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Edit Transcript - @Cops&Cons Legal Expert Breaks Down Recent Cases
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@Cops&Cons Legal Expert Breaks Down Recent Cases
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foreign good morning this is Daniel here with cops and cons TV I just want to welcome everyone to our live show now we do this live show every Friday around 11 o'clock mountain time so I appreciate you joining us so one of the things that we do on this show is we're going to break down the most important issues in policing and we have some really interesting cases this week um I also want to mention that you know we did change the name to this channel so it was cop watch or cops and cons TV and the most important thing about that is that we have the same great content so the content of the channel hasn't changed we still are going to have the most raw and best live interactions between police officers and citizens however the the name cops and cons really just captures more of what this channel actually is so just wanted to explain that as we come out and the most important thing is it is the same great content hasn't changed at all we're going to put out body cam video from police officers interacting with citizens that is the most interesting stuff that you can find out there and then we're going to have these live shows and breakdowns on Friday so we're going to have up something for everyone but in this live show part of what we really like to do is to have people comment and people comment and ask questions so as I'm going through a case if you think I got something right or if you think I got something wrong maybe you see this case a little bit differently than I do and put your comment in there I'll definitely try to read them and get through them as we're going through if you do a super chat that would make it so I would definitely be able to see it and read it but definitely comment and we will go through these cases today so if you haven't already please subscribe to Cops and cons TV just so you know when we put out new videos and also so you can know when our live shows are coming out so you can be a part of that as well if you want to follow me my channel is called police law news over on Tick Tock and YouTube I put out daily content there but we're just gonna get right into the cases today let's see I was going to we have a we have a comment already name change is Good from ment media well thank you so much we we uh appreciate that um we like the name change as well so thank you so much all right so um almost every week there's one big case that pretty much takes over a news cycle and this happened a couple so this really hit the news a couple days ago but the case happened back on June 10th of 2022 and maybe people know which case that I'm going to talk about and definitely put your comments in there so we're also going to put a link to the body cam video so definitely watch that link later on and you know even if you want to comment later about your thoughts on this case but this is a really important case and it didn't get a whole lot of traction uh attraction right away it was a local story and it wasn't a national story but the family of the individual his name is Christian glass the family of the individual who was killed by by police officers hired an attorney and it was really the attorney for the family that made this a national story so a shout out to the attorney for the family who did a great job because they were really trying to keep this as a local story and it just broke through to the National level in the last couple days so all right so this case happened in Clear Creek County Colorado on June 10th 2022 and let me set this up a little bit so here's the facts there's a lot of things that are disputed in this case but a lot of the facts aren't so Christian glass is a 22 year old man he does have some mental health issues um and prior to this he had smoked some marijuana and he was taking ADHD pills that was all he had in his system um he was driving and he was a student he considered himself a geologist and he did go to school for that so what happened is as Christian was driving around Clear Creek Clear Creek County Colorado Clear Creek County Colorado he crashed his car now once he crashed his car Christian called police he called 9-1-1 because he wanted some help so he didn't just call so a lot of times if people commit a crime or if it's a stolen car that they crash or you know maybe if it's a if it's a drunk driver typically people who have committed crimes or who have really bad intent don't call police on themselves so I think that's important to note here that he called 9-1-1 now while he was on the phone with 9-1-1 it wasn't the typical interaction that he had with the 911 operator so he let the 911 operator know a couple things that were a little a little off that would be important for police officers to know prior to going on scene so Christian let this batch in 9-1-1 know that he was paranoid that he thought that people were following him he also told despetta he did have a couple weapons in his car specifically a rock hammer and a knife and but that these were tools that he used for geology Christian even offered to to dispatch over the phone without them asking he said you know because I'm being followed as soon as the police officers get here I'm willing to throw these out of the car I'm willing to throw the weapons out of the window I don't want anyone to be afraid so you can imagine so police officers do have this information as they get on scene so once officers get unseen you never know what you're dealing with as a police officer so we can only imagine that the police officers are probably thinking well this is It's one of really only a couple things either someone crashed and they just need some help getting their car towed and maybe getting a ride home or it's a drunk driver who crashed so if that's the case maybe this would be a criminal investigation or this is someone that's having a mental health episode and police officers might think that just because of some of the you know more strange comments that were given to dispatch by Christian so police officers get there and they make contact with with Christian and it seems like almost immediately they are kind of treating this like a drunk driving investigation which is wait which which is reasonable when someone crashes their car Christian refuses to get out of the vehicle the police officers tried to get him out of the car they asked him to get out of the car they don't almost immediately the police officers once Christian refuses to exit the vehicle almost immediately police officers say things such as you know if you don't get out of the car we're going to force you out of the car also at this point one of the officers put spike strips behind the car's rear tires basically what this is it's it's a strip of spikes just like it sounds and if the car backs up or tries to leave those spikes would go into the tires so if someone tried to flee if the vehicle tried to flee the spikes would go into the tires and you know the the idea is that the tires would deflate and this would prevent you know a long vehicle pursuit or police chase so it seems like At first that's what police officers thought that maybe this was a drunk driving investigation so they put the spike strips in case Christian tried to leave however Christian refused to exit the vehicle he wasn't getting out of the vehicle and he um he was making strange statements but at one point Christian did have a conversation with the police officers about the weapons he had so the rock knife and the and the rock hammer he did have a conversation with them and you know he's still in the car he's in the driver's seat and he basically told the the officers he's like I'm willing to throw them out now I'm willing to throw these out of the car now and for some reason we're going to talk about why the police officers told him not to they said don't touch those things don't don't throw those things don't even touch them so you know even though he offered