2mo ago

Florida man armed with garden shears survives gator attack before shot, killed by deputies

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Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man meets Rational Man... @lemmy.world

www.wesh.com /article/florida-man-survives-gator-attacked-shot-killed-deputies/64882791

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This is a wild story about
how running with scissors is a bad idea
alligator bites can’t even stop a dude on meth
cops continue to have no clue what de-escalation tactics are
- It's kind of like Florida in a nutshell lol
- What if they were meth alligators, and the bites are why he's high? Then it's that much more tragic for you to judge.
- Honestly I think in this case the cops responded as they should. They tried teasing him and that didn’t do anything and then he tried to take a rifle from them. At that point they didn’t have a lot of options.
  
  The fact that you (an average US citizen, presumably) think tasing is de-escalation is literally part of the problem.
  I was trained by US cops multiple times during my 10 years of security work. Sadly, I didn't receive much for de-escalation training. I had to learn it myself. Oh sure sometimes escalation (like sounding intimidating while moving your hand to your hip) worked as a method of de-escalation, most of the time it was to reinforce the mantra to "ensure you go home at night".
  Tasers aren't even non-lethal, they are now (properly, with public outcry) considered "less lethal". No pepper spray or mace mentioned, no trip attacks, no net, no means of incapacitating him before reaching to the nearest gun-like object.
  Meanwhile, we have no one there to assess him to determine what his medical and/or psychological needs are, because "he's dangerous".
  The cops brought the rifle.
  
  I get what you’re saying. I would agree in almost every case. Not on this one. You try to reason with a violent meth head that is this out of his marbles and see how that turns out for you.
  
  No one said to reason with them. Just neutralise them without using a lethal weapon. Mace, batons and manpower will put any unarmed person on the ground.
  
  So you think beating the shit out of someone is better than tasing them?
  
  Let's see: do we want to see Daddy all beat up and bloody for a few days while he recovers / detoxes in jail, or do we want a nice tidy closed casket?
  
  It objectively is. Most people are put out of action by 1-2 whacks with a telescope baton. If you've ever felt one, you'll know that your muscles basically go numb when you're hit - it's not just pain.
  One of the major disadvantages with deploying tasers to untrained people (e.g. American cops), is that it causes them to think they can handle 1-on-1 confrontations and then panic when the taser fails (not unlikely). The safer way to deal with a single unarmed person is to overwhelm them with several people that force them to the ground with sheer volume of baton blows (to the legs/body), pepper spray, and body mass.
  
  most people
  I think you're missing the part where he's hyped up on meth and adrenaline. I've seen people take multiple gunshots in that condition before going down.
  
  Sure you have. Your other comments claim you're an IT admin.
  
  Ah yes, my career shields me from all horrors on this earth
  
  I’ve seen people take multiple gunshots in that condition before going down.
  Far be it from me to suggest that IT admins arent exposed to a whole lot of meth heads getting shot multiple times "before going down". I didnt mean to impugn your obvious street cred. Whats your handle at work, does it have "ice" or "vanilla" in it? Its 'vanilla killa' isnt it. Because you like to add 2 tbsp of vanilla to your toll house cookies recipes instead of one. And you seem like a no walnuts kind of guy too.
  How far off am I? I dont blame you at all, just 1 tbsp of vanilla makes me so angry, like I want to take out my gat and rain fire on some printers. (not that I'd actually do it because I'm a professional).
  Anyway, my apologies. Stay strong-- yo.
  
  This is not unique to people on meth, and just underscores why guns are a sub-optimal weapon in CQB. In reality, a person is reliably stopped dead in their tracks if hit in the thigh bone, hip, nervous system (spine/head) or heart. Any other hit, and they have anything from seconds to hours where they remain nearly fully functional.
  Note that most of the body is not one of these critical zones. Hit someone with three lung-shots at 3m range, and they'll still be able to reach and stab you. This is a large part of the debate regarding the "stopping power" of various types of ammunition (i.e. how much of the ammunitions momentum is imparted into the target, physically stopping them), and is a large part of the reason expanding ammunition is preferred for close-range exchanges (e.g. police).
  A baton strike to the liver or knee will physically shut down part of your body. Just look at any professional fighter that receives a solid strike to either and see how they go down. This has nothing to do with meth or adrenaline, but is a physiological response to the strike.
  
  He wasn’t unarmed.
  
  Japan has man catcher poles that allow you to subdue someone without getting near them. They allow you to hold the person until they get tired or you can get the weapon away from them.
  
  These should be standard in every police force.
  
  Guy in the back is having fun
  
  They really should. I've never run across this before, but they seem like a great option to have.
  
