Читать книгу Force Decisions. A Citizen's Guide to Understanding How Police Determine Appropriate Use of Force онлайн

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An ominous threat is trying to injure you, pure and simple. That can be any unarmed attack and some attacks with weapons (though most weapon attacks are lethal). Biting, also, is termed ominous behavior, although with concerns about blood-borne pathogens, some officers argue that biting should be considered lethal resistance.

Lethalthreats

An officer’s intent in a deadly force situation is not and can never be “to kill.” The intent is always to ‘stop the threat.’ This can appear to be mincing words. In a way, it is. Killing is certainly stopping, and many of the ways a threat is ‘stopped’ that come to media attention are kills.

There are two reasons why that wording is important in application and training. ‘Dead’ is a term with very specific meanings—something that is sometimes difficult to establish in the field. Modern medicine has saved many people who would have been declared dead fifty years ago. A ‘reasonable officer’ can be expected to determine when a threat has stopped; he cannot be expected to determine ‘dead,’ and that simple change in wording might require the officer to use more force, just to be sure that he met the standard.