Sorry to have forgotten who, but someone pointed out that calling the Columbus event a "knife fight" is like saying Lincoln was killed in a "gun fight." Abe didn't have a gun, and Pinky didn't have a knife.

Yes of course, teenagers are forever having knife fights. I remember my adolescence of going into town, watching a movie, grabbing pizza, and stabbing another girl. It's one of those things you learn... SAT prep, how to apply lipstick, soccer moves, and how to properly twist a knife to gut a kid.

You know. Typical teenage stuff.

Ms. Jarret is sporting quite a ratio for that tweet.

In case anyone is unaware, being "ratioed" means that you're getting more replies than likes. Man, is she being called out.

And as for this being called a "knife fight," aside from the absolutely insane idea that policemen should just stand down and let two people stab each other, isn't a "knife fight" when all participants have knives?

From what I saw, only Ms. Bryant had a knife. This was not a knife fight. It was an aborted stabbing.

From what I saw, only Ms. Bryant had a knife. This was not a knife fight. It was an aborted stabbing.

Patrick at April 22, 2021 2:44 AM

First degree Assault and Battery. Attempted murder.

For some, no amount of reality is enough to deflect the purity of their fantasies.

An otherwise rational fellow at work once told me that an officer should not have fired so many times at a criminal who was trying to shoot his own wife.

Hmm. Remember the outrage, right here, because a violent airline passenger was not treated, er, properly?

Look up the work of Dennis Tueller for more about gun vs. knife. You may be surprised.

There seems to be a belief among many in the Twitter-verse that knives, because they require close contact to be used, are not deadly weapons; that shooting a knife-wielding person is overkill, so to speak. These Twittiots also seem to think that disarming a knife-wielding person is easy.

Remember, the 9/11 hijackers used box-cutters with only about 1" of blade to slit the throats of flight crew members until the hijackers were admitted into the cockpit. In that same year, a disturbed man in Osaka, Japan went on a stabbing spree at an Osaka school in which he killed 8 students and seriously wounded 15 more. Just last year, an Islamic man went on a stabbing spree at a church in Nice, France and stabbing 3 people to death; one of whom was "virtually beheaded." That same description was applied to the knife murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, who was attacked, along with a waiter, outside a restaurant in Los Angeles. No, boys and girls, knives are deadly weapons.

The idea the the police should "shoot 'em in the leg" as proposed once by Joe "Shotgun" Biden is preposterous. The Tueller exercise shows that a knife-wielding assailant is a threat inside of 21 feet (7 yards). At that distance, a small, erratically-moving body part is a very difficult target to hit.

And let's keep in mind that should the police have aimed at the hand or leg and missed, that bullet would have had to go somewhere, perhaps into one of the teenagers standing nearby or into a neighbor's house and a resident therein.

The officer did the only thing he could reasonably do. That the outcome was tragic is not on him, nor on "the system," but on the person who initiated the incident.

First degree Assault and Battery. Attempted murder.

Given that the victim could not retreat, Florida would also add "aggravated" to those charges.

I'm also impressed that Pinky didn't get shot. Remember, some officers only go to the range to qualify so they can remain employed. Their marksmanship is questionable under the best circumstances.

I'm starting to think Lebron is barely human… With no moral agency whatsoever.

There are some worse takes on this.

You are now witnessing the birth of the Fat Lives Matter movement.

"Why are the police killing fat people?"

Because they make such b-i-i-i-ig targets!

Ah, the Lincoln thing was a response to Jarrett, here.

> I remember my adolescence of
> going into town, watching a
> movie, grabbing pizza, and
> stabbing another girl.

Well, Prissy Missy, you come from a life of privilege in a neighborhood where you didn't have to worry about interference from cops.

/s

I still want to see the Fat Lives Matter movement. I will go to all the protests I can.

Is it really a march if everyone's riding a motorized scooter?

"The Fat Lives Matter protest march ended early. The protesters marched fifteen feet then stopped due to exhaustion."