to throw these weapons out of the car the police officers told him not to so this goes on for a long time this isn't just a few minute interaction it goes on for over an hour at some point police officers call in the two police officers on scene they call an additional resources a different different police officers they contact Colorado State Police at some point police officers who are more in plain clothes um not not full uniformed officer so it's unknown if they are like Crisis Intervention officers or if they are uh in investigators of of some sort but multiple police officers get unseen at one point so this is the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office who was the ones who were dealing with this and at some point they do have contact with Colorado State Police and the Colorado State Police they make some reasonable statements to the the to the county sheriff's office that the county sheriff's office just didn't listen to so at this point you know they've been out with Christian for about an hour um and it's clear that there is some type of a mental health episode and it seems by this point after an hour that the idea of this being like a drunk driver like that pretty much has passed this this situation has turned into a mental health case a mental health incident so the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office was told by Colorado State Police a couple things they said well you know if he hasn't committed a crime and he's not a danger to anyone else which he wasn't because he was in the car by himself and he's refusing to get out of the car why force the issue like why are we forcing if this is a person who hasn't committed a crime why are we going to use Force against him if he hasn't done anything like we should just leave so it was at that point that the Colorado State Police left and they didn't want any part of this and you know with the conversation that was recorded this is the advice that they gave to the County Sheriff's Office and this actually was pretty good advice So eventually I think over 70 minutes have passed now in the Clear Creek Sheriff's office said they made the decision okay so we're going to stop negotiating with Christian and we're going to make the decision to physically get him out of the car and and and they they tell them that they say if you don't get out of the car you know we are going to get you out of the car so that they do a couple things um they use a baton and they break out the front drivers the front passenger side window so they have uh so there's a clear opening because Christian's in the driver's seat from that position um and from that position an officer who's on the passenger side they you they utilize less lethal Force options against him they use a bean bag shotgun and a taser also while this is going on and if someone has ex someone has experience with this definitely put it in the comments but this is something that I've never seen before so what one officer did is an officer jumped on the hood of the car and was pointing a gun at Christian through the windshield while all this was going on now I get you have to have lethal coverage especially if someone is armed with a knife and especially if there's another officer who was using less lethal such as the bean bag shotkin or a taser so yes you have to have a lethal option there but the idea of an officer standing on the hood for for one the Optics of that are just terrible I mean it looks absolutely insane also I'm not sure where that was ever taught and then let's talk about this from like a reasonable Common Sense standpoint so it wasn't that long ago in this case that police officers were so afraid that Christian was going to leave the scene you know that the vehicle is mobile that they were putting spike strips behind the rear tires of the car so now at one point we're afraid he's going to leave we're putting spike strips behind the car and now we're jumping on the Hoda the car well if you think the vehicle is operable or can move jumping on the hood of the car makes absolutely zero sense so we have a couple things going on so we have the one officer who has smashed out the front passenger side window he's using a taser and a bean bag shotgun coming from that side we have an officer on the hood standing on the hood pointing a gun at Christian through the winched front and windshield of the car and then we have another officer on the driver's side so that they try to tase him and it isn't it isn't he is tased and it seems like it's working but I mean imagine situation so so typically what you want a taser to do is you want to taser to incapacitate someone so they can't fight back or resist for at least a five second cycle and during that five seconds you can gain control of them you can get them in handcuffs and you could end the situation peacefully but the Christian was in so a taser isn't pain compliance you don't use a Taser on someone as pain compliance because you're trying to get them to do something like a taser has a goal okay we're going to incapacitate this person and once they're under control under power of the taser we're going to get them in handcuffs and this is going to be over but Christian is sitting inside of a car so if you're sitting inside of a car and you're holding a knife there's nowhere to fall to there's really no place for the police officers to go so the idea of using a taser and that situation didn't make a whole lot of sense a lot of things didn't make a whole lot of sense but that's one of them so while that while Christian is being tased a police officer comes to the front driver side door of the vehicle and the window is is partly rolled down the window's almost all the way down well you know obviously so Christian is having a mental health episode he's you know being tased by police officers he does have the knife in his right hand and from his right hand he kind of reaches across his body and he starts swinging the knife so from the body cam video possible it's hard to see if he's just swinging in the knife if the knife actually breaks the plane of where of where the driver's side window is it might but it might not maybe he's just swinging near so it's really difficult to tell but worst case scenario let's say he's swinging the knife near where the police officer is because there was an officer by the driver's side door and it was at that point that he is shot by the police officer who is standing on the hood and he's shot five times and he dies and this is we have to break this down and look at what tactics did police officers use for this to happen so I think we have some reasonable questions we should all have questions about this case Okay so if we just back so those are the basic facts that everyone kind of agrees with now let's get a little bit deeper because this is a big case an important case and when we talk about cases like this it's not that we want to just call out bad police officers because we think it's fun or it's not like we want to just have like a reflex where we automatically just support the police officers it's neither we want to look at this case in the middle and see exactly what are the important questions that we have to ask because listen if the police officers messed up and it absolutely seems like they did we want to call that out and we want to say this is where they messed up this is how they messed up and then how can we get better how can police officers get better and how can we form Citizen Police councils in order to and to get best practice out there so this the idea is to avoid this from happening again okay so the first question I want to ask is why were the police officers there so were the police officers there for a drunk driver or were they there for a mental health call so if police officers are there for a drunk driver that's a criminal investigation that's a reasonable lawful objective so if that's the case then yeah they need to get Christian out of the car now Christian has a knife in his hand so it's one of those things where yeah they couldn't just extract him from the car because he had a knife but but I just want to talk about