Here’s a video of a law enforcer shooting a guy walking away from him. The latter is italicized to make a point worth discussing. It is that in many if not most states, it is murder to shoot a person who is walking away from you. Even if that person had been threatening you before that. The law considers such a walking-away person not an imminent threat to your life and – accordingly – you do not have the right to shoot that person.
The standard for use of deadly force is different for law enforcers, of course. It allows them to shoot – and kill – people who are walking or even running away, if they are armed and if they had previous to walking/running away threatened to or actually used – or even just “brandished” – the weapon in their possession.
One can make an argument that deadly force in such a case is legitimate. The question at hand, however, is why it is illegitimate in many states for what law enforcers like to call “civilians” – implying the enforcers are in the military – to use deadly force under the same circumstances. 
In many states, a person under attack has a legal obligation to retreat before he can legally defend himself with a firearm. In some states, even that is not legal. A person asleep in his own home who awakens to a stranger in his bedroom can (and often is) charged with murder if he shoots first and asks questions later. He is required to intuit whether the person in his bedroom just wants to steal something, rather than steal his life.
This highlights the problem of the double standard that has caused many”civilians” to have legitimate contempt for law enforcers. The double standard encompasses law enforcers being free to “speed” – and to not have to “buckle up” for “safety.” More seriously, it encompasses their right – their legal privilege – to resort to extreme aggression when they say their felt their “safety” was at risk. Whereas us “civilians” are expected to submit to extreme aggression and when we attempt to defend ourselves from attack, it is styled “resisting.”
So – have a look – and see what you think!
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you like items like the Baaaaaa! baseball cap pictured below, you can find that and more at the EPautos store!
Ha
Even here there are people who would defend that murder. Hopeless state worshipping cowards.
Hi Matt,
Not me. I grant the cop his right to defend himself when the guy came at him with the knife. But when the guy disengaged and walked away, there was no longer an excuse to shoot. Keep the gun on him, sure – and if he turned and attacked, ok. But was it necessary to shoot when he was walking away? I don’t see how. Why not at least try to de-escalate? I honestly think there are many cops who want to have an excuse to shoot someone.
I think there are 2 grey zones, the first being the beginning of the interaction. Cop went straight to commands, though I don’t know what the original call was or if they had dealings with this guy before. Should really try to build rapport with someone first unless they are caught in the act. This guy was just sitting. Its good practice to use the old ‘ask, tell, make’ process. Cop started at ‘tell.’ So the commands came right away and the guy got mad, perhaps rightfully so, then more mad once the taser came out.
He went to taser, which probably wouldn’t have too high a chance of working against a thick jacket, but the fight started and he lost it. Once the knife is out, deadly force is authorized, you would be foolish to whip out a baton or pepper spray to a knife. You don’t hear of too many cops getting stabbed because they are trained to shoot if the knife threat is within 25 feet, which this guy was.
But then he starts walking away- the second grey area. That would be a chance to disengage and reset the interaction, get some distance and put the gun lower/ away if you can talk the guy to putting the knife away. They were out in an open industrial area/field/parking lot, not a mall of crowded people. The threat to the public was not super high. Could have gone back to talking and get backup with pepperspray/pepperballs. But there is the flip side in his defense that there is an armed guy who already fought the police and disarmed his taser that is still a threat to the public. He may have shot him in the back which looks really bad for anyone, but 2 shots were fired and the threat stopped, at which point he called for medical aid. He didn’t mag dump trying to kill him like some cops, only hitting the guy twice at that. Less lethal options were already exhausted. At mentioned above, it depends on the jurisdiction whether the cop or anyone else will get off or get charged in a situation like this, which is unfortunate.
Talk about the double standard . . . Ohio legislators are proposing a bill that would make it a crime to harass a cop, harass meaning causing substantial emotional distress. (Note the link probably won’t give you the full story . . . )
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2025/03/house-republicans-pitch-criminal-penalties-for-harassing-police-officers.html
Did you read the note? The guy was threatening to kill a house full of people, ran up on a cop with a knife while being tased, most likely on drugs and headed off to exercise option 2 on the note. No win situation.
Why the rubber gloves? Is he preparing to do a cavity search or is he trying to not leave fingerprints?
He considers non-cops to be disgusting scum.
The last cop article did have quite an unhinged cop but I don’t see this guy as one. Did anybody watch the whole video? Pause at 38s he tries to stab the cop clearly and the reason the cop was there is because this guy left a note stating he was going to kill everyone at the air base. https://youtu.be/FRJtGrrnA4M?t=38
I agreed the double standard is the issue. If I put myself as a civilian in the cops place…well if a guy tries to stab me and then walk off I will shoot the bastard dead and I would do it no matter which way he was facing because you don’t get to do that to me. Will I go to jail for it? Probably. Because politicians write stupid laws and the jury system is a joke.