There are people who seriously believe that all cops do is go around harassing and shooting black people. That they rescue people from being killed, get people out of burning cars, look for missing children, stop muggings, do traffic control around accidents, etc. just escapes them. A BLM activist (one assumes) demanded that a target store stop calling cops on shoplifters or they would burn the store down. Anarchy is the result of these people getting their wish, and the level of chaos and bloodshed would go up even more than it has the past year.

The officer saw one person about to kill another, and I don't fault him/her at all for shooting to prevent that from happening.

But given that these were teenagers, in the cop's shoes I like to think that I would have decided while approaching the scene that neither of them is likely to have a gun -- and therefore I would have drawn and used my Taser and not my gun. Then the whole thing could have been sorted out with all participants still alive.

I phrase it that way because I wasn't there, and so don't know what I really would have done. Therefore no blame. Certainly at the time the cop fired the only real alternative would have been to wait and let the skinny girl get knifed to death. And of those two choices, shooting is clearly the better. Good for the cop for having the guts to do it and not either freeze or panic.

And of those two choices, shooting is clearly the better. Good for the cop for having the guts to do it and not either freeze or panic.

jdgalt1 at April 22, 2021 8:34 AM

You can guarantee the next cop in that situation will back down. Or just slow walk the response. When you punish effective law enforcement, you get less of it.

> in the cop's shoes I like to think
> that I would have...

Have you you ever (check all that apply)…

☐ Brandished a knife?

☐ Brandished a taser?

☐ Brandished a firearm?

☐ Approached a scene of violence where death or dismemberment was seconds away?

☐ Defended anyone from deadly force?

☐ Been in a position of legal and social authority in such a scenario?

'I'd have shot the person in the foot!'

'I'd have grabbed the knife using Ju-jitsu!'

'I'd have melted the blade with my X-ray vision!'

'I'd have talked things out using my obvious charm and unimpeachable reasonableness!'

I hope I'd do what this cop did.

(I wouldn't: Neither as courageous or clear-headed as he was.)

Nor. Sorry

I'm starting to think Lebron is barely human… With no moral agency whatsoever. ~ Crid at April 22, 2021 7:21 AM

Like many highly gifted young athletes, LeBron has been used and misguided by the adults in his life. He's pretty much gotten his way all his life due to being a talented athlete - one off of whom others could make money.

He went straight from high school to the NBA, bypassing college altogether after losing his NCAA eligibility due to participating in semi-professional all-star games while in high school. In all honesty, with his talent, I don't think he'd have gone to college for more than a year anyway.

Before entering high school, he and three teammates from a traveling AAU squad chose to attend a mostly-white Catholic school so they could remain teammates.

While a senior in high school, his mother secured a loan against her son's future NBA earnings and bought him a Hummer H-2. The move skirted the Ohio amateur athletics rules and triggered an investigation, which ruled that since his mother had given it to him, the gift did not specifically violate the state's bylaws on amateur athletics. Later, he accepted two "throwback" jerseys from a local store as payment for posing for pictures there. The OHSAA ruled him ineligible, but restored his eligibility on appeal.

To be fair to James, he does do things for his community. His I Promise School in his hometown of Akron is aimed at rescuing 3rd an 4th grade students at the bottom of the scale academically and discipline-wise. While part of the public school system, it is almost entirely funded by James. IPS provides the trouble students food (3 meals per day), clothing, and other things they may be lacking in their home lives.

Yeah, concur with you on this, Amy.

Traded some youth for a uniform over the years. Got over it.

Why do I feel we're all in the Stanford Prison Experiment these days?

When aggression isn't an option, are we just programmed to fall back on indirect aggression?

Just as effective, I guess.

Where is our purpose, passion, something positive to prove.

It all feels rather, late empire.

I hope I'd do what this cop did. | I wouldn't: Neither as courageous or clear-headed as he was. ~ Crid at April 22, 2021 9:29 AM

I wouldn't have. Fantasies about heroics and bravery aside, I know I'm not a good enough shot to hit Bryant with all four shots, even at that short distance; not without endangering the others who were near her. That's despite semi-regular practice.

Turns out the officer is in the Air National Guard and has won awards for marksmanship. Now I don't feel so bad about my crappy aim.

I was thinking that three minutes ago! The intended victim was in line with the aggressor, and walked away safely.