because there are some people saying well the police officer shouldn't have gone there at all well Christian called so they had to go if at that point they do suspect that there's there's a crime that took place like driving while intoxicated most police department policies don't allow police officers to say okay this drunk driver he's too much of a pain in the ass so we're just gonna leave so most police department policies aren't going to allow police officers to do that however this did evolve into more of a mental health case so now once this is a mental health case which it seems like it was or it seemed like the priority of Christians mental health and the state that he was in was superseded any DWI driving while intoxicated investigation so that's probably where it should have gone and the fact that they called in other resources it seems like that's where the police officers were thinking and that's good but Christian was armed with a knife so let's think about it this way there's no one else in the car with Christian so he can't hurt anybody else so the best friend of a police officer especially if they're afraid of the knife and police officers should be afraid of knives you should not get close to a knife if you're a police officer but the best thing police officers could do can do to make themselves safe is time distance and cover there's no shot clock there there is no we have to get this done by the end of shift no police officers work 24 7. so the idea that this has to get wrapped up in a certain amount of time doesn't make any sense so the the decision from the police officers that okay now is the time that we're going to extract him we're not going to wait for any other Mental Health professionals we're not going to just back up and we're not going to just back up and take cover and try to try to get him on the phone try to call Pa see if he has a counselor so those are things that they should have done but they they they rushed it and that and that was a mistake so let's also talk about the idea that Christian offered to throw the knife and the hammer out of the car and the police officers told him not so let's play both sides of this so from 2020 hindsight looking at this case most people are going to be like yeah let him throw the knife out of the car he's got these dangerous weapons let him throw the knife out of the car so from 2020 hindsight yes that's what they should have done unfortunately police officers in the moment don't have the benefit of 2020 hindsight so if we what if we think about it this way what if Christian did ask for police officers hey I'm going to throw and Christian didn't have the knife in his hand at this point okay so Christian asked police officers you know I want to throw my knife in my hammer outside of the car well what if police officers said yes so then essentially they're giving Christian permission to grab those weapons what if Christians that are throwing them out of the car what if he steps out of the car and then he was planning on throwing them so you can and then there's an officer involved shooting so I guess what I'm saying is you can imagine a situation where if police officers give Christian any permission to or or any kind of idea that they want him to grab those weapons and then something goes bad you can imagine the criticism that police officers would get then however if we look at you know balancing balancing this issue it just seems like in the moment since Christian is in the car he's not running around the street with knives in his hand it just seems like they could have given him clear instructions like Christian you know knives are dangerous the hammer is dangerous can you please throw it out of the passenger side window and it just and if police officers I don't know that just again it's I don't want to criticize police officers with 20 20 hindsight but it just seems like that would have been a reasonable thing to do in the moment though the idea of police officers giving him permission to handle the knives at all I I get why police officers might be apprehensive about that but having Christian throw it out it seems like that would have been a reasonable thing if they gave clear and concise instructions on what they wanted him to do um also um so we also talked about the use of the taser so the the taser in this situation it didn't really seem that effective because he was in the car he was contained wasn't like he was going to go on the ground and be in in incapacitated and also both probes of the taser have to hit in order for it to work so trying to shoot a taser through a window it's going to be really hard to get a good connection anyway so that didn't make a whole lot of sense I think we've talked about the officer standing on the hood that doesn't make any sense either I'm not sure where that's trained again if police officers were afraid of the knife which they absolutely should be afraid of the knife why put yourself in a that wasn't the only position where there could have been lethal coverage there they could have stood behind the car they just like they would on a traffic stop you know if a police officer is afraid on a traffic stop you never see them run to the front of the car and jump on the hood and point a gun through the windshield so that didn't make any sense and again like I said before especially if you think that the car might be mobile so now if the car is mobile as soon as Christian starts to reverse or go forward or do any or even start the engine you can imagine that that would probably initiate an officer involved shooting because the officer would say well I'm on the hood of the car you know I don't want to him to drive away with me on it that could be dangerous well yeah it could be dangerous it's also officer-induced Jeopardy if that happens so again that does I'm not sure where they got that training from if there is some training that I've missed somewhere or some new best practice put it in the chat because it doesn't make this doesn't make any sense um also the biggest problem with this case they made a lot of mistakes but to me the biggest problem with this case is the officer who is by the driver's side door listen if you are afraid of someone with a knife which is reasonable which you should be since he's inside the car all you have to do is stand three four five feet away from the car and he can't get you with that knife unless he throws it which he didn't in this case so an officer putting themselves in a position that close to the knife is insane this doesn't make any sense this is absolutely officer-induced Jeopardy now I should say you have to think about it this way so the officer so that was the in my opinion that was the big of all the mistakes they made and there were a lot the biggest mistake was the officer by the driver's side door getting so close to Christian while Christian was holding a knife but that isn't the officer who shot the officer who shot was standing on the hood so now let's look at it from the perspective of that officer so these officers they're not they're not in tandem they're not communicating they're not they're not they're not one person the officer who's on the hood can't control what the other officer does so now we have a situation where the officer is on the hood and he has a gun poignant Christian in the moment we see Christian with a knife swinging it at the officer and the officer standing too close and in that moment the police officer fired a shot I'm not justifying what the officer did I don't think that this is a good situation I don't but it doesn't seem like this is within any policy but I at least want to put the perspective out there that the officer who made the biggest mistake in my opinion standing too close is not the officer who fired the shot so we have to think about it that way so will there be criminal charges filed against the officer I don't know um this is for sure a massive failure at least on a on a civil level I went through all of the mistakes that that I saw and I'm sure that there's more that I missed all of the mistakes that the police officers made but in the moment was that shooting so what