tvc184

I teach college classes in the police academy. They get actual college hours. Like a Criminal Justice class such as the Code of Criminal Procedure might be a 3 college hour class but instead of 3 hours a week for a semester, they get 40 hours in 1 week. I have or currently teach regularly in (my main/favorite) Arrest, Search and Seizure which is mostly constitutional law, Penal Code, firearms, tactical firearms and Patrol Procedures which is officer safety,,apprehension of criminals, handling disturbances and so on. I have been guest lecturer in criminal Justice at Lamar Port Arthur and at post graduate psychology class at Lamar Beaumont. I also cook pretty good Pozole, Indian Butter Chicken, Korean Budae Jjigae, Chinese Mapo Tofu, Gumbo and Chili.

Bullets reminded me of an exercise we did in the police academy. One cadet playing the part of the officer and had his handgun pointed at a police officer/actor acting like the bad guy. They were probably 10 feet apart. The actor bad guy had a handgun also but it was pointing to the ground with his arm completely extended by his side. The scenario was the officer had the bad guy at gunpoint. The bad guy had the gun in his hand but like I said, it was pointing at the ground and his arm for the extended downward. If the bad guy ever flinched, the cop was supposed to shoot him. Every time the bad guy won. Reaction time is too slow. Even if you have the drop on the other guy. The person that makes the first move will likely get the kill shot off, not which one has the gun already on target.

