That line was funny in the movie “Crocodile Dundee.” It ain’t funny when you had to use force to keep yourself or another innocent person from being stabbed or slashed to death, and “the other side” claims that the blade-wielder’s weapon was harmless.
We saw that classically last week in Maitland, Florida when police were desperately called to a home where an 18-year-old man was stabbing his 60-year old mother. Two cops arrived to find a pool of blood in the house. They quickly followed the blood trail to discover a stabbing in progress. Officer Steve Mendez took the blade-wielder at gunpoint and ordered him to drop the weapon. Instead, the young matricide-seeker sneered at the officer and raised the weapon in a classic position for a final, potentially fatal downward stab.
The officer responded exactly as trained, and the attacker fell mortally wounded, hit by two .40 caliber service pistol bullets.
The mother, whose life was saved by those two police bullets, now says that the police didn’t order him to drop the weapon until after he was killed. (!?!?!?) Moreover, critics of the police said the poor boy only had a “butter knife.”
Thankfully, the Maitland Police Department has a stand-up chief. Police Chief Doug Ball called a press conference and showed reporters the evidence. That included the cutlery in question. He explained that far from a butter knife, one of the two weapons the murderous son attacked his mother with – the one he was stabbing her with when Officer Mendez first saw him – was a thirteen-inch barbecue fork. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported, “The knife, reported earlier to be a butter knife, was a 9-inch serrated dinner knife with a point. The fork had been used with such force, its tines had been bent 90 degrees.”
The terminology still leaves some things open to interpretation. Was the “butter knife” the round-tip slicing implement that sits between the fork and the spoon in a restaurant? That’s my Chicago-born sweetie’s definition of the term. For me, “butter knife” is the even more fragile little thing that was by my Boston-born mom’s butter dish. Does “nine-inch knife” mean nine inch blade or nine inch overall length?
A Google search last night of the term “butter knife” turned up a photograph of a child with a butter knife embedded in the side of his head, to the hilt. It looked like the little one my mom had by the butter dish. A steak knife I took from my kitchen drawer at random was shorter than nine inches from pommel (the butt of the handle) to point, but still had a blade close to five inches long. As I’ve proven before for trial as an expert witness, in soft tissue a knife can stab to a depth roughly twice its blade length. Soft tissue (the human abdomen, for instance) compresses. More than once I’ve stabbed a four-inch blade knife into eight inches of pork roast (swine muscle tissue is the closest there is to human muscle tissue) and impaled it through the Styrofoam beneath it. (And at least once through THAT and into the cutting board below.) That depth equals into the chest and all but out the back of the average adult male human torso.
In the wake of their monstrous acts, psycho offspring become “sweet kids gone wrong” who “only made a mistake,” and “were just putting their lives back together.” When the monster child or husband is killed, it’s safe to be their mother or their wife again, and misplaced love seeks to punish someone for the loss of one once – and in this case I’m sure, still – loved. It’s a sad thing, but it happens.
Attorney Sam Mitchell took critics to task with a letter to the Sentinel. Thanks for giving those folks a reality check, Sam.
To the Orlando Sentinel
You owe the involved police officer and the public an apology. Headline: “MAN WITH BBQ FORK KILLED BY POLICE.” You then reported that “a man was stabbing his mother with a butter knife,” and went on to slant the article by quoting a friend of the crazed attempted murder as saying, “they got beanbag guns right? ” . . . “But no, he’s got to shoot him.” After savaging the responding officer in this manner, you later mention in a different article that the knife was a 9 inch serrated knife with a point and that before the violent attack was ended by the officers appropriate action, the attack had already caused the victim to have “suffered multiple stab wounds to her torso, arms, and hands” and it is confirmed that in fact she was “critically injured.”. I can tell you that the law is clear when dealing with this circumstance. The responding officer was presented with a crazed and admittedly psychotic person who is stabbing a prone victim with a knife and the officer’s sworn duty and training tells him one thing – the use of deadly force is the only appropriate action. Less than lethal methods are not adequate and always uncertain and are legally and morally unjustifiable given these facts. As to your reporting concerning what and when the office may have shouted instructions; it is also true that the officer has NO duty to first say drop the weapon and in fact, pursuant to appropriate policies that govern the use of deadly force, the officer must act immediately to stop the other person’s ongoing use of deadly force against this victim. Whether or not he said drop the weapon before are after shooting – or not at all – is of no consequence in judging this matter. I must also note that the fact that the victim is unable to objectively add anything of value to this discourse is also of no consequence. Your faulty and slanted reporting is unjustifiable and ev en to say, “I’m sorry for the mistake,” which you did not do, is inadequate. You also have a duty. The officer fulfilled his. You did not.
