For those of you who don't know, there is a massive manhunt underway in Southern California for Christopher Dorner, an ex-LAPD officer and ex-Navy reservist wanted for three murders in the past week. CNN, among others, has posted updates as well as a summary of the story so far.
It's already getting political and nutty in response to this. HuffPo reports Facebook groups in support of Dorner are popping up, and the comments on the HuffPo article indicate there's enough conspiracy-theorizing and law enforcement hatred to indicate that there isn't the universal desire to see him apprehended that I might have naively expected. I am certain that some conservatives with more passion than sense or taste are making hay of the fact that Dorner's manifesto appeared to praise President Obama and support an assault weapons ban, suggesting, in an odd bit of self-referential writing, that people like him wouldn't be able to commit mayhem like this with such a ban.
Things are very fluid, and this sad and scary story, unfortunately, has the potential to get a lot sadder and scarier. I do hope my cop friends and acquaintances -- and obviously everyone else -- stays safe.
Because of the potential for raw nerves now, and because more details will emerge, I'm going to try to tread lightly here. Arguably, I shouldn't even try to bring this up -- hence why I've buried the lede a bit.
Three people were shot at in Torrance this morning by police because they were driving a similar truck to Dorner's and were near the home of one of the officers designated for protection. Two women were actually shot, one seriously. The women shot were LA Times paper deliverypeople.
More details will come after the investigation, but it appears these might have contributed to why the officer's shot at this particular truck:
1. The truck appeared to be a gray Nissan Titan like Dorner's.
1. The truck was driving with its lights off.
2. The truck was driving slowly, making stops near the officer's house.
Key points:
1. One of the residents knows that the deliverypeople keep their lights off to avoid disturbing sleeping residents.
2 The truck they were in was blue, not gray.
The second incident happened nearby about 20 minutes later, and while this story doesn't state it, I did hear in the KPCC coverage that the officers might have been responding to reports of shots fired in the first incident. This truck was black.
What are we to make of this?
The law enforcement officers hunting for Dorner are stressed, possibly tired -- especially those kept beyond their shift, and emotionally invested. Because Dorner is alleged to have killed not only police officers, but the children of police officers, it is intensely personal.
The situation that presented itself in Torrance was ambiguous, and the officers might well be cleared of wrongdoing (though the department will probably be sued).
And so, despite tremendous amounts of training with firearms and stressful situations, police officers, in two incidents this morning, opened fire, and we don't yet know fully whether they were justified in doing so.
Needless to say, this case in general, and perhaps this part in particular, has significant relevance to debates concerning the "castle doctrine" (aka "stand your ground" laws), gun ownership, and acceptable use of force by law enforcement.
Malcolm Gladwell mentioned in his book, Blink, that studies have found that an officer-involved shooting is less likely to happen if the officer is alone on patrol. (I can't find the excerpt, but related content is on the book's website.) This somewhat paradoxical bit appears to be due to the fact that, being alone and without backup, the officer is more likely to proceed more cautiously and have time to better process the situation. "When police officers are by themselves, they slow things down; with a partner, they speed things up."
Evidently, that part, located on pages 222-224, draws upon Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force, by David Kinger. It'd be nice to hear from anyone who has read that book.
In other words, police officers are people -- highly trained, generally good people with guns. But, being people, we need both training and the time necessary to use that training to process information and arrive at optimal conclusions. In other words, Blink is a deceptive title -- we need a few blinks of the eye, a few seconds, to cognitively evaluate situations in the best of circumstances.
I have only a brief anecdote about high emotions among law enforcement after tragedy. In 2004, a CHP officer was shot right outside of the Pomona courthouse. I happened to be part of a group that brought lunch to the homeless on Saturdays in the civic center plaza, a couple hundred yards away from the courthouse. One of the leaders of the group -- a generally wise, thoughtful, and, in case you're wondering, a sober man -- mentioned that things got much more tense in the wake of the shooting. Although the police had not been particularly hostile to the homeless there in the past, he and others had been shouted at and had guns drawn on them in the days following the shooting.
Again, the officers involved in the shootings may well be exonerated -- the luxury of time just might not have been there, depending on the specific circumstances. And thank goodness no one died.
This is not about excessive use of force by law enforcement. This is about how even good, well-trained people might react in a poor manner to ambiguous circumstances when under high stress.
We have to regard our ability to react correctly in ambiguous situations with a bit of humility. The evidence behind that -- from our own, honest recollections as well as aggregated data -- demonstrate that an idealized view of individual liberty, individual responsibility, and individual conscience might not work, even among the best-trained of us. And that has to inform our policies. It's not just a cop problem -- go look up Yoshihiro Hattori. For an example more recent -- ten days ago -- go read about Rodrigo Diaz.
That's all I have to say.
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