Back to 1989NDN’s excellent question on the use of deadly force. Is it justified and if so, why? He is more opinion. This is long and tapped (not typed) out on an iPhone so please don’t be too harsh on tpyos or words it don’t seem to fit. In Texas self defense is in Chapter 9 of them Penal Code. The actual title of the chapter is Justification Excluding Criminal Responsibility. That is exactly what self-defense is. It is an act that technically is a crime but the situation makes it lawful or a person is not criminally responsible. Immediately after the first section in chapter 9 which is definitions, we go to this very important part: “Sec. 9.02. JUSTIFICATION AS A DEFENSE. It is a defense to prosecution that the conduct in question is justified under this chapter”. So right out of the box we see that anything in Chapter 9 is considered a “defense to prosecution”. Okay but what the heck does “defense to prosecution” mean? There are defenses written into law that can be basically exemptions from prosecution. They are “exceptions” which mean that the law simply does not apply to that situation plus defenses and affirmative defenses. We need to look at a “defense to prosecution” since that appliance to this entire chapter. In Chapter 2 it says this about a defense to prosecution: “(b) The prosecuting attorney is not required to negate the existence of a defense in the accusation charging commission of the offense. (c) The issue of the existence of a defense is not submitted to the jury unless evidence is admitted supporting the defense. (d) If the issue of the existence of a defense is submitted to the jury, the court shall charge that a reasonable doubt on the issue requires that the defendant be acquitted”. We see in (b) that the DA is not even required to address a defense. In other words he does not have to bring up that there might be a defense to prosecution. It is up to the defendant to bring up the defense and evidence to support the defense. In (c) there has to be some evidence of the defense in order for the jury to hear it and deliberated it. A person can’t just say, this law doesn’t apply to me because I have a defense. The defendant has to produce some evidence (and testimony is evidence) to support the claim. If evidence is brought up and submitted to the jury, we go to what I think is the most important part. Under (d) it shows that any reasonable doubt for the defense and it “requires that the defendant be acquitted”. So if a person brings up a defense to prosecution as far as self-defense, he does not have to prove self-defense. The DA is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that lawful self-defense did not exist. So if you shoot someone and get prosecuted but you have a witness(es) and/or some other evidence showing there was a valid reason to shoot the person, you do not have to prove that is true. The DA has to prove it is not true beyond a reasonable doubt. There used to be a saying when I was a kid playing baseball, a tie goes to the runner. The ball has to beat the runner to the bag for there to be an out. In this case the tie goes to the defendant. Let’s say the DA has some evidence that it was not self-defense but the defendant has also brought up good evidence showing that it was self-defense. If the DA can’t clearly win the case beyond a reasonable doubt that no reasonable self-defense existed, the law says it requires the defendant be acquitted. Now what about deadly force? In Chapter 9, Section 9.32 deadly force is justified; “(2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:”. The “actor” has the same meaning as suspect or the person accused. So whose reasonable opinion matters? As we can see in the law it is the (actor) person using the deadly force in claimed self defense. The law here is basically saying that you have to look at it through the eyes of the person using the force. Was it reasonable from the viewpoint of the person using the deadly force? What would a reasonable person believe faced with the same situation? You obviously can’t use deadly force for just any reason. There are two reasons listed. The first and only one we are concerned with in this discussion is: “(A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force;”. So this is clear, to stop the other person from using deadly force against you. But what is deadly force? In Section 9.01(3) it says: “.(3) "Deadly force" means force that is intended or known by the actor to cause, or in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing, death or serious bodily injury.” So deadly force is force that is capable of causing death OR… OR… OR… only Serious Bodily Injury. What is SBI? For that we have to go back to Chapter 1 under definitions. In 1.07 it says: “(46) "Serious bodily injury" means bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.” Most people assume deadly force means death or could cause death but it is just as much any serious permanent disfigurement or the protracted (extended) loss of any bodily member or organ. So if someone is trying to break the bones in your hand, could a jury reasonably believe that your arm might be in a cast for maybe six weeks? Would that be the protracted loss of a bodily member? I would say losing most of the use of an arm for a month and a half fits that definition but it is up to a jury based on the evidence given at the trial . Something like knocking someone’s eye out would obviously be the loss of a bodily organ. If someone hits you in the face so severely that your face swole up for about a month and you could not see out of one of your eyes that entire time, would that be the protracted loss of an organ? These are questions that injury must answer because it is their decision. After a trial a judge reads the “charge” and gives definitions such as I have and a lot more. It is up to a jury to apply those definitions and laws to the case. The important part of this is, you can use deadly force for protection even if someone is not trying to only kill you. If you have the reasonable belief that someone is trying to commit serious bodily injury against you, deadly force is possible as self defense. You don’t have to allow somebody to break your arm or your leg just because that does not usually cause death. Those injuries are deadly force and the law allows deadly force to defend against deadly force. So let’s put all of this together using the law. You’re justified in using deadly force against another if you reasonably believe the person is trying to use deadly force against you. Remember that deadly force does not necessarily have to cause death but could be a reasonable belief that it might cause serious bodily injury. An example is one time we were fighting a guy probably 25 years ago. The suspect bit an officer’s thumb and would not let go and basically seemed like he was trying to bite it off. The officer used his flashlight to hit the guy in the head which in itself can be considered deadly force. So there was an internal investigation on whether the officer had the justification to use deadly force against the suspect. If I remember correctly a sergeant was reading the report and called the force into question. The officer made a mistake….. by not documenting what happened. He came to me for advice wondering why he was being investigated. To him it seemed easily justified. I said exactly what happened, he. did not document why hec used force. I asked the officer, what did you think when the guy was biting down with all of his force on your thumb. He told me he thought that he was going lose his thumb or at least break it. Okay….. is biting your thumb off or breaking it considered serious bodily injury? Absolutely. The officer’s report (and he was a rookie of less than a year) said the guy bit my thumb so I hit him in the head. Okay, biting a person does not justify deadly force. Trying to bite your thumb off or break it does. He did a sworn statement explaining what happened and he was cleared, as he should have been. Remember that he does not have to prove that the guy might have broken his thumb. He had to have a reasonable belief from his viewpoint. So now we come this case where two officers who are chasing a stolen car who intentionally or unintentionally rammed a police car. The suspect is doing everything he can to escape from being charged with a felony. He then steps out of the car with gun in hand. Is there a reasonable belief at that point that the man in a stolen car who got out with a gun was attempting or going to attempt to use deadly force against the officers? If a reasonable person in the officers’ situation would say yes, then deadly force is lawful in my opinion. Also remember again that the officers or anyone else for that matter, does not have to prove that the other person was actually going to use deadly force. For the district attorney to prosecute the case successfully against the officers it would have to proven beyond a reasonable doubt that after a high-speed chase (a felony) in a stolen car (a felony), the guy jumping out of the car with a gun in hand was not a reasonable threat to the officers. If those are the facts of the case, it is my opinion that this is fairly clear cut. I believe if anyone of us was in that chase and given a duty to apprehend the suspect in the stolen car, when he rammed a police car and then jumped out with a gun, would any of you think you’re in danger at that point? Would you be willing to have a discussion with the guy to see what his intent was? Also note, you don’t see anywhere in the law where it says you were in fear of your life.