Sam C. Mitchell
Attorney at Law
618-920-3632
samitchell70@gmail.com
Congratulations to Chief Doug Ball for standing up and telling the truth … and to Officer Steve Mendez, who apparently saved this woman’s life. The Chief intends to put Officer Mendez back to work some time next week.
I’m certain the community they serve will be the safer for it.
There are those who would call each of these a “butter knife.” Neither is entirely harmless.
Nine inch KNIFE or nine inch BLADE? Either one can open you up like a zipper bag.
Mas;
Thanks for the good work, there are many that read Backwoods home who are libertarian of mind, myself included. You remind us all that police are people to, working and living with an imperfect world.
Ultimately We, The People put them where they are. We refuse to pay for them to work in two man patrols. We refuse to let them shoot more in official practice for a year than most shooter fire in a weekend. They are not shooters, they are not martial artists, they are people that spend as many hours working the road as the town/county/city/state budget allows, to the detriment of training.
They are far from perfect, but they do a job that few others will and that has to be. Thank you to you and your brothers and sisters who do a cold, hot, wet, tiring, dangerous and thankless job.
Clearly, the writer did attempt to present the facts in an unprofessional, and dishonest way. What I wonder about is the moment of the, “classical pose” [if you will] when the suspect was engaged in the act. Was the hand raised in response to the officers command? Was the motion of the hand coming down at the moment the officers weapon discharged? Quite often, I believe that a lot of the public will instinctively raise their hands, or attempt to comply with hands in view. Did the assailant have enough pause to consider his actions and the consequences of his situation? I have some doubts in some cases. Once a liquor store was robbed near the place I work, while I was eating lunch in my parked car across the street and a block or two away from the scene of the crime, and across the street from the plant where I worked. Officers were sneaking behind dumpsters with weapons drawn, flashlights in my eyes, [dark, 7:30pm?] a helicopter over head, and an officer in my rear view mirror approaching my car from behind my rear fender. I turned on my dome light, and continued to eat and watch. The officer asked me to step out, search etc. They had a WRONG DESCRIPTION! A young greenhorn cop in the group snickered that the next time I see a helicopter over me, it means; “They want my attention” [with lights in my eyes and drawn weapons – YOU BET!] Would I have been safer to panic, blink my lights or whatever? I doubt it. [I hope they enjoyed digging through my box of Col. Sanders chicken bones!] I believe the officer did do the correct thing in the case of the, “butter knife” and it sounds as if it was a heated, in the moment, quick and decisive reaction to save a life. [from the information given.]
I remember you saying, on Personal Defense, something like “anything that can put you in the morgue in little pieces deserved great respect”. I concur. The officer did his job, the paper did not do theirs. I need to stop now, I feel a vicious sarcastic rant coming on about that poor misunderstood, disadvantaged baby.
Mas,
Thank you for this story.
Having had a family member attempt to put an 8″ bladed kitchen knife in my stomach, only to be stopped at gunpoint and subsequently disarmed by myself, I can honestly say that I fear a knife more than a firearm.
With a gun I may get shot. With a knife I will get cut or stabbed.
I beat the odds that night, and didn’t get cut or stabbed, but it was close. I can’t say that it did a lot for family relations though. It sounds as if the chief is a stand-up guy and one I would be proud to work for, no matter the job. Mr. Mitchell is spot-on with his letter. Good on ya’ mate.
Take care and stay safe.