they're going to look at about to determine whether or not this shooting was legal or not and I'll be honest I don't have enough information on this case we have the body cam video I've listened to the family attorney talk but I want to hear what the what the statements from the officers are before before I say yes I think this was legal this was not I can say that it looks bad I can say I'm sure this was against Department policy but you know whether or not criminal charges should be filed against the officer that's a pretty serious thing and there's a lot to this case and I think that complicated cases should be given a lot of thought before someone says that there should be criminal charges filed so what they're going to look at is they're going to say okay in the Graham versus Conor in the moment at the exact moment that the police officer pulled the trigger was the shooting objectively reasonable would a different police officer in a similar set of circumstances have acted that same way that's what they are going to look at so let's see what kind of comments we get on this case at all um let's see what are people's thoughts on this case uh let's see so someone said they take the job hoping to kill someone no police officers do not take a job hoping to kill someone if an officer is involved in a shooting not only do police officers not want to take any life they risk their own Freedom they risk going to jail so no police officer signs up to be a police officer making not much money and said you know what I want to do I want to kill someone an innocent person for no reason and end up in prison for 20 years if you think that's what the police are and be and I'm gonna film it I'm going to record it all if you think that's the thinking of police officers then you'd never talk to a police officer uh let's see gs38 says a knife never jams or runs out of ammo God that's such a such a good comment I really appreciate that that is in that is an excellent comment um that's true so if Christian had exited the vehicle and advanced on or charged towards police officers and we have a lot of cases like that that's all in my mind that's always going to be a Justified officer involved shooting every single time if you approach Advance attack threaten a police officer with a knife and if it's a reasonable fear that you a police officer could be stabbed 100 percent that is a good a good shooting but if you look at this Christian is in the car he's by himself he hasn't exited the car the officers should have used time distance and cover there was literally no shot clock there was no reason for the police officers to push the issue uh let's see interview room says bad shoot yeah I think that's I think that's that's probably the case so so when you say bad shoot no is it does that mean it's against policy that means against the law does it just mean just a common sense does this look bad does it look problematic 100 it absolutely does uh let's see uh let's see if we have any any other comments let's see uh William Morgan Smith I think they have good intentions but it's the training or trainers of where they are yeah I think that's uh that's a really good comment um because yeah so what was this was this a breakdown in training was this a breakdown in leadership it seems like at least people from the Colorado State Police said Hey listen like you know think about some of the things he hasn't committed a crime he's not a danger to anyone else are we really going to force this issue so it's never a good look for a police officer to utilize Force no matter what level against someone who hasn't committed a crime remember that that is and that is an important that is an important theme uh Mark bechette said zero de-escalation yeah so I think that that thank you Mark so I think that they used some de-escalation but was it optimal no it absolutely wasn't because um almost immediately it went from it went from asking him to get out of the car to threats I'm not saying that there was unreasonable threats but you know it base it wasn't they weren't taking this case with the thought of just we have to use Crisis Intervention training and de-escalate this situation I think they may be at the end or in the middle at some point they did that but certainly at first it was hey you need to get out of the car if you don't get out of the car we are going to get you out of the car so um uh yeah so I think that is uh let's see any other comments here yeah so I think that's reasonable that the de-escalation wasn't great and that seems like a training issue right um okay so the next case that so that I said that is a big case um and this happened in June and no one was talking about it until the the family attorneys really did a good job of getting this case out there in the spotlight so any other comments um uh you have definitely put it in there and let's see next is going to talk about is Brandon Combs so this actually happened a while ago um this was in Concord North Carolina on February 13 2022. um we are going to put a link to the body camera video in the chat so definitely go check that out now or later and let us know what you think so this is an interesting officer involved shooting also with someone in a vehicle so that that's that's kind of a theme today and I want to know what people's thoughts are on this so this was a case going back to February 13th 2022 it happened at a Nissan dealership so the officer his name is Tim Larson and essentially there was a call for service at a Nissan dealership at night when a Nissan dealership is closed officer Larson he's by himself he gets to the call for service and he finds Brandon Combs who is a 29 year old man inside of a vehicle at the at inside of a vehicle at the at the Nissan dealership and you know you know officer Larson gets out of his car and he starts to approach the guy inside the car and at this point you can tell the police officer isn't sure like is this an employee who's working late is this a maintenance person is this a manager um that you know he's he's not really sure because in most situations so it breaking into a car that's considered a felony so most of the time not all the time but most the time when a police officer arrives on scene and there's a felony in progress that call for backup they try to set up a perimeter so these are the things that they try to do a felony stop most of the time police officers don't just approach people by themselves without calling out for backup when people are in commission of a felony right so that's something that typically doesn't happen but that's what the officer did so that's what leads me to believe that he really wasn't sure what was going on one of the also thing one of the other things is as officer Larson was approaching Mr Combs in the car he wasn't yelling at him or giving him commands like get out of the car get get your hands get your hands up so he wasn't approaching him like that so that's why it makes him that he wasn't sure as officer Larson was approaching Brandon Combs Brandon said something strange he said something to the officer to the effect of drop your web weapon and that was confusing you know most people that's something police officers say right most citizens when they're being approached by police officers don't say drop your weapon I mean it's a again it's a strange thing to say and the police officer officer Larson he kind of goes like what like what what are you talking about it caught him off guard because it was an odd thing to say so police um officer Larson who goes up to the vehicle in the parking lot that Mr Combs in he's in the driver's seat you know the officer knocks on the window and at that point he realized okay this guy's an offender he's trying to steal this car he broke into this car here at the dealership he gives him commands to get out of the car he kind of knocks on the window and Mr Combs isn't listening he is not getting out of this car so at this point the police officer does the right thing he backs up he Retreats and kind of what the officer should have done the last time and he goes behind another vehicle behind cover because at this point he