Troubled Lauderdale teen came at officer with knife, spokesman says
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By Rafael A. Olmeda
Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Fort Lauderdale police officer who fired the shot that killed a reportedly suicidal man early Monday may second-guess himself, but others should not, law enforcement experts said.
Family members, though, said they called police to help a troubled young man -- and questioned whether his past run-ins with the law made officers more willing to see him as a danger.
Jordan Christian, 18, was shot after he approached officers with a knife and couldn’t be subdued with a stun gun, police said.
Police spokesman Detective Frank Sousa said the officer, whose name has not been released, has been reassigned to routine administrative duty as the shooting is reviewed. But so far, the facts of the case indicate that the officer followed proper guidelines governing the use of deadly force, Sousa said.
The incident began at 2:06 a.m., when police were called to deal with an attempted suicide at the Christian family’s home in the 2000 block of Northwest 29th Terrace. When police got there, they found the 18-year-old holding a knife and refusing to put it down, officials said.
When the young man came at them, police first fired a stun gun, police said. When that failed to stop him, Sousa said, police turned to deadly force.
Christian was rushed to Broward General Medical Center, where he died.
The officer, said Sousa, had only seconds to make the life-and-death decision.
“We are trained to shoot to try to stop the threat,” Sousa said. “It’s very easy to second-guess what an officer does in two or three seconds. But a police officer does not pull out a gun just to shoot someone to send a message. You shoot to the chest or you shoot to the head.”
Law enforcement experts who were not familiar with the circumstances of the Monday shooting agreed with Sousa in principle.
An officer who pulls a gun doesn’t have time to aim for the hand or the leg to knock a weapon loose or cause a suspect to fall to the ground, said Rebecca Stincelli, the Folsom, Calif.-based author of Suicide by Cop: Victims from Both Sides of the Badge.
“If you miss the arm or the leg, what do you hit?” she said, warning that others in the house or on the other side of a wall could be at risk of a wayward bullet. “The officer firing the weapon has to protect himself, other officers, family members and the public at large.”
“Their training kicks in, and it’s going to be a question of you or him,” she said. “When there is no time and no other option, you’re going to shoot, and you’re going to shoot to stop the threat.”
Richard Gallia, director of digital training for the Backup Training Corp., an Idaho-based company that provides law enforcement training, said most bullets fired by police officers under duress miss their target. Expecting officers to take the time to aim for anything other than the center of the body is unrealistic, he said. “It’s not like on TV”
Christian did pose a threat, Sousa said, and the family must have known that when they called 911.
“If family is calling us, it’s because they can’t control it,” he said.
In February 2006, Christian was accused of punching a police officer. His criminal record shows 10 arrests, all as a juvenile, for crimes ranging from trespassing to battery on a police officer. Christian turned 18 in October.
Family members told reporters for WSVN-Ch. 7 and other television stations that they called police because they wanted help.
“I feel like when they ran his name and saw the record, they knew what type of person he was because he was already in trouble with the police,” his sister, Shadae Johnson, told WSVN.
Copyright 2008 Sun-Sentinel