Suspect Businesses - If a suspect attempts to disarm a police officer by taking his gun, is the police officer justified in shootin?

If a suspect attempts to disarm a police officer by taking his gun, is the police officer justified in shootin?

If a suspect attempts to disarm a police officer, is the officer justified in shooting the suspect once the officer regains control of his gun. Please include court cases to support your answers.

Public Comments

Do your own homework.
why would you do that?
Absolutely 100%. No need for court cases, thats just how it is. If someone tries to take my gun, I have every right to shoot him.
Not once the officer regains control of his weapon, but he could during the struggle for it!
Yes--basic self defense. The officer's life is threatened if the subject gets his weapon-Deadly force is justified.
No, he can disable the suspect but can't shoot him over that.
Yep. It's the first come first serve basis. Once you grab an officer's gun, that is considered attempted murder. For the officer's safety (with a little adrenaline in it) the officer has every right to shoot the person. It's self defense. Because what says the person isn't going for the gun again and what says that they won't succeed the second time. Personally, if someone tried to take my gun, I would unload a magazine into them before they knew what hit them.
The suspect is taking the weapon for one reason, to kill the officer. That makes it a deadly force situation, and shooting the suspect is justified. Even if the officer gains control, if the suspect does anything to continue the threat, he could be shot. I'm not aware of any case law to support this, it is covered under self defense.
huh? would you want to end up dead? doing this is a sure fire way to, at the very least get yourself tased. at the most, you will find yourself shot. you are threatening the officer's life, and deadly force will be justified. don't do it.
are u serious dude, if a suspect even touches a cop or walks toward the cop and the cop feels threatened he is aloud to shoot you. so yes, if u try and disarm a cop he is able to shoot u if he gets his gun back. i dont know exactly what the charge and case would be, but just think of it as hitting a cop, or resisting arrest somewhere inbetween there. PRETTY HEFTY FINE, and some nice jail time. The cop wont be too pleased with himself for shooting u, he will have to go to counseling, Cops are not trained to kill they are trained to protect but he is at liberty to shoot any suspect if he feels threatened in any kind of way.
If someone is trying to take the officer's gun, the officer kinda gets the idea the guy is not trying to take it just to look at it, so yes, once the officer gets his gun back, he can shoot, and should shoot, because his life was just threatened.
First question why are you trying to disarm the police Officer ? did he or she do something un lawful ? if not you don't touch his or her weapon, if the officer is shooting little kids for no reason!! then you can try to disarm the officer and shoot him that would be justified
The court case wouldn't necessarily back up the use of a weapon in that case - not legally anyway. That question is usually a fact specific one decided by a jury (or a judge in a bench trial). Disarming an officer is basically the same as arming yourself. If the shooting followed the attempted disarming closely enough, and the suspect was not yet under the cop's control even if the gun was, then there would be a good case for justification. You need more specifics if you want an answer, but I doubt a few paragraphs added to a question in YA will be enough. Again, it's too fact-specific.
Yes if someone trys to take the officers gun if there is no other way to be able to control the situation than yes the officer can shoot but only a way to be able to gain control such as shoot the suspect in leg somewhere to cause as little damage as possible.
Yes, it would fall under the concept of "deadly force". Many things can fall under this category that people often don't realise- - Gun grab attempts - TASER grab attempts - Pointing TASER at an officer - CS (pepper spray) grab attempts - Pointing CS at an officer The presumption when reviewing an attempt to disarm an officer by a suspect is that the suspect intended to use the weapon against the officer, so the officer is justified in using lethal force to prevent it. The same basic logic also covers things like TASERS and CS spray since either could be used to help disarm or incapacitate the officer. EDIT: To the person who gave a thumbs down, my answer was correct- http://www.speforums.com/showthread.php?t=2397 "An Oregon officer just had his TASER taken away and used on him, forcing him to shoot and kill the BG when he was able." http://pun.org/josh/archives/2004/09/new-more-powerf.html "However, the quote I find interesting is Multnomah County (Oregon) Sheriff's Deputy Paul McRedmond's: If you point a Taser at an officer, a law enforcement officer, we may use deadly force upon you." http://www.officer.com/web/online/Operations-and-Tactics/Duty-Gear-is-Good/3$42691 "Some of these weapons are non-lethal in nature (the aerosol and the ECD). That is, if an officer is disarmed and attacked with one, the use of it is not - in and of itself - likely to be fatal. However, the degree to which an officer is incapacitated, and thus unable to defend himself, can escalate the non-lethal nature of the attack quickly to deadly levels." & "A question comes up frequently in my ECD instructor classes - just as it did in the aerosol instructor classes that I used to teach, and that is how much force can an officer use if he or she is disarmed of their OC or TASER? The response I usually give is that officers should use whatever level of force they believe is necessary in order to protect themselves from serious physical harm" http://www.policeone.com/police-products/less-lethal/taser/articles/76557-Shock-Treatment-Police-trainers-and-commanders-grapple-with-the-question-of-whether-to-expose-officers-to-Tasers/ "Should a suspect grab and aim a Taser at an officer, the officer may decide to deploy deadly force, especially if he or she has no backup. The officer could authoritatively testify in court from first-hand knowledge about the Taser's capability to incapacitate that he or she knew that the Taser's effect would give the subject the opportunity to obtain his or her sidearm. Certain jurisdictions have already cleared officers who eventually used higher levels of force and even deadly force as a result of exposure to their own pepper spray. So it is likely that the courts would also accept similar arguments from officers faced with the prospect of being Tasered by a subject." http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35850&highlight=sprayed+shot - David
First off, i don't see why anyone would try that, unless you have a death wish, come on people, a cop will shoot if you reach for your wallet, let alone his gun...........not to mention their reloading skills.....hahaha....
Yes, in 95% per cent of cases where an officer is disarmed the suspect has used the weapon on the officer. The suspect is attempting to gain access to a deadly weapon, therefore deadly force is permitted to stop that from happening.
I'd think it would be hard to defend the officer if he shot after he had regained control of the gun... the threat is no longer imminent? baby_girl: there is no shooting to wound. If you shoot, you shoot to kill.
This will depend on more information than you have provided. If the suspect is still attempting to disarm me, then he dies...if once I retain control over the weapon the suspect backs off the shoot would not be reasonable.
If a suspect tries to take an Officers weapon then the Officer should determine that the bad guy intends to kill the Officer with it. All you have to do is look at the number of Officers that have been killed by their own weapon to see the pattern. It's not like they are taking it to check and see if the Officer has cleaned it lately. Because the Officer could (and should) determine that the bad guy is trying to kill him the Officer could articulate using deadly force to stop this threat. The Officer would be justified in using deadly force (i.e. shooting the bad guy) to stop the suspect as long as the suspect is trying to get the weapon. Once the Officer has stopped the threat by either shooting the suspect until the suspect stops trying for the weapon or the suspect becomes compliant (i.e. gives up) the Officer would need to scale down his force. The Officer would not be justified in shooting the suspect if the suspect gave up and allowed the Officer to take control of the situation. Use of force is looked at from a perspective of reasonableness. The court asks what would a reasonable Officer do in the same situation under the same circumstances (totality of circumstances). This level of reasonableness is the product of a US Supreme Court Ruling in Graham v. Connor. Graham v. Connor: http://supreme.justia.com/us/490/386/case.html Like much of Police work there is no cookie cutter solution to a lot of it. You must use common sense with a lot of it. Add to that a healthy dose of training.