doesn't know now he knows that Mr Combs is is you know in offender in the commission of a felony he doesn't know if he has any weapons so you know he goes back behind a vehicle he calls out for backup and he gets some cover so he creates distance um he distanced from Mr Combs which is good time meaning if Mr Combs ran out and you know tried to attack him like he's giving himself some time he called out for backup and he's behind cover he's he stood behind a van these are all good things well once he got back there he was still giving Mr Combs commands which again is appropriate because you want you don't ever want people to say well you know we weren't sure what the police officer wanted us to do no he was giving him commands to get out of the car which is appropriate however this is where things take a kind of a strange turn so Brandon Combs gets out of the car and he runs towards the police vehicle so the way the police officer stopped he didn't stop behind the Nissan vehicle he stopped in front of it so that's another reason to think that you know he really didn't know what was going on at first because you know you really don't stop in front of a car and approach someone from the front that doesn't make sense if it's a felony in progress but that's what the officer did so as the officer is standing behind cover Brandon Combs jumps out of the vehicle and he runs towards the police car the police car was unlocked he jumps into the police car and as soon as that happens the police officer runs after him he gets on the radio and he he yells out you know he's getting into my in into my car once Brandon Combs gets in the driver's seat of the car he revs the engine doesn't doesn't and the car is running at this point he doesn't move forward but you can tell he steps on the gas or he revs the engine and at that point through the front windshield of the car officer Larson shoots him four times Mr Combs ends up dying so there's a lot to this case and there's a lot of problems the most most people have the same question why did you leave the car unlocked what is going on there and so let's talk about this so a lot of and I'm not saying this was the case for officer Larson in in Concord but a lot of police departments the police car is there is a way for a police vehicle to stay running but for a police officer to take out the key and to hit a button like a called a kill switch hit a button to where the car is still running so all the computers and stuff stay going and stuff like that but in order to actually start the car to have it move you have to have possession of the key I'm not saying that was the case then so you know so if that's what the officer did that's reasonable but maybe he just left the keys in the car I'm not I'm not sure um I'm not in in a case like that it's when uh when you have these kill switches when the brake is pressed that's when the that's when the car shuts off so I'm not sure exactly what type of vehicle he had but um the D.A looked at the looked at the case and just recently the reason why this case was kind of Hit the media on a national level now is the D.A just came out and said that they are not going to file charges against the police officer and a lot of people are upset about this and the D.A mentioned two reasons so the D.A said that you know it's a reasonable lawful Justified officer-involved shooting if the police officer is in reasonable fear of an immediate danger so that's what the D.A said and the D.A listed two reasons and they said and he said the D.A said the police officer there were two different reasons why the police officer had a reasonable fear that his life was in danger the first reason is that there are weapons in the car that there was a rifle in the car you know police a beanbag that there were police weapons in the car and that of this individual who had just committed a felony has access to those weapons that would not only be a danger to the police officer but also to the public so then that gets into more questions where are the weapons locked or in some police you know and sometimes you know you don't have to have a key once you're in the police car you you can hit a button again and get access to any weapons that are in there so you know what was that security system there that was the first reason the access to the weapons the second reason that the D.A gave is that since Brandon Combs was in the driver's seat of the car that car is a weapon and because the officer Larson was standing in front of the car Mr Combs could have used the car to RAM and run into the officer those were the two reasons given so when I look at those reasons the first reason is is pretty compelling like I get it okay so you don't want an individual to have access to police rifles and that's what makes this a deadly force incident I can kind of walk down that path and that at least makes sense um but the and I could see an argument there for that the idea that the officer was going to be struck by his own car I don't buy that that isn't that convincing here's why because the police officer stood in front of the of the car so it would have been very easy for the police officer to stand on the side of the car or behind the car so you know you can't a police officer cannot put themselves in front of a in front of a car and say I'm afraid that you're going to hit me and then use deadly force so most police departments have policies specifically prohibiting that and that's typically called officer-induced Jeopardy so the D.A did list both of those reasons as to why that the officer was not being charged or why this officer-involved shooting was reasonable and lawful but I really think that the first reason is far more compelling and then there's a third reason that the D.A really didn't get into that I I think this third reason is more compelling than the officer maybe being hit if an individual has access to a police car not only do they have access to the weapons but what kind of damage what kind of Terror can they Reign upon the community if you're in a police car you have police lights you have Sirens you you can listen to the police radio and I know dispatch can probably shut it off and like press the master switch fine but you can imagine a situation you know run Running Red Lights maybe he would conduct traffic stops on people so the idea that you don't want someone who just committed a felony driving around the city in a police car I I get that makes sense to want to stop that now is that a deadly force situation I think that's a stretch so I think that the best reason if this is Justified and according to the district attorney this this is a Justified shooting it has to be that first reason that by getting into the police car he had immediate access to weapons so there is a lot of a lot of outrage a lot of outrage um about that about that case and let's see what people's comments are uh let's see Shane says just because you have an accent doesn't mean you need to meet your maker that was from the previous case no we know you are correct um I think that's an absolute accurate statement let's see uh the da Vinci what are your thoughts on the Clear Creek shooting of the man and Mental Health crisis Da Vinci that was the first case we covered so go go back and watch this later we probably did 15 to 20 minutes on it because that is the most important case of the week but we we did cover that case already today let's see if we have any other comments about what do people think let's see William Morgan Smith while my dad's truck I took the keys I made it one block out of the key range yeah yeah exactly so if that's not the case should that be a case um so you know in order for police officers to not have their police car stolen or anything like that you know should there be some type of shut off that maybe they could do at the police station or through uh dispatch or something like that is there a way to like a master shut up for these police cars because no one should be again I have no sympathy for people who are stealing police cars you have to know that something bad is going to happen to you but should that be a death sentence no of