  Idk why you're being downvoted, you're right. However my point still stands for anyone not armed with a weapon with decent range.
  The point is that you deal with such a person by bringing more people to the scene and swarming them. Any person that is only armed with a short-ranged melee weapon will be quickly overwhelmed by many people with mace and batons coming at them from several sides. If you have any kind of training, you should be able to maintain sufficient distance that they can't harm you with e.g. a knife, and from there it's a game of patience to wear them out or find an opening to grab them and swarm them.
  
  Do people become stab proof when they swarm someone with a knife?
  
  You could have made your point without being obtuse.
  When you swarm someone with a knife, you are able to attack them from many sides at once. This means that when they slash around you control distance, and if they try to single out someone, that person backs off while those behind them go in to whack or grab them. To see this in action, either look up videos of how humans pick off a cornered animal, or videos of how police without firearms or tasers in one of many countries (Norway and England come to mind) take down someone with a bladed weapon.
  Of course, preferably you'll be wearing a vest, but given 5-6 people with batons and training, dealing with a single person armed with a short-ranged bladed weapon shouldn't be an issue where you get injured.
  This isn't radical rocket science. It's being done regularly all around the world.
  
  It's not as effective as you think it is. Just google London police officer stabbed.
  
  First of all, I've been involved in this myself, so I'm not talking out of my ass.
  Secondly, by far most cases of "London police officer got stabbed" are the result of a police officer being forced into a confrontation without time to back out and request backup. If someone at <5 m range decides to stab you, and you're unprepared, you'll get stabbed regardless what you're armed with.
  My argument regards police responding to an armed person, where they have the time and space to control the confrontation.
  
  Medical staff do it routinely.
  
  In Florida, medical staff also call "Baker Act" at the drop of a hat which basically puts the offender in a psych ward which is often more abusive than a prison.
  
  Every new thing I learn about Florida makes it sound worse.
  
  I think Florida is situated over a hellmouth or something.
  
  Nothing freezes to death in Florida...
  
  lol social workers and public librarians do this every single day without guns
  
  If you think killing people is an okay - and only - method of stopping a human, maybe try to learn more options. YouTube is free.
  
  That’s exactly what I said that the only way to stop people is by killing them. Fuck me, some of you are extremely disingenuous.
  
  They didn't fucking try to reason, or use reasonable force. They brought a rifle, left their fucking car door open, and killed the dude when he tried to grab it. Meanwhile, no forms of non lethal incapacitation were used. Because they are trained to kill.
  Cops are the bad guy, and they made the issue worse by being there, because they aren't trained to de-escalate.
  I'd rather trust a fucking gator wrangler to be more efficient at stopping him.
  
  Tasers aren't a form of non-lethal incapacitation?
  
  Not really, no.
  Tasers can be really fucking dangerous to people. Same with rubber bullets.
  Just because its publicly called "non-lethal" doesn't mean they haven't caused a lot of people to die.
  
  Which is why they're called "less lethal" now. They are lethal just not AS lethal as a gun (a machine built and designed to kill).
  
  No.
  "Less lethal" is the actual descriptor. Like rubber bullets (which are about the size of a ping-pong ball).
  
  Ok next time you see a meth head running about doing shit like this tell people not to call the cops because you’ll stop him by reasoning with him and hugging him.
  
  How about we build a society where your insane take isn't common (insanely common), because we actually take care of people, reducing the possibility of this situation in the first place?
  
  I wish for that too. But we’re talking about the society we live in, not in the idealized one we wish we lived in. In the one we live in the situation happened and I don’t think the cops were completely wrong to act the way they did. Could and should they have done something else, I guess all the comments point to yes, but that doesn’t mean that they were entirely wrong to act the way they did. I would not put my own life on the line if I’m in the position of having to defend myself against a rabid meth head trying to steal my rifle.
  
  Guess we'll just kick that can down the road every single time an incident comes up then.
  Par for the course.
  
  Depends how hard you hug...
  
  Ah most of these people probably think fighting is like the movies. Sure there might have been a better way did they have it nope.
  
  Because they’re taught instead that what they did was acceptable, and this is backed up by chuds in society.
  Maybe if you started to be outraged and demanded non-lethal methods, they could have that better way next time.
  
  I know probably less than you do about the story, but is either one of us sure this was really a violent meth head, or is that just what was written in the report / news story?
  
  Maybe tazing someone isn't the best idea. There are other methods of suppression.
  Also once it doesnt work, most police forces in most civilized places know how to take a man down without shooting him up, even if he is trying to take your gun. Its only in the US that cops seem to think fuck any semblance of a threat means I can start blasting people to timbuktu
  
  How would you suppress a guy that just swam in crocodile infested waters and shrugged off a crocodile bite?
  Maybe the cops should have tried to ask the erratic, violent meth head trying ti steal their rifles to calm down nicely?
  
