Having seen the video of the Brooklyn Park police officer fighting for his life with a suspect who had a felony arrest warrant, I experienced once again the visceral reaction that cops share when we view this kind of life-or-death struggle. There are dashcam videos of cops being shot to death on traffic stops, of cops being beaten to death and the more satisfying — cops prevailing over their combative suspects.
Police departments use these videos for training purposes. Most cops have seen numerous videos of patrol officers — some careless, some spot-on safety-conscious — being shot, stabbed or beaten to death. These videos have the effect of making a room full of restless cops (cops typically resist training, because it's usually really boring and it takes them away from the job they love) go completely silent as they internally hit the reset button and consider all of the times they have let their guard down while on traffic stops or on other arrest scenarios.
Cops share an empathy with other cops who experience these life-or-death struggles, since they realize that "there but by the grace of God go I." Some cops will never experience this type of contact; others are already survivors of such battles. Either way, we can relate to the terrifying experience of fighting for our lives, often with an assailant who is bigger, stronger and somewhat deranged. Hopefully, this is when our training and fitness will kick in and bolster our confidence and our ability to stay in the fight.
We can rack our brains and ask: Why would someone want to kill a cop so badly? Why did this suspect continue his attempts to kill the Brooklyn Park cop when he could hear sirens approaching? Shouldn't the assist officer's approach have served as a signal for the suspect to run? If police have learned anything, it's that they can never count on their adversaries to act logically.
Cops have to be ready at all times to take off their friendly, polite community-policing smile and replace it instantly with a commensurate measure of a brutal, anything-goes battle for survival. This is not as easy as it may sound. Police are expected to be friendly and polite on traffic stops and other "routine" citizen contacts. For most cops, this is their "normal" demeanor, anyway, so it's no stretch to act friendly.
However, sometimes, we see officers fighting for their lives on these life-or-death videos, and the cop is screaming, "Sir, please stop resisting," to his or her assailant. While it's not mentioned specifically in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for cops to drop their friendly persona, forget about what it will look like to civilians poised with iPhone in hand, and defend themselves with a resolute, brutal, reckless abandon that will afford them the best chance of survival.
The Star Tribune's May 20 article "Video shows officer's fight for life" compared this incident to the Jamar Clark case in which Clark allegedly fought with cops and, in an attempt to gain control of the officer's gun, was shot to death by another officer.
While police and the Black Lives Matter group probably will never agree over what transpired, anyone watching the altercation between the Brooklyn Park cop and the resisting suspect can agree that deadly force by the officer under attack was appropriate and justifiable. Had the assault continued without assist from other officers, the Brooklyn Park officer may not have survived.
Richard Greelis, an author living in Bloomington, is a retired police detective and teacher.