course not that shouldn't be a death sentence so you know is there something that the police can do that the government can do on a policy level or on a practical level like hey if this happens we do have a kill switch for all of these cars somehow we can shut it off I know that they can shut off Police radios so maybe there is some technology there in order to save lives for when this happens because if you steal a police car you have the punishment for that that's a felony I don't know how many years in prison should probably be a lot but it shouldn't be death um so I think that I think we all think that's that's reasonable uh let's see uh let's see Adam Golson uh I know my department isn't shelling out for that sort of tech Adam are you sure Adam is a real smart guy um I'm not yeah they're probably not going to sell for that kind of tech all right um so the third case that I want to talk about is and I'm only it's an older case but the reason that I'm mentioning it is because it is so similar to the case that we just talked about in Concord um this happened in Phoenix there Arizona back in March of 22. when this happened in March of 22 I I covered it and I talked about how problematic that I thought it was and I honestly think that this case is more problematic than the one that we just did so this was Phoenix Arizona March 12 2022 the individual's name is Adam vespoli he was killed by he was killed by a Phoenix police officer Adam was 39 years old so what happened in this case is there was a call for service about two individuals sleeping on a bus the bus driver called because apparently it's against some city ordinance or something that oh Tilly and Taylor you know what I missed a part of that last case so I'm going to backtrack for a second talleen Taylor thank you so much talene says my question is why the officer now want to answer questions after the shooting thank you so much so I I forgot to mention this part of this last case of the of the case in Concord so so the the shooting was ruled Justified however the officer was fired so all the information that we have is that the officer was not truthful or gave untruthful statements to investigators during the investigation of this officer involved shooting so typically when there's an officer involved shooting there's two different investigations there's a criminal investigation by the DA's office and and by other law enforcement agencies that are separate from where the the officers own agency and then there's an administrative review of the case to see if there were any police department policies so this though a lot of people say oh police are just investigating themselves there's nothing that's going to happen well well here's a perfect example of this is that is that the D.A looked at the case and did not charge the officer but on its own the police department fired the officer for untruthful statements about the case I'm not saying that the officer made untruthful statements I don't even know what they're saying was untruthful but that is the reason that the officer was terminated it was for making untruthful statements that's the allegation from the police department so my guess is there is going to be uh litigation there um on on behalf of the of the police officer who officer Larson who was terminated but yeah so exactly why he didn't want to answer questions or um you know what what he said was untruthful I don't know tilling Taylor but thank you so much for reminding me about that but yeah again that's a perfect example of when people say oh they're going to investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong well this is actually the absolute opposite the independent D.A said that the officers actions were fine but the internal review administrative review by the police department that's what got the officer terminated okay so now on to the similar case Adam vespoli if Phoenix Arizona Zona from March 12th Adam vespoli another individual were sleeping on a bus in Phoenix apparently that's some violation of city ordinance or law some misdemeanor crime police officers were called There's No One On The Bus except these two individuals who were sleeping this is on day shift it's in the middle of the day police officer Parks his car behind the bus he enters the bus on the on the to the front entrance the closest to the driver he contacts the driver and the driver says hey you know these guys are sleeping so so you know the police officer basically just yells them hey you guys can't sleep here you have to go wasn't rude what didn't say I'm gonna cite you I need your IDs I'm going to run you for warrants so and again that would be within the right of the police officer but the officer didn't do that he said did you guys need to go he didn't even walk towards them didn't try to search them he just kind of yelled at them from the front and what didn't swear wasn't rude again just said hey you guys can't sleep here you have to go he's by the front of the bus the two individuals including Adam vespoli exit the bus from the rear of the bus so the back entrance of the bus so the officer is still standing kind of by where the bus driver is the two individuals leave as the individual leads the back of the bus you know where this is going because of the last case Adam vespoli goes to the police car and he gets into the driver's seat so the police car was unlocked it was running and the keys were in the ignition the police officer can see this from the front of the bus so he runs out and as he runs out he approaches the driver's side he takes out his gun so as he's running he pulls out his handgun the driver's side window is about halfway down maybe a third or fourth of the way down but maybe close to halfway down let's say so as the police officer and we are going to put the body cam video for in the chat as well for this but so as the police officer is running towards his own car this is an SUV so it has a running board the officer as he's coming up to the car with his gun in his hand he puts one foot on the running board of the car and almost immediately as soon as he puts his foot on the running board the car takes off at a high rate of speed while the officer's foot is on the running board almost simultaneously as the vehicle starts take off the police officer puts his gun through the open window and shoots Mr Mr vespoli two times Mr vespoli crashed and he and he died there was a lot of outrage about this case for almost the same reasons of the case that we had before such as why are police officers leaving the car unlocked if the car is unlocked why are they why is the why is the why are the keys in the ignition like how this is Phoenix Arizona it's high crime time how in the world can a police officer make a mistake like this and then the question is well okay a police officer did make this mistake and someone committed the crime which is a serious crime I don't know how many years in jail you should do for it but it should be something for stealing a police car is that deadly force you know is that a deadly force situation so we have to ask ourselves as a community as a society because we as Citizens We're the ones who elect people who make the policies for police departments so we have to ask ourselves if someone steals a police car and I already went over here's all the bad things that could happen if someone steals a police car they could use the police lights they could do traffic stops and who knows what kind of Havoc they could wreck on on on on on the community if they have that power not to mention any weapons that are inside the vehicle so knowing that if someone makes that decision to steal a police car as a community as a society how do we want police officers to react now I know ideally police officers don't get your [ __ ] car stolen I know I get it but if that happens what do we want police officers to do do we want police officers to utilize deadly force in a situation like that I don't know I I lean towards no we don't we can use spike strips we can there's a lot of things that we can do before deadly force if it's just someone stealing a police car so that's my opinion on it is that