Shooting Unarmed Person

Can a cop legally shoot an unarmed person (if he's naked for example) "to be safe"?

Each year a considerable number of officers are killed with their own weapon; therefore, nudity notwithstanding, an unarmed person can be killed if they are trying to disarm an officer (with a logical belief of probable cause of that person using the firearm against the officer or another, an acceptable use of force). However, such a situation exceeds the description of just “to be safe:”Bureau of Justice Statisticsfilename: ph989.csvtable #: 9report title: Policing and Homicide, 1976-98: Justifiable Homicide by Police, Police Officers Murdered by Felons NCJ 180987date of version: 3/9/01Table 9. Police officers murdered by felons: Percent killed with a firearm and percent slain with own weapon, 1976-98 …Annual average 12% (Bureau of Justice Statistics)I question this statement in Cliff Gilley’s answer: “The use of deadly force by police officers in the US is based on the same principle that the use of deadly force is for non-police.”Police are warranted in the use of deadly force based on probable cause; which means they could be mistaken and still be found not culpable; based the fact that they have been trained in the appropriate use of force. However, a civilian who uses deadly force and is mistaken in their perception of the circumstances has committed a criminal offense, unless use of such force is judged reasonable under the circumstances.

Is it legal to shoot a person who is unarmed, but charges at you with a declared intent to kill you and take your gun?

It really depends on a lot of factors.Geography. If you live in Arkansas, you can do a lot more than you can if you live in Canada (this week 3 men broke into a guy’s house. The guy disarmed one of them and shot another with his buddy’s gun. The homeowner has been arrested for attempted murder.) Or you can be in England. Where a gang was menacing a home for weeks, when the old guy shot a pellet rifle at the gangs feet, the home owner was arrested.Conditions. If a guy is leaving your house, even after killing your family, you can’t shoot him if he leaves the gun behind. If you chase him down the street and shoot, you likely will be arrested or sued. etcThe best way to shoot somebody is if they are;In your house.You put really good locks on your doors. You have lights on your lawn and a sign on your door for an alarm company (you don’t actually need the alarm company, just the sticker) Dogs help. Cats don’t.Your kids are in your house (aka you can’t retreat)You called 911 and left your phone on speakerYou dump the Rambo talk. (‘Drop the gun or I’ll blow your MF head off’ is often heard as “I’ll blow your MF head off.) Stick with clear instructions. ‘Drop The Weapon.’ “Don’t make me shoot you.” “If you take your hand out of your pocket, I will have to shoot you.” etc.Drop the Rambo intent. Your job there is not to extract justice, get an arrest, hurt the guy that just raped your wife or cut you with a knife. Your job is to ensure that everybody is breathing tomorrow and hopefully don’t go to jail tonight, or lose your house in a lawsuit next year.Read Massad Ayoob. He is the foremost authority on legal shoots. He is a cop and a shooter, not a lawyer, but he is a recognized authority on what is legal or not. He even teaches a course on it.Massad AyoobHe has written books on shooting and the aftermath. Read them."Rules of the Road" : The Tactical Wire

Can you shoot unarmed people for trespassing on your property in the US?

"Can you shoot" contains some horrible assumptions.  There have been some instances lately -- the girl shot in Detroit, the kid shot at a Florida gas station -- where the person shooting may have looked for an opportunity to pull the trigger.  Notice that they are now in jail.  The only reason to escalate to deadly force is when life is in danger, or as self-defense grandmaster Massad Ayoob termed it in his book, The Gravest Extreme.

Why do police officers shoot so many unarmed black people?

They don’t, the media does everything possible to make it seem like they do.So many black people engage in criminal activity and show complete disrespect for cops and use hard drugs and carry weapons, that they get dealt with by police frequently- and police are probably on edge alot because of so many violent encounters with them, that things happen- but if you fight with a cop and call him names and refuse to do what he tells you…you may be shot. Even if you are unarmed, it is perfectly legal for a cop to shoot someone if he refuses to follow orders and reaches somewhere where there might be a gun.So if these black people would stop acting like assholes, they wouldn’t be shot.I’m talking about the segment of black people who engage in this behavior, not black people in general. I don’t have a racist bone in my body, but where I was a cop there were almost no blacks- but we had “Constitutional Citizens”. They made their own license plates, their own driver’s licenses, etc, and refused to acknowledge any state level authority. They were trouble…and would often fight, or refuse to stop, or cuss at you, throw things at you, etc. If you jailed one, he would sue everybody- you, your boss, the department, the county, everybody. He would lose, but you had to go to court and go through the motions.Whenever I had to deal with one, I was on edge, just waiting for trouble. I was probably 4 or 5 times more likely to shoot one of them than anyone else I dealt with, because some had shot cops, so I had to be on high alert.Yet this is nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of blacks Chicago police, for instance, deal with every day- and A LOT of them are involved in criminal activities and shoot cops. You can just imagine the level of stress they work under.

How do you justify a police officer fatally shooting an unarmed suspect?

There seems to be this misconception that only an armed person presents a threat to anyone including an officer, but that is just not true.  When studying the force continuum there are many factors to consider such as number of attackers, size of attacker, and weapons if any.  Certainly 10 people attacker 1 officer, without weapons, you would not expect that officer to only utilize pepper spray, ASP baton, and defensive tactics, not likely.  A 300 pound man versus a 180 pound man is not exactly an equal match up either.  If that officer feared for his or her life and no other options were available the lethal force is justified.  Another point I'd like to make is that it is not about sitting back in the recliner and considering all the what ifs, it is about what the officer was thinking and had to work with in that moment, through their eyes.  Was it rational for them, not everybody else, for them to fear for their life?It is easy to look at a situation through 20 different angles after the fact, but when you are standing there being eyed down by someone twice your size, or maybe strung out on something so they are acting twice as strong, it's another story.