We civilians who carry firearms for personal protection should pay close attention to the recent police shootings, particularly to the media coverage. Because while law enforcement officers operate under somewhat different rules of engagement, many of the issues involved can have relevance to us as well.
Recently, the press has gotten into the habit of almost immediately describing just about every suspect who ends up being shot by police as “unarmed”—even before any details are available. But current cases have shown that even if the suspect was indeed armed, the press continues to repeat, without any corroboration, claims by the suspect’s family (and political agitators) that they were not, or that police “planted” a weapon.
The problem for you and me is that hearing the words “unarmed” over and over again, combined with the term “unjustified shooting,” tends to get absorbed into the psyche of the average citizen. The result is that the public begins to believe that one can use deadly force in self-defense only against an “armed” assailant. And these are the people who may very well be on your jury (or mine).
Many in the general public are unaware that in a self-defense case, an attacker need not be proven to have had a “weapon” in the sense that the average person would understand. Rather, it is a principle of common law that your attacker must reasonably appear to have both the means to inflict such harm, and the apparent intent to do so. I covered the various factors that will be considered by the jury in “Unarmed Doesn’t Mean Harmless” (Concealed Carry Report – August 22, 2014).
Naturally, if an assailant is armed in the conventional sense, it makes it a bit easier to convince a jury that it was reasonable to believe you were in imminent danger. Not only does a weapon support means, it also pretty clearly indicates intent.
Or at least one would think so. But it seems that the bar has been raised even higher, at least by the media. Video is now seen as a requirement to prove self-defense. But contrary to the myth that “the camera doesn’t lie” (it can), video can run the gamut from “clear and convincing” to “utterly inconclusive,” with every variation in between.
But unfortunately, many jurors will now expect that we not only prove an attacker was armed, but that he or she actually pointed his or her weapon at us. And we’d also better have a perfectly unambiguous video proving it, too.
A very disturbing situation indeed.
