What cops need to consider about armed citizens by Mike Wood

Armed citizens and police officers are natural allies, and teammates in the fight against crime. There is no segment of the community more supportive of law enforcement than their fellow citizens who are lawfully armed.

So why are they accidentally killed by police with such distressing frequency?

2018 has been a tough year

This has been a tough year for police and armed citizens alike. In 2018, we’ve seen a number of tragic mistakes made by police officers who shot and killed lawfully armed citizens in error, including a homeowner in Aurora, Colorado, a security guard in Chicago, Illinois, and a Thanksgiving eve shopping mall patron in Hoover, Alabama, among others.

In each of these situations, the officers believed they were using force to stop someone who had endangered innocent life, but they were sadly mistaken. The officers were thrust into a dynamic and dangerous situation where they had to act quickly based on imperfect and incomplete information, and each of them made a fatal error that cost a life.

We still don’t understand the details of how these particular events unfolded, so it’s inappropriate to comment directly on the circumstances or assign blame. There were probably mistakes made by all parties – both armed citizens and police – which led to the unhappy endings of these stories, and this is not the place to hash that out.

Tactical considerations

Instead, I’d like to suggest some things for police to consider in order to avoid a tragic repeat of these events:

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