CC/OC safety during a disarm.

Complacency Kills Officers

The CCW holder has to understand that to a police officer, there are no guarantees that anyone is a good guy. I don't want to hear any crying about there being no guarantees that the cop is a good guy. That is 100% irrelevant and immaterial to this discussion. In most places you have no legal right to resist, and the chance of a cop encountering a subject who will flip out over a minor violation are much higher then a citizen encountering a criminal officer.

Officers die every year because they let their guard down when they shouldn't. I get very frustrated at the indignation some CCW holders feel when they think they may be asked to disarm during an encounter with a police officer. Many of those same CCW holders will come here to the Strategies and Tactics forum and state how they never let their guard down. Yet they seem to think that an officer should automatically let his guard down when the note that the person he is in contact with has a CCW shows up on the screen of the MDC. Treo, it's 0240, you are awakened by frantic pounding at your front door. A very disheveled appearing man is beating on your door and screaming to be let in. You arm yourself and go to the door. The man says I need to get in out of the rain and use your phone. You offer to call the police for him but he says, I need to tell them what happened myself. He holds up his state CCW permit. Do you let him in? Going by your logic he just passed the good guy test.

My point is that you guys routinely ask an officer to let his guard down in a situation where you, wouldn't, simply because you feel the officer should accept you as a good guy because you have a permit.

When an officer makes a contact often all he has to go on is what the computer spits out about the subject, his observations at the scene and his gut feeling. This is from a list of the 10 fatal errors that have killed cops:

4. Bad positioning. Never let anyone you’re questioning or about to pull over get in a better tactical position than you and your vehicle. Remember there is no such thing as a “routine” call or stop. You should always maintain a position of tactical dominance, regardless of who you’re dealing with or what seemingly mundane task, like issuing a speeding ticket, you are about to undertake.

5. Overlooking or ignoring danger signs. As a police officer, you will get to recognize “danger signs” like suspicious suspect movements, strange cars, warnings that should alert you to watch your step and approach with caution. Know your beat, your community and watch for what is “out of place”. When your training and instincts tell you something is wrong, trust your gut.

It's the gut feeling that will get a CCW holder disarmed. You shouldn't feel like it's anything personal or an affront to your manhood if an officer disarms you. It isn't, it's just the officer trying to safely do his job.

There are no certified good guys on the street. Not CCW holders, not other officers who are off duty. When an officer starts accepting that there are certified good guys, he's becoming a danger to himself and everyone he works with.

Jeff

Treo,
My analogy is right on the money and you know it. The officer has made contact with the subject. He most likely has made contact to perform an enforcement action that may not leave the subject very happy with him. And you are asking that officer to accept the fact that at the time he got his CCW permit he had not been convicted of a crime and that said permit is a 100% guarantee that he is totally harmless to the officer and the fact that he has a firearm is immaterial when it isn't.

The subject the officer has contacted has most likely committed an offense of some type. That makes the situation very similar to the guy banging on your door.

Big Del,
I never worked in Alma, you have no idea what I've done and who I've dealt with, send me a PM with your personal experiences and we'll compare records.

As for gut feelings, you totally misunderstood my point which was if you have a gut feeling that something is amiss, it's best to act on it instead of telling yourself "the guy is a certified good guy, he has a CCW permit". The truth is there are no certified good guys and if you work on the assumption that there are, you are very likely to get hurt. Officers have been murdered by their regular customers, people they have dealt with for minor offenses for years and never been any trouble, so the officer gets complacent, cuffs in front, or maybe even doesn't cuff, doesn't search thoroughly or maybe not at all.

Anyone can go off when faced with a minor enforcement action like a traffic ticket. A few years ago we had a state supreme court judge go off during a traffic stop.

I am not advocating disarming everyone you contact. I am saying that if it doesn't feel right, you had better for your own safety. And I think that anyone with a CCW should accept that. If you went over to your neighbors house to discuss his dog doing his business on your lawn, and your neighbor came out with a baseball bat in his hand, would you ask him to put the bat down before you possibly pissed him off by telling him to keep his dog in his own yard? Would you think he's not a threat, after all, no rational person would get upset over such a request? The thing is, that you as a private citizen have the option to leave and call the same person who you don't want to hurt the feelings of a CCW holder by disarming him during a contact, to make the contact with your ball bat wielding neighbor for you.

Code3GT,
People that are looking to jump often do show you their ace....if you know what to look for.

Jeff