The tragedy of this incident is horrifically compounded because one of the decisions made by a heroic private citizen during his involvement
apparently resulted in him being shot by arriving police. It wasn't his decision alone, of course, as the cop's decision was part of the equation.
LE have long known of the risks associated with becoming involved in high risk/low frequency events like an OIS while off-duty or in plainclothes/UC situations. I listened to serious discussions of this back when I attended an outside week of training devoted to issues facing plainclothes cops. Student cops had to use their authorized plainclothes/UC/Street Enforcement unit weapons, holsters and approved street clothes. No uniform gun belts, etc. The risks of not being identified as a plainclothes/UC cop, or an off-duty cop making the decision to intervene at a violent crime, were discussed at length. It's only become more prevalent as a training topic, and even something increasingly addressed by Policy, in the ensuing years.
None of this does the lawfully armed private citizen any good, unless they seek to avail themselves of training which includes discussion of the risks of being misidentified by arriving LE.
Interestingly, last night over cigars another couple of current/active cops, another retired cop and myself were talking about this subject. Another guy who had only worked as a cop for a few years, but had worked in and outside CONUS as a security contractor for various gov affiliated organizations, also offered some of his experiences seeing how this risk/threat was considered and handled by agencies outside the US, including Israel. Lots of interesting experiences brought up and discussed. This allowed experiences covering the time period of the present, going back to the beginning of the 80's, to be considered.
Bottom line? Even trained LE/Gov/Mil have come up with various techniques, methods and policies to try and mitigate the risk of the non-uniformed cops/agents being misidentified and killed by other cops/agents. Various methods have worked with varying success, because when it comes right down to it, the effectiveness of anything relies upon how it's used and interpreted by
people. Even other
trained people.
Private citizens face the daunting uphill challenge of not only not knowing what the trained professionals know and are trained to do, but how could they ever know if any other private citizens may be similarly involved in the same incident?
BTW, the general consensus among the group last night was that it would have to be an extraordinary situation in order to become an active participant in an off-duty (or retirement, former cop, etc) shooting incident ... and the primary tactic to hopefully be successfully employed at any such incident would be for the off-duty/retired cop to NOT be holding a weapon in his/her hands when the cavalry did arrive. (That requires being aware of their arrival, to be sure, which is another risk factor to consider when someone is experiencing whatever form of sensory deficit or other distractions.) Maybe an active or retirement bade/credentials held up high (not pointed at anyone) in a hand, but nothing that could be mistaken for a weapon.
Now, the flip side of
that coin (showing active/retirement badge, ID) is that I've observed what can happen when cops have been presented with Shoot/No-Shoot (threat/non-threat) scenarios in training and quals, even using "life size" full-color photo targets where the pictured figures could be modified to be "holding" anything from a gun, to a camera, beer bottle ... or a badge. Even an image where someone wearing body armor (over a t-shirt & jeans) and holding a subgun in their hands, with the word POLICE emblazoned on the body armor. You make the drill scenarios a bit fast-paced, frenetic and demanding (even without the targets actually shooting back at you, of course), and some cop shooter may occasionally shoot the "good guy/gal" that wasn't supposed to be shot.
Sure, that results in a failure for the scenario, with discussion and remediation ... but it happened. Now, change the light conditions, add in some sound and fury of the moment, season it with some natural chemical cocktail produced by the body under actual high stress/fear, and then add a pinch of even reasonable fear ... and bad decisions and mistakes seem to be an occasional part of the human experience. Along with the unwanted consequences, of course.
