2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 112,152
- 52,407
- 2,290
Here is a look at the defense of an officer in a shooting that went to trial. She was found not guilty...
Anatomy of an Officer’s Defense in a High-Profile Shooting Pt. 1 - The Truth About Guns
SENSORY EXCLUSION
When Shelby pulled the trigger, a fellow officer was close by her, although she did not realize it at that moment. She was focused so narrowly and intensely on the suspect and the movements she considered potentially life-threatening that her brain excluded other sights and sounds, Wood says.
Outside her awareness, Ofcr. Tyler Turnbough had arrived seconds before in response to her radio call and had leaped from his squad car with his TASER in hand. He confirmed to Wood the suspect’s persistent resistance to Shelby’s commands, his target glance back “consistent with setting us up for a shot,” and his “quick movement” into the car window.
Simultaneous with Shelby shooting, Turnbough, just a step to her left and slightly back, discharged his CEW. The darts struck the suspect’s clothing but it is not known for certain whether they actually delivered an electrical impact, Wood says.
Turnbough, too, was a former Wood client—coincidentally, in another PCP case. “Several years ago, a suspect high on PCP tried to get Tyler’s gun and Tyler had to stab him in the neck with his utility knife to survive,” Wood says. Now Turnbough told him he thought the suspect Shelby killed was also on “water,” meaning PCP.
Considering the officer a witness with unshakable credibility, the attorney posed what he calls a “litmus test” for assessing the shooting. “I asked him, ‘If you’d had a gun in your hand instead of a TASER, would you have shot this guy?’ ”
Anatomy of an Officer’s Defense in a High-Profile Shooting Pt. 1 - The Truth About Guns
SENSORY EXCLUSION
When Shelby pulled the trigger, a fellow officer was close by her, although she did not realize it at that moment. She was focused so narrowly and intensely on the suspect and the movements she considered potentially life-threatening that her brain excluded other sights and sounds, Wood says.
Outside her awareness, Ofcr. Tyler Turnbough had arrived seconds before in response to her radio call and had leaped from his squad car with his TASER in hand. He confirmed to Wood the suspect’s persistent resistance to Shelby’s commands, his target glance back “consistent with setting us up for a shot,” and his “quick movement” into the car window.
Simultaneous with Shelby shooting, Turnbough, just a step to her left and slightly back, discharged his CEW. The darts struck the suspect’s clothing but it is not known for certain whether they actually delivered an electrical impact, Wood says.
Turnbough, too, was a former Wood client—coincidentally, in another PCP case. “Several years ago, a suspect high on PCP tried to get Tyler’s gun and Tyler had to stab him in the neck with his utility knife to survive,” Wood says. Now Turnbough told him he thought the suspect Shelby killed was also on “water,” meaning PCP.
Considering the officer a witness with unshakable credibility, the attorney posed what he calls a “litmus test” for assessing the shooting. “I asked him, ‘If you’d had a gun in your hand instead of a TASER, would you have shot this guy?’ ”
