Police Officers Need to Accept the Risk That Comes With Showing Restraint

SGT Gregory Lawritson - I've read your response twice now ... and don't take exception to any of it. Thank you for the insight you brought to the topic. In defense of my original comment, poorly stated as it was, what I had in mind in my chained comment was a LEO coming upon someone holding a weapon, not knowing whether it was real or fake, having no or minimal interaction with the individual to assess mental state, and the individual doesn't respond favorably to the LEO's commands and acts in a threatening manner towards the LEO. In short, a situation that exploded ... it didn't unfold. It is irrelevant if, after the fact, it turns out the gun was plastic and the attacker was on drugs or mentally unbalanced. The LEO couldn't have known that with a reasonable degree of certainty as the incident evolved. The point I was attempting to drive home is my belief that in general, LEOs should not take on more risk to show restraint. In my rather one-sided strawman, for the LEO to be attacked by someone with weapon in hand and instinctively fail to respond because he did not know with certainty that the attacker was sane or the gun was real ... would be wrong. That does NOT mean that LEOs should not show reasonable restraint, just that they should not ratchet up risk to do so. In fact, I would think that the objective in most situations would be to minimize risk ... first to bystanders, then the LEO, then to the subject. I didn't see or intuit anything from your comment that suggested increasing risk to the LEO. In fact, as I read it, the restraint and attitude you advocate appear to reduce risk ... of the situation getting out of hand and to the LEO. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed your comment and appreciate your sharing your training and experience with me.