You need more law enforcement presence when a suspect is considered dangerous.
You need to be more cautious, apprehending the suspect is better than presenting a body to the coroner.
More effective to shake a man than to kill him.
Walt Whitman’s prescient words from Greensleeves:
Resist much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty
If you watch the video you’ll find he was nearby and the first on the scene. I don’t know what you mean by more cautious unless you’re saying “give the guy more time to stab me”. He clearly has the knife out swinging at 38 seconds into the video. If anything the cop was too slow on the draw and got lucky he didn’t get cut up. And he even tried to use the useless taser first as well. I am no blue line bootlicker but looking at the video this guy was getting put down one way or another. Also Walt became a poet after his career as a teacher ended dramatically because he diddled a schoolboy.
You go ahead and kill me. My troubles will be over, yours will just be beginning – A woman’s words to her potential attacker
I don’t care about the carnal affairs of cabaret denizens.
A full synagogue of Jews was burned to the ground after the local Germans discovered some of the young sons in the community were being sexually molested.
Disappeared from the internet a few years ago. The total surveillance is in place.
The Asmat male members of the tribe would perform a homosexual ritual before every headhunt.
I don’t care anymore. It’s a funny old ride. Especially after you are born.
A knife? How often are police actually stabbed from a “suspect” carrying a knife on him? I’ve never heard of it before. There was no reason to shoot the guy. I doubt this would have happened in any other country, unless it was Israel and the other guy was Palestinian.
Legal or not, watch the number of people who’ll bend over backwards to “support the police” no matter how outrageous or illegal the act.
That’s the biggest problem: MOST of the public supports the police because they, incorrectly, see the cops as the “good guys”. It’s only once they have a run-in with these armed and tattooed thugs that goes south that they MIGHT recognize that the police aren’t the “good guys” they thought they were.
If you try to leave me… I’ll kill you.
It’s getting to be a sport for the pigs in charge to shoot somebody in cold blood.
It is cold-blooded murder, hands down.
Has anyone else noticed the number of tattooed cops? It enhances their thuggish ambiance. Very, very few cops deserve any amount of respect.
The cop was going to shoot the victim which is why he mentions a knife. The (cops) ave drop knives as well as drop guns. Why would someone hold a knife on someone that is armed with a gun and is 30 feet away.
From what little we can see of Occifer Friendlies flabby arm he may be a fat. Cops get paid decent money, they should be in shape and smarter than the average second grader. The purple gloves give away this ones retardation. And when did shooting people in the back become OK?
Pulled out a cutlass and they had to shoot
Something tells me they like to shoot
Something in the eyes of the ones at the roadblock
Where they searched the car and tried to get us to confess to whatever….
Bruce Cockburn, Dancing in Paradise, 1986
Put a bounty on the cop.
Hi Baby,
It seemed a bit excessive to me, too. The enforcer chose to shoot because he could. Not because he had to.
Or maybe, deep down inside, he wanted to. I swear, these police departments only hire low IQ people with a screw loose. It’s downright terrifying to know mildly retarded whack jobs with the law behind them drive up and down our street every day.
You can be too smart to be a cop: Jordan v. City of New London.
Being an enforcer for the state means being a specific kind of mercenary. A back shooter is a coward.
Being an enforcer means being paid way above your level of societal worth and being literally above the law. It also gives you a huge advantage over honest, decent members of society.
All cops swear an oath to enFORCE all laws at their level. (Township cops don’t enFORCE violations of federal law, FBI agents don’t enFORCE traffic laws). Not every law is just, some laws are unjust (purchase a registration sticker each year from the state to display on your license plate). If you swear to enFORCE unjust laws, and do so, are you a “good” cop”? If you swear to enFORCE unjust laws, but refrain from actually enforcing them, are you a hypocrite/oathbreaker?
Well-said, Warren –
The term – law enforcement – is inherently nihilistic at best, evil at worst. Enforce- just because it’s “the law”? Isn’t that what they do in totalitarian societies, where it is obedience that’s the ultimate law that must be enforced?
Unlike Police States of the past, ours is filmed in living color and HD. No more grainy black and white films of tyranny. It’s here in all its disgusting glory.
Which is reason for hope. Before they could maintain a veneer of respectability, now it is obvious what they are. Of course, the omnipresent camera also inhibits Justice being done.
The all-seeing eye of the Creator is always on you too. This world is run by Satan and his minions, it seems. Satan makes it easy to do these things you see in the video. Anyone can do it. It’s the path of least resistance.
Acting with honor and kindness is the difficult path. It’s God’s test for you. A lot of people tend to fail this test, especially people who choose to make their living by pilfering from others.
What to do about it? Maintain your honor and kindness until it’s not an option. Then flip that switch when it’s time.
One can’t be good without the potential for bad.