Biker
I don’t know if it’s agenda, or just mental disorders, but there are many in the press who want NO ONE, including police officers, to have or be able to use guns. Not even against criminals in the active defense of innocent life.
Thanks for your years of work defending the defenders.
And as we learned in LFI-I, think it was one anyway, a person can cross a 7 yard distance with said implement almost before one can make a decision to fire a drawn weapon and do so and certainly before most people can draw and fire.
I may sound callous and unforgiving, but I feel that anyone that faces a uniformed police officer with a weapon in hand shouting orders for you to drop your weapon and stop moving needs to do just that or get shot. That is life. That is the way things are and should be. As a reserve officer, one of my greatest fears is that one day something like this will happen to me and I’ll be forced to shoot someone. Then all of the armchair quarterbacks get to sit and cut me to shreds while I struggle to live with taking another life.
I hope the officer has a great friend/family network. At least it sounds as if he has a good chief.
During a quiet walk on night close to our house my GF had someone try to rob / attack her with a 3″ x 12″ piece of metal bar that had a 45* point on one end one night . . . no, It wasn’t a knife. But yes, her Springfield XD45 compact changed his mind as I was yelling at him to drop it. He dropped it and we waited on the police to come for him… he’s still in jail.
I found it funny how long it took for him to decide to drop it, you could tell he was thinking hard about his chances, he made a smart choice. btw, I had my Ruger P345 with me
Are we seeing a trend of Departments NOT throwing officers to the wolves. First the Cambridge incident and now this. It is refreshing at best to see Departments actually doing what is right .
It’s kind of amazing how many people seem to think that unless a knife looks like something out of a fantasy movie, “Well, it wasn’t very big so it wasn’t REALLY dangerous…”
Kind of like comparing a hatchet to a battle axe and saying “Well, it’s so much smaller, so the hatchet isn’t REALLY dangerous.”
Dear Mr. Ayoob,
I could not find a link to send E-mail to you, so am using this method to write – perhaps incorrectly assuming that you filter comments and will see this. No need to post it – but please read it.
There are 100s if not 1000s of events each week where police save citizens from certain harm or death. I laud those men and women and their performance. I am distinctly troubled, however, by the number of cases – apparently on the rise – where LEOs use tazers on unarmed and even disabled citizens for the smallest of perceived slights or failure to obey “orders” quickly enough; where police shoot fleeing suspects in the back; where police conduct no-knock raids on the wrong house and innocents are either grievously traumatized, or injured and even killed if they attempt to defend themselves from an unidentified threat in their own homes. What cements my emotions on this topic is that in many such cases, the rest of the force either looks the other way or actively moves to support, defend and exhonerate the perp with the badge. You have seen the articles. You probably get to hear more details on some of them than I do. I ackowledge that there ARE many honest, ethical police chiefs who do the right thing and discipline, fire or even lock up the offending officer(s). Unfortunately for the police, perception is everything and the perception that I and countless others have is that for every ethical upright man or women in blue, there is another – perhaps several – that get a thrill out of asserting their “authority,” forcing mere citizens to obey their arbitrary commands – even when the action is NOT appropriate, and of causing harm or death to the very people they are supposed to serve and protect. Yeah, yeah, I know I “haven’t been in their shoes. I don’t know what it’s like to be in a pressure situation with armed assailants… blah blah blah.” That would hold water IF the response from the police was to uniformly and rapidly correct the bad behavior of their own. Publicly. Assertively. Equally. Failure of the police to admit that “officer Putz” was very much in the wrong, will be disciplined (or fired or jailed) and not put on “administrative leave” (paid vacation) while they come up with a good cover story or fix evidence to get him/her off the hook is viewed as implicit agreement with the actions taken at the least, and enthusiastic support at the worst.
Know that while you may write page upon page of rationale for the behavior seen, that perception I hold – and will continue to hold – is that a police officer with gun in hand looking my way is a threat to my safety. Since I KNOW that no action I will ever take could justify use of lethal force, I will assume that I am about to become yet another victim of the “bad side” and I will respond accordingly. If the police want the citizens to view them as a friend and asset, then they need to make sure they clean house on a continuous basis and advertise that fact so rogue wannabes don’t even apply.