I honestly think that you pose a very good question however. Why can officers or other people shoot first and ask questions later in “some” self defense situations? The simple answer is, because the law says so. It is not nearly unlimited as there are restrictions but it does not depend on you saying (although often repeated even by the police) you were in fear of your life. In fact in Chapter 9 of the Penal Code/Self Defense, it never mentions “fear”. It goes by a reasonable belief of a person in that situation.

I know that I could get long winded explaining situations but I could write a book on that topic alone.

Let’s play devils’s advocate or my favorite game, “what if”. Let’s forget the felony car chase, let’s forget the ramming of a police car…. An officer on patrol sees a very minor violation like maybe a pedestrian walking on the edge of the roadway when there’s a sidewalk. The officer gets out of his car and tells the guy, can you come over here for a minute. The guy starts walking toward the officer without saying anything and pulls out a knife as he continues to approach the officer or he looks at the officer and reaches in his pocket and pulls out a pistol. In either situation, the officer might be dead within the next two seconds. Should officer before he responds, ask the guy if he really intends to do anything? In a similar “what if”, it is 2 AM and someone is kicking on your front door and you’re afraid the door is about to be broken and allow entry. A guy is screaming let me in. In self defense you fire through the door as the door is almost but not quite open. The guy is now dead. Clearly this is a case of self defense under Texas law. BUT…… what if? You find out after he is dead that it is your drunk neighbor who came home late, had the wrong house and simply thinks his wife locked him out of the house? Should you now go to jail for murder?

In that situation, in my opinion, absolutely.

And I could give other stories that I personally witnessed. I can assure you this was not an isolated incident at the time. Due to media attention in the last couple of decades, I hope it has improved dramatically but…… I know that even locally, some police departments have dedicated mental health officers and units. I know that they work closely with some facilities. Should mental health be the responsibility of the police? That is a great debate nationwide but for now I can assure you that the police are in the front line. When something goes wrong, it is the police who get the finger pointed at them. I wish that the media would ask some more in-depth questions and do some serious investigations.

It would depend on state law but likely nothing. From reading the articles, by Illinois state law you apparently must have an ID card that allows you to possess a firearm. Since the shooter was under 21 at the time, his father signed off on the shooter’s ability to possess a firearm and purchase a rifle lawfully. It was after shooter had made threats of suicide and threatened his family. The media is naturally seems making a big issue of this. Here are a couple of questions that they should ask if they did real reporting. Although he may have had possession of the rifle a couple of years ago, he was now of age and could have applied for and received the same ID with no official criminal or mental record anyway. Would it have mattered if he purchased the rifle two years ago with his father cosigning or two months ago without that endorsement needed? My answer would be obviously no. The second question that needed to be asked, could he have bought the rifle unlawfully on the streets since it appears as though he had been planning this for a couple of years? Since this is Illinois, look at the hundreds of shootings every month in Chicago. Are those shootings all with lawfully purchased weapons? Again the answer in probably 99.9% of the cases would be no. Being “unlawful” sure hasn’t stop the shootings. When someone is willing to Murder another person, what law will stop it? Which always goes back to what was asked after Uvalde. Can you ever stop a person on a mission who has time to plan his attack? As far as Texas law, a police officer can take a person into custody for a mental evaluation and the person could be held for up to 72 hours, simply on the officer’s testimony alone: Texas police officer can also take a person into the same kind of custody on information given by a credible person. The police officer has no say so on what happens after the person is delivered to a mental health facility howe. In the 15 years that I was on actual patrol duty (then detectives and later supervision), I signed a few mental health commitments. I have seen the treatment of mentally impaired persons and it described in some cases as despicable. Has it changed today? Locally the governments (county) contracts mental health services. It is been several years since I was on patrol and I’m sure that improvements have been made however….. sometimes when you’re paying people to do an unpleasant tasks, they might be less than willing to do a thorough job. It’s not like going to Market Basket and if they treat people like crap, they will lose all their customers and go out of business. I will give an example that I witnessed personally. There was a middle-aged man who was really depressed and threatening suicide. He might have been more depressed than anyone I’ve personally dealt with. I signed for a mental evaluation and I brought him to the contract facility. Normally there is a employee who screens the committed person. In my experience, at least at that time, it was not a doctor either as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. On this particular occasion it was during regular business hours like about 3:30 in the afternoon and the head of the facility, an MD/psychiatrist, was actually there. When I was bringing the person in for evaluation, the doctor stop and asked what was going on and I told him. He said that he would screen the man himself. So far the only time in my career, we actually went into the office of the administrator. The man who had threatened suicide was still in handcuffs as an active threat. The doctor asked him this…. Who is the president? The man answered correctly. He was then asked, who was the president before that? The man answered correctly. One more question, what is 100 - 5? The man said 95. The doctor told me, this man is nor crazy (he actually used the term) , we are not going to accept him. My response was that I never claimed he was crazy, he was going through a mental crisis. The doctor’s attitude was kind of like, oh well. So in front of the doctor I asked the man in handcuffs, do you feel like killing yourself? He said yes. I said okay, stand up and turn around, I’m taking my handcuffs off right there in a doctor’s office. When the doctor questioned what I was doing, I told him that my lawful authority had ended because he doctor had just claimed that the man was okay. To keep him in custody any longer would be violating his rights. I then gave my commentary, he will probably run out and kill himself on the street in front of your facility by jumping in front of a car or not maybe grab a hostage. When that happens, I am going to swear under oath that you said he was okay because he knew what 100-5 was. I actually started taking the handcuffs off and the doctor looked like he kind of panicked. He gave me the, hold up a minute. He asked the guy a couple more questions something like how depressed are you and do you feel like you could kill yourself or someone else? When the guy answered, the doctor said that they would except him as a patient. Go figure…. So when you ask, what could law of force when have done? Again it depends on state law but probably like me, they can bring attention to a situation but not being medical professionals, they cannot act on it. That is kind of what the officer in the story you posted was saying. The police can do their job but does that force someone else to do theirs?