that shouldn't happen so um the D.A is looking at this case um one of the things that happened in Maricopa County is that the D.A was either I think the D.A resigned after this case happened so there is a new D.A there and I think there's 50 or so serious use of force cases by police officers that the DA's office is trying to get their way through so there is no charging decision yet on the police officer but the family of Adam vespoli is is trying to is trying to get charges filed um you know his family has said kind of reasonable things that you would expect a family to say and they're saying you know like um Adam had a drug problem that's why he was sleeping on the bus he was actually trying to get to our house we were trying to get him some help but he just didn't have his life together the family says I don't know why he stole a police car I I can't I can't the family said I can't justify that like it doesn't make any sense but it shouldn't be a death sentence it shouldn't be a death sentence and it seems like on the side of the that's what the family said the sign the police like how do you leave your vehicle unlocked you made a mistake you left your vehicle unlocked yes Adam did something wrong he shouldn't have taken it but really it was your fault this happened and now he lost his life so um I I could see that that perspective uh let's see uh Adam it's an interesting comparison between using deadly force stop the person from taking the police vehicle versus the dangers of initiating a vehicle pursuit to stop yeah no I think that's a that's a really good thing because we want to avoid police Pursuits right like worst case worst case scenario is he's in a police car and he it's it's a high speed chase it's the middle of the day and he's doing 80 miles an hour through intersections putting everyone else in danger yeah I know you can't have a situation like that so you don't again you don't want it to get there but can you just shoot someone through the through through the driver's side window before that's a difficult question to ask because I lean on the side of no but um that the decision we're going to have to make um so we don't have a charging decision on that one in Arizona it'll be interesting to see if this officer is charged and because the other officer is not being charged with criminal charges in Concord so it'll be it'll be interesting to see let's see uh d mauld maldill uh something to consider is even though they had a strip that doesn't make him stop from driving posing a dangerous uh reckless driving yeah okay so I think that makes sense even if officers had a spike strip like yeah that might not work you know maybe only one of the tires catch you can still drive if you know one of your tires is kicked out you can still hit another car you could kill a pedestrians so yeah that isn't a A catch-all or that isn't an absolute savior uh let's see uh Ozzy tanks uh what if the cop didn't do that the guy drove off in the SUV and bled through a stop sign and killed a bunch of kids then what oh you should have shot that I'm not sure what that says but I I think what the I think so Aussie things I'm not sure what you're saying but but let's put this let's say there was an officer involved shooting and there was in this case and he did drive off Adam vespoli stood because he was shot as he was driving off any crash so you know what if he was shot by the police officer and he was dying the car's out of control and that's why someone an innocent pedestrian was killed well obviously that would be even a or situation than we have now uh William Morgan Smith let him run out of gas and uh and then he used the GPS yeah I think that's I think that's reasonable okay so William Morgan Smith that's a great thing so maybe when this happens maybe police officers shouldn't just Chase they should follow him by the helicopter or by whatever or whatever technology GPS that they have and that's a better way to do it because like I said you don't want a high speed chase 80 miles an hour in the middle of Phoenix in the middle of the day you can't have that so okay uh let's see why can't they just shoot the tires uh good question Ruby thank you for asking that so they can't shoot well you can shoot the tires it's not it's not a great idea so so here's why so it's dip tires are small objects they're moving and a lot the basic I can say is they're difficult to hit so um and any person a police officer a non-police officer if you are in a stressful situation which this would be trying to hit a small moving Target is almost impossible so if you're not going to hit the tires then what are you hitting those rounds are going somewhere so it's almost never a good idea for police officers to shoot the tires of a vehicle um because again those rounds are going somewhere and they're probably not going into the tires uh let's see uh uh Aussie tanks oh my goodness Ozzy uh let's see okay so um the other case that I want to talk about and this was an interesting one I think we have a short video um so this was taken from uh this was taken for from a cell phone video of someone in a vehicle but this is a really interesting case so you know they always talk about like Florida man well like listen I've never been to Arkansas but if I have a picture like just a a 10 second snapshot of what I think Arkansas is like this is it this is this case I apologize kind after anyone who's from Arkansas so this was this happened on September 6th um and it's an off-duty police officer uh who's named Travis Adams he's uh an Adair County uh Sheriff he's off duty and he lives on some property his wife and his kids are there he also doesn't have a shirt on um an individual and you know it's part of his job as a police officer Travis used to work in the county jail so at one point I think during his training he did a phase at the county jail um I guess that's what they do in this particular um uh Sheriff's Department so while he was while he was there an individual named Justin Heller h-e-l-l-y-e-r Justin Heller came to his residence now the off-duty police officer he rents this house he's rented this property from a long time um the individual Justin Heller who came to his house he is the landlord's stepson so he's not the landowner he's not the property owner he's not the landlord but he's related to the landlord and he used to be an inmate at the jail so at this point it there is some history between these two but it's unknown if they if they know each other from that you know uh the officer being working at the jail and then Justin being an inmate at the justice so it's unknown if that's where how they know each other but definitely through the fact that Justin's family owns the property that is being rented by the off-duty police officer so all we have is cell phone body camera so the off-duty police officer who's standing without a shirt on I only keep saying that because when you watch the video without any context it's really difficult to tell well who's the off-duty police officer and who's the person who used to be an inmate it's really difficult to tell um unless you unless you kind of know who's wearing what so that's why I keep mentioning that so so the off duty police officer doesn't have a shirt on and he has a gun in his right hand um and he's going back and forth with um Justin who's there Justin's trying to get on the property he wants to inspect the property and the off duty police officer is saying you have to leave you have to leave my property he tells them multiple times to get out at some point and again a police officer is holding a handgun in his right hand during all this not hiding it he's not concealed he's holding a handgun at some point during this you know maybe 30 or 40 seconds into the video um Justin takes his right hand and he puts it on the throat of the officer and he's not you know not both hands but one hand and he's his hand is wrapped around the officer's neck and he kind of pushes him back a couple steps at that point the officer just raises his right hand and shoots him twice in the abdomen uh who's ever taken the cell phone video it seems like it's the family of just