• Robert VerBruggen: "In which I provide an important explainer on why getting stabbed is, in fact, bad."

• Party on Wayne, or party on Garth?

Turns out the officer is in the Air National Guard and has won awards for marksmanship. Now I don't feel so bad about my crappy aim.

Conan the Grammarian at April 22, 2021 9:50 AM

Shooting is a perishable skill. If you are young you can get away with a couple of days a month at the range. When you get older, better be there at least twice a week, plus ’as much dry firing and Air pistol at home as you can stand.

You need to be really good as you get older, because your reaction time rapidly decreases with age.

My own take, and we'll see what kind of reaction this gets on Twitter:

If you attempt to stab someone right in front of the police and they shoot you, you deserve a Darwin Award.

Ma'Kiah is the one who called the police. They drove up right in front of her, so I don't see how she could have missed spotting the police car.

In her place, I would have stood down. (Although I'm having a hard time imagining how I would have gotten myself into her predicament in the first place.) But what does she do? Right in front of the cops she backs someone against a car, brandishing a knife.

Natural selection has claimed a moron, thankfully before she could reproduce.

Coney, you're right about about Lebron, I'm just pissed.

Nonetheless....

Is it confirmed she called the police? In later reports I saw it was unclear who called.

Lebronian anecdote from the old show "Booknotes":

LAMB: A couple of months ago, back during the Bush administration, in some article I remember a paragraph that said, "Dan Quayle's favorite book is The Modern Society by Paul Johnson."

HITCHENS: Modern Times by Paul Johnson.

LAMB: You have Paul Johnson in your Rogues' Gallery. Who is he?

HITCHENS: Let me just say that Modern Times and Paul Johnson is a terrible reactionary British history, pseudo-historian, I'd say. He used to be the Christmas gift of Richard Nixon. He, in the Quayle and Bush era, became a cult figure on the right, and there's a wonderful description in Peggy Noonan's book of walking past Quayle's office and seeing Modern Times portentously opened at a certain page as if Quayle's reading this book, and walking past it several weeks later and seeing it was still open at the same page.

Someone else quipped, "I wonder if he ever finished it."
Crid at April 22, 2021 12:14 PM

Must have been a bitch to dust the office.

I met him once, years before, y'know, the thing. We might say 'his spirit offered a quiet presence.'

Sad scene all around. But it has great value as a training aid, both for our society and our law enforcement. This behavior won't be tolerated; and he caught her right in the middle of a kill stroke. No telling what demons she had that took her to that point. Fifteen is such a vulnerable age.
And some thought for the policeman as well. He might have thrown up afterward.

While I feel sorry for the teen who got herself killed - she clearly had troubles and needed help.

I also feel sorry for the cop - he HAD to kill her to save someone else.

No matter how blameless he is; that cop will have to live with himself for killing someone. Not an easy burden to carry.

🏆 𝕿𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖜𝖎𝖓 (6:00PM [EST])

charles at April 22, 2021 2:25 PM

We'll be looking for him at Table Seven at Amy's Monthlies, usually held a Shutters in Santa Monica (open bar!), but for now hosted on Zoom for pandemic safety.

Bree Newsome's Twitter feed: just another Mos Eisley spaceport hive.

Meanwhile, I'm on the lookout for teen gangs snapping their fingers and flicking their switchblades to the tune of "When You're A Jet".

I have a sneaking suspicion they've been run off their corners, though.

The police officer had no real choice except to shoot. This entire scene was violent madness from the moment he arrived, and it was only a few seconds from when he stepped out of the car until the young woman was pinned to the car and 100% about to be stabbed in a millisecond.
You don't use a Taser (unless that's literally all you have) when an attack with a deadly weapon is taking place. Tasers are way too unreliable, and if the darts don't make contact correctly, you can't keep firing with new darts until they do.
I've done plenty of target shooting so I can say that this officer's marksmanship (and conduct afterwards) was amazing. We should only be so fortunate as to have every precinct in the country staffed by officers like him.

Not sure if "chest to stop" and then the head to "incapacitate the nervous system" is still taught, but law officers are taught all kinds of middle settings, and to de-escalate interactions. Which, is more than most people.