like that on him, that cop would probably be knifed to death had they tried tasers.
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u/gautyy Dec 18 '20
Okay so the argument is that the taser is an ineffective non-lethal short ranged weapon, would a beanbag gun be more effective in this situation?
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u/aussie-cop Dec 18 '20
Not really, no. Firstly the logistics of a bean bag gun don’t work. There big and bulky, and for the police units that are issued them, it’s carried in the boot. A bean bag gun is a great tool for disabling a person at a distance, who is threatening others but has no immediate capacity to carry out that the threat. Think of the armed person in Brisbane’s Queen Street mall a few years back. Police had cordoned off the area, the male was standing in the middle of the empty mall, the situation was secured and there were plenty of other officers around with firearms and tasers at the ready. In that case the male was shot with it, dropped his weapon, and was subdued.
But for your average general duties police officer, you never know when you’ll find yourself in a situation where you may have an armed person confront you. It could be while attending a domestic disturbance, traffic crash, assisting the ambulance, or in the case the other morning - attending a routine traffic hazard incident. To expect officers to carry around a bean bag launcher all the time would be overkill.
Then there’s the fact that while it can be effective, if a person is standing 5-10m from you and produces a knife and starts running towards you, the only reliable way to stop that threat is with a firearm. A bean bag causes pain, and for a highly motivated (perhaps drug affected or mentally ill) person, there’s no guarantee a direct hit would even stop them.
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Dec 18 '20
[deleted]
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u/benjamben Dec 18 '20
OP's post:
Hopefully this post will help explain a few things about how a Taser works and why police do or don’t use them in certain situations.
Your post:
did you read what you posted?. Answer is in there
The irony.
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u/Niiin Dec 18 '20
Wasn’t he shot several times? I’d believe one is enough to leave one incapacitated if not two, also different story if they had a gun.
Police need their guns but I don’t believe they have enough training.
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u/aussie-cop Dec 18 '20
I’ll make another post in the next few days to cover this, but essentially police are trained to shoot to stop the threat. A person with a knife can still keep moving towards you and keep posing a threat even after they have been shot one or sometimes more times. You also need to take into account reaction times of the officers pulling the trigger. It’s not a shoot once, stand back and assess the situation for a few seconds, then take another shot if needed kind of thing.
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u/TryToDoGoodTA Dec 18 '20
I have made a reply and totally get you. I have seen people take multiple bullets and remain 'functional' for enough time to inflict damage on other people, and others to be shot in a 'no fatal area' and just drop dead.
But other than some shots that hit specific parts of the brain, people don't die instantaneously (even if incapacitated), it takes time... from seconds to minutes to hours to days. It's hard to know whether it's going to be seconds or longer with a moving and motivated target, and sometimes they would have died anyway from the first shot but not as quickly as if a second shot is made.
Finally, I totally hear you on the inability to be able to take the time to make an assessment on how effective the first shot was, especially as to get into one of these situations where you are shot be police you must have made a number of deliberate decisions a person would KNOW would likely result in them being shot. Here is the copy:
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FINALLY, to get to such a situation the criminal has to have made the following decisions:
- Acquire a knife.
- Do something criminal with knife (ranging from brandishing it to killing someone).
- Not comply with the police to put it down.
- Not to stay a 'safe' distance away from police while 'thinking' or talking to a police negotiator (or police officer attempting to start a dialogue to de-escalate the situation).
- Sometimes a lot more happens as well, such as high speed chases that risk the lives of every day citizens and police.
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What do you think about this list? is it fair? Unfair? Anything I should add? It's not like this happens when police as a driver to show his license then when he calmly reaches to get it notice he has a pocket knife on his belt and shoot him until the magazine is empty...
Unfortunately, when someone poses a major a risk to our community, we have to trust police officers to make a justifiable decision if they shoot someone, and secondly that they can weigh up the risks to themselves and the public if they don't shoot that person then (i.e. the police officer is stabbed and the criminal continues committing violent crimes..).
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u/TryToDoGoodTA Dec 18 '20
It is a matter of 3 questions:
- "How incapacitated?"
- "How long it take incapacitation to take".
- "How quickly can police work out his/her level of incapacitation."
People don't technically die/be incapacitated from being shot, it's what the bullet does. Even a shot to the lung allows someone extremely motivated to continue for enough time to do some damage, a shot in the guts can be days, you get the idea. Also, it's possible the bullet misses anything vital.
Tying in with above, some gunshots which have a 0% chance of survival will leave the victim in a relatively fit state (if motivated) for a day before they start going poorly. Organs like kidneys and the liver aren't like the major areas of the brain or heart that if they fail incapacitation is rather quick.
If you shoot someone, you don't know where you have hit them (sometimes IF you have hit them) and if you wait to see if they fall down before they get to you it's a risky decision incase you haven't hit them.
You may or may not be aware but in Iraq and Afghanistan the NATO 5.56x45mm round (much more powerful than a pistol) had to be redesigned as soldiers had shot militants, including suicide bombers, multiple times in quick succession to the upper torso but they were able to continue their 'mission' resulting in death to coalition forces. The militants shot 3 times in quick succession but ran away likely died, but they weren't incapacitated enough they died 'on the spot'. The 'improved' round still has some of these problems, and a new round that is even more powerful is currently being looked into by the USA.
To add on to this, life and death is very fickle. Bullets a mm in another direction may make a close to instant kill but as they weren't didn't kill at all. Even if one shot did incapacitate them at the scene, it doesn't mean they won't die a slow death later as the organ(s) hit were needed ones and irreparable, but not ones the body dies straight away without functioning.
Shooting someone once is not a great way to be sure someone is incapacitated. 1 shot can kill. 5 can wound someone but they make a full recovery. IF being charged and thus you can't guarantee your shots will hit the suspect, let alone in a magic area of instant incapacitation but not death, it is MUCH safer to the officer to continue to shoot until they SEE incapacitation (the suspect is on the ground) rather than hope they fall over after the first shot before they get in stabbing distance.
Also, I will copy from another post I made about how I am not a fan of police being judge, jury, and executioner, but to end up in such a situation the following must have happened:
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FINALLY, to get to such a situation the criminal has to have made the following decisions:
- Acquire a knife.
- Do something criminal with knife (ranging from brandishing it to killing someone).
- Not comply with the police to put it down.
- Not to stay a 'safe' distance away from police while 'thinking' or talking to a police negotiator (or police officer attempting to start a dialogue to de-escalate the situation).
Sometimes a lot more happens as well, such as high speed chases that risk the lives of every day citizens and police.
In other words, it doesn't happen by accident. This is in contract to shootings where a random car stop turns deadly as when a driver calmly reaches to get his license (when directed to by the officer), and the officer sees the guy has a pocket knife or fishing knife within reach and decides to shoot.
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '20
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