Stolen car, chase, rams police car, comes out with a gun….. That is what I have read. Obviously we do not know if that is true but more than likely there is video of the whole thing. Assuming it is true, especially the part about stepping out with a gun, then it would likely be a lawful use of force. Even if you want to run or fight to get away, to step out with a gun in hand after committing a felony is almost a guaranteed conclusion.

His only saving grace at the moment is Kamala Harris. The Dems are in a quandary at the moment. Anything is subject to change at a moments notice depending on any event however. I think it was Jim Clyburn out of SC that I saw a week or two ago talking about Harris in the upcoming presidential election. He was given some credit for Biden‘s victory by delivering SC in the election. His comment was something like, we got Biden elected but it was time for him to go and it is Kamala's turn. That demonstrates the problem. When a prominent Democrat goes on record pushing for a black female and probably somewhat as a payback, it might be hard for the Democrats to go against him and her. That tends to make me think that the next Democrat in the presidential election will be either Biden or Harris and either can be big problems. Harris if so disliked by her own party that she could not even get about 3% of the popular vote from Democrats and had to drop out at the beginning of the primary season. Her serving as VP could tend to overcome earlier non support but her performance has hurt her image, not helped it. So now they have a guy that is showing signs of dementia and his vice president waiting in the wings in a position that will make it hard for the Democratic leadership to go against her. Which Democrat is going to go on record going against the first Black female VP and then have to debate her she blast her in stage?

You got it. That is what I was talking about. We have no evidence that he did but…

Yeah, can’t rule out leaves everyone open to every potential accusation. We can’t rule out that a person posting in this thread is not a child molester…… It reminds me of the Mueller report on Trump collusion with Russia. We cannot rule out the Trump was illegally involved with Russia, we just can’t find any evidence to prove it. I guess with the rationale of some people reading this forum, everybody is guilty of everything until it can be proven otherwise.

Very stupid questions. What next, which city eats the most celery per capita?

And that is the consistency of the method.

It isn’t really a time matter. Steaks don’t take long whether grilled, on cast iron or slightly slower, reverse sear then oven finish. Sous vide obviously isn’t for everyone but any real time is about 5 minutes of setup a couple of hours before you eat. The benefit is the temperature you want it such as warm red center and nailing it every time. Then throughout the steak. Oh yeah, and tender. If you want to grind your teeth into a steak in order to eat it, don’t use sous vide I can sometimes knock it out of the park in cast iron coming straight from the fridge. That used to be my preferred method. But sometimes…….. About a year ago I had a couple of ribeye steaks that I was going to make sous vide the next day. My wife on a spur of the moment decided she wanted them today. No resting, no waiting for it to come to room temperature or anything else. Just SPG and straight to the pan. It was a home run, deep into the upper pavilion in the outfield. (left field side) I tried it a couple of weeks later and overcooked it to medium and not medium rare. It wasn’t bad but it could have been a good bit better.

