
DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300407
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER  

                                            LENGTH:  151 lines

WHEN TO PULL THE TRIGGER TWO RECENT CASES LEAD TO OUTCRY FROM PUBLIC OVER DEADLY FORCE BY POLICE OFFICERS

USE OF DEADLY FORCE

The U.S. Supreme Court says an officer can shoot to:

Protect himself or others from death or serious injury< Stop a felon who is using a deadly weapon to escape< Stop a felon who will likely present an imminent threat of death or bodily injury to others.

At first, Bo Nolan didn't see the knife that nearly killed him.

``I felt cold metal. I felt the blood, warm liquid, when it started to flow down my neck,'' the Virginia Beach police officer said. ``Instinctively, I felt I had been cut, but I didn't know for sure. Once I saw the knife, I knew what happened. . . . I won't hesitate to say it scared me a bit.''

In April 1993, Nolan had been sent to arrest a disorderly man with mental problems. Suddenly, the man attacked. As the two grappled, the man began slitting Nolan's neck with a knife he had hidden in his cupped hand.

Nolan fought off the man and handcuffed him. But Nolan almost died.

Because of a blade's potential, police take guns to knife fights. But an increasingly vocal citizenry that has followed news of two recent cases - one last week in Chesapeake and one in Virginia Beach in June - is questioning whether the use of deadly force has been justified.

In both cases, police fired their guns on knife-wielding suspects. One suspect died, and the other survived. In both cases, there was a public outcry.

In Chesapeake, the mayor promised to oversee the Police Department's internal investigation, a level of oversight that is rare in Hampton Roads. In Virginia Beach, relatives of the man shot by the officer have hired an attorney and are considering filing a lawsuit.

The commonwealth's attorneys of both cities said the police were legally justified in shooting the suspects. Many citizens and civic leaders have disagreed.

So when should an officer fire his weapon at a suspect?

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Tennessee vs. Garner, set the parameters.

Police can use deadly force:

To protect themselves or others from death or serious injury.

To stop a felon who is using a deadly weapon to escape.

To stop a felon who will likely present an imminent threat of death or bodily injury to others.

All South Hampton Roads police departments use that ruling as the basic guideline for their firearms policies.

But those police departments also must abide by another Supreme Court decision that officers must use only the force reasonably necessary to apprehend criminals.

Greg Connor, a national expert on police use-of-force issues, said police and the public sometimes differ on what force is necessary to subdue suspects armed with knives.

``Those cases appear to be unbalanced in the use of force, because people feel knives potentially present less of a threat than a firearm,'' said Connor, a former police officer who has taught policing issues at the University of Illinois for 30 years.

``And, initially, on the surface, that's a good assessment. The problem is the immediacy of the threat. If someone is 100 yards away from me with a hunting knife, that's not the same problem as if that person has a rifle.

``Where you get controversy is when the subject with the knife is 10 feet away, and it looks, to an untrained eye, that the officer could easily target the subject and fire. But it takes just fractions of seconds for that person to close that gap to attack the officer.''

In 1991, Connor developed a use-of-force model that is now the most widely used guideline for the nation's police. The model is a pyramid that lists the suspect's actions on one side and the reasonable officer's response on the other. Under Connor's model, the reasonable response for an officer confronting a knife-wielding suspect at close range is deadly force.

``We needed some type of standardized mechanism to train officers, and to evaluate officers' actions in street applications,'' Connor said.

Virginia Beach has adopted Connor's guidelines. He is frequently a guest teacher at the city's Police Academy. Chesapeake has not adopted his model, although that department's policies mirror his concepts.

Police recruits in several cities routinely view a training video called ``Surviving Edged Weapons,'' a graphic depiction of real-life knife wounds to law-enforcement officers and civilians.

``You and I could run away from a person with a knife, because that's the best thing to do. But a police officer can't do that,'' Connor said. ``Sometimes, there is no other alternative except for the use of deadly force.''

In Virginia Beach on June 15, three police officers confronted 19-year-old Bryan E. Dugan. He had been on an early-morning rampage at his girlfriend's house. Armed with knives, he ran when police were summoned. At an intersection, the officers caught up with him, but he refused to surrender. The officers tried to disarm him, but they couldn't. They said he lunged at them, and they fired, killing him.

On Aug. 22 in Chesapeake, officers confronted Carlett Karim, 26, who was holding a bowling pin in one hand and a knife in the other. She cut two officers before they shot and wounded her. Neighbors who witnessed the shooting have sharply criticized the police for not doing more to disarm her.

For Hampton Roads police veterans, the Chesapeake shooting was eerily reminiscent of 15 years ago when a policeman died.

On Sept. 22, 1982, several Chesapeake police officers confronted a 19-year-old woman with mental problems who was armed with a stick and a knife. She threatened the police and her family.

The police ordered her to drop the knife. She refused.

Sgt. John H. Cherry Jr., twice named Chesapeake's Policeman of the Year, didn't want to shoot. Instead, while other officers distracted the woman, the sergeant quietly crept up behind her. Cherry grabbed her and tried to shove her onto a couch. But the woman slashed Cherry's right shoulder. He slumped to the floor.

Two officers fired.

The woman survived. Cherry didn't.

``I don't think you can articulate the suddenness of the situation or the fear factor,'' said retired Chesapeake police officer Billy Todd, who saw Cherry die that night. ``I think John never should've tried what he tried to do. That's armchair quarterbacking, looking back at it. John tried to disarm her. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. He ran into the knife. He didn't have to risk his life.''

The recent criticism of the police shootings has unfurled against a backdrop of deadly force issues locally and across the nation.

In Baltimore this month, police officers fatally shot a knife-wielding man on a street, saying the man lunged at them. But an amateur video of the shooting didn't support the police story. After the video was shown on television, a Baltimore police representative backed away from the officers' original account.

Now, police don't have effective, non-lethal weapons to stop suspects armed only with knives.

Pepper spray doesn't always work. Police say the public believes the spray is more effective than it is.

Taser guns that shoot darts trailing electrified wires haven't worked well on the street, police say. To be effective, both darts must strike a suspect, penetrate the skin, and remain there until the shooter can send current through the wires. In real-life applications, such guns failed far more than they worked.

``We've got a job just like everybody else. We want to go home to our families when the night's over,'' said Nolan, the Virginia Beach police officer who survived the knife attack.

``I think some of the heroic stuff you see on television and in Hollywood movies - somebody who's trained in martial arts or things like that and is able to fend off a knife-wielding suspect without the use of a firearm - is strictly that: It's Hollywood. It doesn't happen on the street.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot

In April 1993, Virginia Beach police officer Bo Nolan nearly died

after a disorderly man with mental problems slit his neck.

Graphic

ON JUNE 15, in Virginia Beach, three officers tried to arrest a man

armed with knives. He apparently lunged at them, and they fired,

killing him.

On AUG. 22, in Chesapeake, officers confronted a woman holding a

bowling pin and a knife. She cut two officers before they shot and

wounded her.