  I've worked with people that put down much more dangerous subjects than some meth head. I've taken part in such operations myself as well.
  For any person not armed with a firearm or bladed weapon the answer is simple: You keep them contained without committing to an engagement until you have a sufficient number of people on site (2-4 guys should be enough), then you swarm them with batons and pepper spray. Even the beefiest guy in the world will hit the ground after a solid round of pepper spray and a couple good whacks to the legs and body when they have three guys hanging onto them.
  If they have a bladed weapon you do the same thing, but make sure you get vests, longer batons, and more guys. The key is that you want to swarm and overwhelm the subject from all sides in such a way that you can force them to the ground without any individual grappling with them alone.
  In all cases, the subject is likely to try to single out individuals in order to attack. Use a baton, pepper spray, a frontal kick, or "running away" in order to keep them contained until you can swarm them. Treat the them like a trapped animal: You want to make sure they can never single out anyone to attack, by constantly controlling distance while you circle them in.
  This shit isn't hard. I've worked with 19-year olds that mastered it. These cops fucked up colossally if a meth head was able to start wrestling one of them over control of a gun. This just shows that arming the police with firearms in situations where they aren't necessary just makes the situation more dangerous for everyone involved. If the meth head gets control of the gun... they now have a gun. An unarmed meth head can be dealt with without bringing a gun to the scene in the first place.
  
  Are you under the impression that the US is the only country with meth? Literally every country mentioned has to deal with meth heads, I assure you. None of them gun those people down. It's a person having a medical emergency, not a rabid animal on the loose.
  
  Tons of disarming techniques have been available in martial arts to the world for centuries.
  
  Dont think cops should have rifles to begin with, and if they didnt there wouldn't be any to steal.
  Secondly there's more than one cops, and they are ostensibly trained, though I know that might be going too far. I think 4 or 5 of them should be able to successfully neutralize even a meth head without killing them. People are way too blase about cops just having the ability and immunity to just kill people. Whether or not they're drug addicts
  
  In order for cops not to have rifles the general population should not be allowed to have rifles. But being that is not the case then I think they are justified in carrying rifles.
  That doesn’t mean I think people should have rifles. Before I get bombarded here, it’s just the reality that they have them and that’s not changing anytime soon.
  
  With handcuffs? lol. Do you think that handcuffs just magically don’t work if you’ve been doing drugs?
  
  I mean a crocodile and a taser didn’t stop him, I don’t think they would have easily been able to restrain him let alone get close enough to do so without being injured.
  But it’s fine, I’m not gonna argue this anymore. I’m not gonna convince you otherwise, especially if you’ve never seen a psycho meth head.
  
  It’s not PCP. He’s still feeling pain. And police in other countries manage to stop people just fine. Some 19 year old in Germany, not even a police officer, stopped a knife attack the other day. That’s an instance of someone literally trying to kill people and a kid was able to stop them without resorting to guns. It’s a policeman’s job to literally get hurt to protect the populace. If they can’t do that then what point are they. What are we paying them for? Killing people?
  
  I used to work at a junkie hotel. I think you're the one here that's only seen junkies on television.
  
  I don't think they should have teased him. If I'm upset and someone teases me, that just makes me more upset!
  ::: spoiler spoiler I kid, I kid. 😂 :::
  
  Hahaha those silly cops!
  
  They tried teasing him and that didn’t do anything
  "HEY FLORIDA MAN! NEE NEER NEE NEER NEEEEEE NEEEERRRR!!! YOU GOT A SMALL WEEEEEIIIIINNNNEEERRRRRR!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!........well that didn't work...SHOOT HIM!!!"
  
  Does no one have a net gun? Nets always work
  
  Bullshit, man.
  Clock the dude with the handle of a pistol in his head.
  Kick him in the balls.
  Run away from him.
  Blind him.
  Not that I agree with some of those options, but my point is, executing a man who clearly needs help ain't it
  
  Terrible ideas. The first two require you being up close, which is unnecessarily dangerous. The third means abandoning the other people at risk. The fourth is just sadistic and impractical.
  
  They may be. But my point is that you don't kill someone just because you don't want to explore other options.
  A bit of thought experiment: man is belligerent. Man is trying to reach for a cop's weapon. Man is subdued somehow. Man goes to court, judge said "you tried to get thia cop's weapon? Guilty. Sentence: Death".
  
  Run away. Great idea, now there's somebody undergoing a psychotic episode and acting violently running around with an assault rifle.
  
  I didn't say the person got ahold of the rifle. That would be stupid.
  
  Ok fine, running around with a different weapon and acting violently. Still not something where the police should say "who cares, not my problem"
  
  I didn't say they leave the scene lol!
  Just put some distance and re-assess.
  Imagine if all of us acted like that. You have a brother, a daughter, an uncle with a mental breakdown, and the first thing a passer-by comes up with is "oh hell naw, let's kill this person!"
  
  They had to send the alligators. And when even that didn't work...

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