Sincerely,
Ted in Idaho
Rancher
Volunteer Fireman
Firearms Safety Instructor
Well, Ted in Idaho, when you write that the perception you hold is one that you “will continue to hold,” I guess you’ve saved me some time arguing with you. Ain’t no point in arguing with someone who is already locked into his opinion, however wrong that opinion is.
Ted, I have a foot in each of these worlds: 35 years as a sworn police officer, and considerably longer than that as an armed American citizen. You say, “Since I Know that no action I will ever take could justify use of lethal force, I will assume that I am about to become yet another victime of the ‘bad side’ and I will respond accordingly.”
Please tell us how the cops who will respond to a situation where you have your gun in hand and are not readily identifiable, will determine that you are the good guy you hope to be?
Ted, I fear that you’ve let your prejudice against police get in the way of your logic and your common sense.
You just pretty much said that if you perceive someone pointing a lethal weapon at you, you will shoot them, period, end.
You seem to think it’s cool for you to do that.
Why do you think it’s excessive force when cops do the exact same thing?
Beware of what I call “halo effect,” Ted. “Halo Effect” is the belief that since you know you’re a good guy, you automatically assume everyone else can see that heavenly halo over your head and realize you are not someone who should be shot.
Unfortunately, none of us have halos (at least, not until AFTER we’re dead, depending on one’s belief system), and that’s how good guys shoot other good guys by mistake in high stress situations. It even happens with cops shooting unidentifiable “other cops.”
When we are pointing the gun at the bad guy, and are unidentifiable as the good guy, other IDENTIFIABLE good guys will point guns at US. We all have to get over ourselves and “see ourselves as others see us.”
Human conflict is not as cut and dried, as black and white, as in the movies. That’s why I have to allot 40 hours for a BASELINE course for people who need to learn not only how but when to shoot.
As to the TASER (It’s an acronym, therefore spelled in caps), most of the cases of alleged abuse of this device that I’ve looked at have proven to be justifiable. I remember the case where the Internet lit up with “Why did those killer pigs TASE that little girl?!?!?” … And none of them bothered to read the actual reports on the case,which showed that the child was holding a jagged edged weapon against her throat and beginning to commit suicide. The cops weren’t close enough to grab the shard of sharp glass out of her hand…but the TASER’s greater range allowed them to drop her to the floor before she severed the great vessels in her neck…and those much-maligned cops literally saved that little girl’s life.
Ted, thanks for bringing this up. It was worthy of discussion. But, PLEASE, rethink your position.
Yours for both our sakes,
Mas
Exactly the response I suspected. “Cops do no wrong. Go fix your own attitude.” Too bad.
Ted
Well apparently the young man had a deathwish and the police did what they are trained to do. But mistaking a barbeque instrument for a butter knife…sheesh
Ted the rancher; As Mas said, you’ve made up your mind and indicated that it wouldn’t change no matter what, so YOU’RE one of the problems the police have. I don’t like cops. My brother is a cop and I love him and care about him. I don’t give them a free pass, either, but they perform a very UNappreciated task in society. They don’t PRINT enough money to pay me to pull a car over on the side of the road at night and walk up to it (just to harass the occupants for NO particular reason). I respect the jobs that cops do and yes, they DO need to be somewhat more mindful of (rarely exercised by most) the Constitutional freedoms of the public at large, but most of that is “policy” and is not effected at the “officer” level. When you “respond accordingly” do remember that what was probably only a “concern” by an officer has now been escalated to a specific “threat level” and THEY will “respond accordingly”. AND so will the coroner and/or the jury as the case may be. With your hardheaded and uncompromising attitude I’ll bet you’re an awesome “Firearm Safety Instructor”. It is people LIKE YOU that bring the ire of the gun-banners down on the rest of us by your NOT SO SUBTLE threats of retribution to LEOs doing their jobs. Quit watching Youtube and developing some “critical thinking skills” would be your best bet for ensuring your well being around cops. Best regards.