Bradenton, Fla., police officer hailed for pistol whipping burglar rather than using deadly force

[Lee-Lee]

7. The media definitely skews peoples perceptions, as do people who misrepresent police encounters.

Not much that can be done, however.

One of these headlines would make national news, one wouldn't.

"Sheriffs Deputy shoots mentally challenged teen in grandparents home after grandparents call for help" would be a headline everyone sees.

"Sheriffs Deputy attacked with knife by 18 year old in a psychotic episode after grandparents call and report "grandson acting wild and needs to be talked to" and don't tell dispatchers of his history of mental illness, violent history or that he has a knife. Manages to subdue attacker without killing him."


The latter is exactly how it went down when I got dispatched to a call for a "disruptive teenager" in the home. Those are typically BS calls where parents expect us to be the parents for them. But in this case it was grandparents who misrepresented the facts on the call because they didn't want a "big response". Turns out they were caregivers for the grandson who had several diagnosed mental illnesses and had badly managed his care. He had previously attacked both of them as well as made many threats, and had attacked other family members and they kept sweeping it under the rug because they didn't want him "in the system". That night before they called he had punched the grandfather hard enough to give him a concussion and was in the kitchen with a knife. But they didn't tell the dispatcher any of that, so they didn't send me with any backup and I had no clue what I was walking in to- I literally came in the door and had an 18 year old in a psychotic break who was 100 pounds heavier than me coming at me with a knife.

Deadly force would have been 100% legitimate in that case. Had any element of that gone down any different even slightly I may have used it. As it was I reacted and was able to get the knife away and get him subdued until backup came (8 minutes later) because luckily he had not slept in 2 days and was weak. A big part was luck on my part that I didn't end up stabbed, and luck that a table was there I was able to knock him over and get him off balance.