question of them no he wasn't killed okay he's just injured so it seemed like it was the wife or girlfriend or some female family member or friend of the individual who was shot because she says I got that on tape I can't believe you did that and the police officer yells and responds like yeah he was grabbing my throat so um there's an investigation the police officer has been put on leave but I'm curious to see what does anyone think um so this could be a really good case for stand your ground law which they have in Arkansas so is this a stand your ground law so I don't know what that exact law is but most of the time what it says is that if you are in fear of of of death or great bodily injury or some serious injury and you are in a place that you were supposed to be or can be you do not have to retreat you can defend yourself so if we break that down a little bit he's at his own home he absolutely has a right to be there someone grabbing your throat is that a deadly for is that uh let's see uh so the okay so let's talk about the Arizona law so um the errors are I'm sorry the Arkansas law for stand your ground uh this bill eliminated the duty to Retreats prior to the use of physical Force even lethal force in an act of alleged self-defense yeah so I had that about right so is that a situation where the off-duty police officer feels like he's in danger well someone's hand is around your neck if they know what they're doing or if they can make you pass out or choke you you have a gun in your hand so if you pass out or lose control of the gun now the other person has the gun so I think this is probably um going to fall within the stand your ground and especially because the officer told him he didn't bait him to come on the property he didn't trick him to come on the property he was telling him to leave his wife and his kids were there he wanted this guy to leave this guy wouldn't leave his property and then put his hand around the off-duty police officer's neck at that point there was a shooting to me that seems like it's reasonable I doubt that there are going to be any criminal charges for this particular case but it was one that just hit the news and the video just came out interesting so I think we did put the link to the video in there it's short it's like a minute watch it and check it out for sure so the last big case that I wanted to talk about today was something that's that's that happened um it's an only Fan's case so there's a Detroit police officer whose name is Janelle zelinski she was a a Detroit police officer and she only had on a couple years well apparently she had an only Fan's account and because of her only fans accounts she was invested put on leave and she was suspended from her job as a police officer it seemed like the police department was going down the route of firing her however she resigned before that so I think we are going to put up a link to her page because she lost her cop job and looking at it it looks like she has 1100 subscribers or followers or whatever it is there at 15 a month now I'm not great at math but I think that's a that's around sixteen thousand dollars a month my guess is sixteen thousand dollars a month it's way more than she was making as a police officer in in Detroit Michigan so it's kind of a funny case because you know police officer having and only fans accounted I mean that's an interesting the funny case I think it was covered by the police Tribune and some other places but it really brings about a more serious issue and that's I kind of like to look at these cases that are interesting and think what are the bigger picture issues so the bigger picture issue in this case is off-duty conduct of police officers so you think so well okay so she eat on her own so let's break this down so on her only fans account she never said that she was a police officer nothing with the Detroit police it was all done off duty so if you're doing and it's not illegal okay this isn't a crime it's not illegal it's a completely legal thing for her to do so she is doing something legal off duty and not mentioning that she is a and not mentioning that she is a police officer I think that she was like a professional bodybuilder so you know she kind of you know that so using it was the it was the bodybuilding stuff is the way that you know she started us and kind of marketed it um is what is what we're getting from from the new stories she's off duty and it's 100 legal to do how does her employer the government the police department have anything to say about what she does off duty that's the interesting issue and that's where there's always a gray area so a lot of police departments will say probably most police departments have some type of clause that have like a morals um uh have a moral a moral part of their policy you have to follow certain morals you have to hold yourself to a higher standard even off duty and when police officers almost always get in trouble is when there's any link to the off-duty conduct and the police job if there's any kind of a link that's when police officers get in trouble and here's the link in this case so even though her only fans account did not have even though her only fans account did not have anything about being a police officer she had a link to her only fans account in her Instagram and on her and it was only fans it's behind a paywall so you can't see unless you unless you pay but there was a link to that only fans account in her Instagram and on her Instagram she had stuff about being a Detroit police officer and stuff about her in uniform so there's the link right there now because she's she resigned instead of was fired this probably won't go to court um as like a wrongful termination case so if it did if she was terminated then she could sue the department for wrongful termination and these are the kinds of case I think are interesting because I'm always curious to see what would a judge say um so but because she resigned you really can't unless she claims that there was you know harassment or some other some other discrimination against her why she had to resign um so I mean there could obviously there could be legal action that way but you know a typical wrongful termination case we're not going to get that here in this case just because of because if she resigned but I thought that was I thought that was interesting um and yeah I think Detroit police officers make somewhere between 36 000 to 53 000 a year so um yeah she's gonna make that money in the next three months so yeah uh let's see and this isn't the first time uh this isn't the first time that this has happened before um with with with with uh female police officers um I I remember from years ago there were other police officers who had done other types of videos who they found out later on who were fired and those police officers weren't there was stuff in the past they weren't actively promoting it at the time so um and those officers were fired I know it was years ago so this that she was ABS I think it was an officer recently in El Paso who had a similar situation but she was actively promoting it at the time so we wish her the best and um yeah we'll see if there is some type of a discrimination claim where she felt that she had to resign because of this this or this so um yes uh it'll be it'll be interesting uh let's see so those were the main cases that I that I wanted to I wanted to uh talk about today um so I just want to put it out there that you know for some reason you don't want to subscribe to her only fans account just make sure that you do subscribe to Cops and cons TV that's really the important one for you okay because we'll go ahead and fill you in and all this stuff so those were the main cases today that we wanted to go through I really appreciate the involvement from everyone we got some really good questions and comments um again definitely subscribe to our Channel and so you know when to come on these Live Events if you want to follow me you can do so at police law news over at YouTube and Tick Tock and I hope that everyone has a great weekend be safe
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