From: adamsr@netcom.com (Rick Adams)
Subject: Re: Activist shot at Berkeley Chancellor's home
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 18:13:15 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

Thus spake cbl@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu: 

>	The only way I would assume that a 100 lb woman attacking me
>	was unarmed was if she was stark naked. I've been attacked on the
>	street (never by a woman, BTW) and in only 1 of the 6 instances
>	was there a weapon. However with the presence of a weapon, the calculus
>	of the confrontation changes dramatically. A secondary
>	consideration is unarmed combat training. If I don't know otherwise
>	I will assume that a woman attacking me has such training, and as
>	such is a danger to my life. 
>
	Despite such an assumption, however, you would end up in jail if you
shot her (unless, of course, you were able to prove the assumption was a
reasonably one (i.e., she was wearing a gi with a black belt or exiting a
dojo, etc.).

>	Now in the strange case where I have an unexplained attack by
>	a 100 lb woman who is stark naked, and I know via divine sources
>	she is not trained in martial arts, yes, I would not feel justified 
>	in shooting to stop an attack. I'd probably just treat her as I
>	would a child having a temper tantrum.

	At least you don't state that you would shoot her anyway for having
the audacity to attack you!

>	Now, given the situation that was described, the cops should have
>	tried to talk her out of the house, etc. If there were no hostages
>	what's the point of going in? Just wait her out, yes it may take
>	a week, but no one gets hurt. On the other hand, once the cop
>	is in the room with her, he is justified in responding
>	to a lethal threat if one exists ie simply that she had a sword
>	and was in the house does not make her a lethal threat. If she
>	advances while armed, etc, then she is a lethal threat. If she is 
>	unarmed and advances on a drawn gun, that gives him reason
>	to believe that she is a threat, because such action is 
>	irrational, and/or an indication that she is armed and 
>	intends to do bodily harm. 
>
	I have never claimed that he should not have shot her *IF* the
situation was as it has been reported (i.e., he entered a room and she
attacked him with a machete). What I HAVE stated (at least part of which you
agree with above) is:

	1. There was no reason for the police to enter the building in the
first place, given the circumstances. Knowing that a mentally unbalanced
woman with a machete was in the house alone, ANY reasonable person could
infer that storming the house had a very high likelihood of resulting in
serious injury or death for her or for the officers involved. Rational
police procedure would have demanded that the site be contained, that
negotiations be attempted, and that if entry was to be attempted, a trained
SWAT team make the attempt. ALL of these are reasonable, and ALL would have
increased the probability that NO ONE would have been hurt.  

	2. The assumptions that the officer was justified in the shoot are
based on HIS statements as to what occured. But he has a PROVEN record of
dishonesty with respect to his justifications for excessive force. From
their statements, it is evident that many of the posters here would justify
the shoot no matter what the circumstances, but I wonder how many would do
so if the facts revealed that she did NOT charge the officer, but simply was
standing in the room (or attempting to escape him) when he shot her. Given
his record this is VERY possible, and at the least justifies arguments that
a cop who had been dismissed from a force for repeated use of excessive
force had no business in uniform in that house in the first place. Had he
not been there, the shoot may NOT have occured.

	3. Mentally ill offenders CAN be managed and disarmed without a
serious threat to anyone. If the individual has a gun, the situation is
invariably dangerous, but a bladed weapon has a limited range, and the
individual disarming them can function from outside a safe region. This was
not attempted.

>	Have you ever been attacked? From your attitude, I doubt it. You
>	seem to think that a serious attack by an adult is somehow equivalent
>	to a schoolyard fight. 'Taint so. 
>
	Are you serious?

	I left home at 13 because I had a stepfather who believed
child=punching bag. I grew up living on the streets of NYC and SF, where
violence is an every day thing (I was born and raised on the wrong side of
Detroit). I went to Vietnam in the mid-sixties as a corpsman, to the deep
south in the early sixties as a civil rights demonstrater, and to most
anti-war protests (including the 68 convention in Chicago) as a peace
activist. Since then, I've worked as an attendant in the violent wing of a
state hospital for the criminally insane, and currently I'm interning in
criminal (clinical) psychology working with violent sex offenders and
sociopaths (my specialty). I have several scars from knife wounds, pins in
my leg from being shot in 'Nam, and a section of a lung missing from being
shot at close range with a .38 for being at the wrong place at the right
time. These are highlights only.

	Schoolyard fights where I grew up were conducted with knives,
chains, broken bottles, pipes and often guns.

	I'm perfectly aware what it's like to be attacked. I'm also
perfectly aware of the techniques necessary to deal with an armed mentally
ill woman. And the police SHOULD have been equally aware of them as well!

	I repeat - this was a BAD shoot!

>	He was only convicted of unregistered possession of a handgun. 
>	He was aquited on all other charges.
>
	Politically, that was all they could get away with nailing him with.

	Otoh, he was threatened by FOUR potentially armed assailants, and
DID have reasonable grounds to fear for his life - a fact well known to
almost anyone who has ever ridden the NY subways - and VERY well know to
those of us who have from time to time LIVED in the subway stations. 

	The point is, that even in HIS case he didn't "walk" on the charges.
Someone who shoots down a single, unarmed, attacker had better be able to
prove that that VERY strong grounds existed to assume the attacker posed a
major threat to their life, or they will end up in prison. 

>	I agree totally. It sounds like yet another case of a cop out of
>	control.
>
	On this point we agree completely.

	Btw, many of the cops I know personally agree with the view that it
was a bad shoot. It isn't only those of us identified as "flaming liberals"
who don't like what happened - a LOT of people have serious questions about
the incident - not the least of which is to ask why a cop with Chew's record
was in a uniform in the first place, let alone in that house.

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From: kingsley@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Kingsley Morse)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:01:01 GMT
Subject: More pressure on AIPAC and the FEC
Organization: HP Western Response Center