Watch the video at least to about the 5:20 mark to see the finished steaks. They did ribeye and picanha. This was sous vide at 129° and then finished over charcoal for a sear. Whether you like it rare or it maybe 135° for medium rare or 140° for medium, look at the consistency of the steak throughout. Look at how juicy.

Sous vide is for perfection. The example a steak 1.25” to 1.5” thick cooked exactly medium rare edge to edge. There is no trick or grill-master secret to cooking medium well to well done. Just keep cooking by any method until most of the juices are cooked out. I grew up eating well done T-bone steaks that my parents could afford about once a month and they were about 1/4 inch thick. A little bit of salt and plenty of black pepper and they were quite tasty. An inch and a half steak cooked like that would be shoe leather in my opinion. If someone likes it like that, great. There is no trick to cooking it however. Rare, medium rare and medium or a completely different issue. There are all kinds of methods to try and get the perfect medium rare steak as an example but not many people can do it every time or maybe even consistently. If someone can then that is awesome. Over a charcoal flame, in a cast-iron skillet, on a griddle, reverse sear in an oven, etc. There are plenty of methods however heat and timing are critical. If the cook time is too short, you have it more rare than you wanted. If it’s too long then it might be more cooked and tough than what you wanted. And is your cast iron skillet is your cast iron skillet 350° or 450°? If you’re going by timing, that matters. Even for a perfectly cooked medium rare steak over charcoal or on cast-iron, maybe the center 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch might be medium rare. On either side of that it goes from well done at the surface to medium well to medium and fades into medium rare. So if you have a 1.25”thick steak, about 1/4 inch is what you were looking for. With sous vide it is about 1.25”‘medium rare or all the way through. There is no guesswork for doneness. Even though his method in the video is crude and absolutely not exact, what the guy did was correct. The bag keeps the meat sealed and the water controls the temperature throughout the steak. In a real sv cooker, you control the temperature to the degree. If you want to set the temperature about 128° - 130° for rare, set it and forget it or 134° - 136° for medium rare and so on. The steak can never cook more than the temperature of the water surrounding it. The timing is also not critical. I could leave a sv steak in the water cooking for 90 minutes and up to about three hours. The steak will never get hotter and it will never cook anymore than the temperature you set it for. It will get more tender the longer you cook but that could be a bad thing. Cooking a sv ribeye for about five hours might turn it almost into baby food because it gets so tender. Let’s say for example somebody wants to eat about 5:30 PM. At about 2:45 PM to throw some steaks in the sous vide cooker and walk away. At 5:30 PM people are not ready so you just leave them in the water bath. 6 PM rolls around and people are ready, take the steaks out and sear them for a few seconds and they are ready to go. Try that with a reverse sear a steak in the oven or throw some steaks on the pit expecting company to be there in 5 PM and….. they aren’t but the steaks have already been cooked. With sv, take the steaks out, pat them dry on the outside and then sear by whatever method you wish. You want some charcoal glowing white and want to toss the steaks on the flame for a few seconds to get that char on the outside, do it. A screaming hot cast-iron skillet for about 20 seconds on each side, go for it. The internal part of the state, literally edge to edge besides this year you put on the outside, will be whatever doneness you wanted. That is long winded but what is the advantage? The temperature in the middle of the steak is done exactly the same every time and throughout the complete steak not just a little strip in the center.

Yeah but he paid $20 extra for the bone and then threw the bone away.

Imagine that, people are committing crime without having to worry about facing consequences. You reap what you sow. They have to look no farther than in their own mirror. Maybe Mayor Lightfoot from Chicago and Mayor Cantrell from New Orleans can meet up and strategize on what is working in their cities. The rest of us can take notes from the meeting because obviously they have things well in hand.

You can sous vide and char broil. This guy’s technique sucks but…….. If you do a sous vide correctly, you can finish it by charring on a grill, over charcoal, in a cast-iron skillet, or steel skillet with a torch. I found a little bit of humor that you pay a good bit extra for a tomahawk steak because of the long bone but then this guy cuts off the bone.

I haven’t cooked sous vide in…. 3 days.

That…. Is… HILARIOUS.

Nope because DeSantis is sitting out there waiting….