Behind the pistol, view is different
First I shot a baby in a crib. Then I blew apart my neighbor's fence. All but one of the bad guys got away.
Me, I got killed. Three times.
And I thought about King County Deputy Mel Miller.
I spent an hour the other day in something close to his shoes, when the FBI gave me a run at its Firearms Training System. I stood in front of a video screen holding a Sig Sauer 9 mm pistol equipped with a laser, reacting to scenarios based on real FBI cases.
The timing was good. It's been more than six months since Miller, who is white, shot and killed a black man, Robert Thomas Sr., as he sat in a pickup on Miller's street. The deputy still is taking heat.
An inquest jury and a police review board found that he did not violate law-enforcement policy in the April 7 shooting. But Miller's self-defense argument is not enough for the black community, which held a protest march last week; or for the Thomas family, which has filed a $25 million claim against the Sheriff's Office, Miller and King County.
I criticized the shooting, too. And I still don't get why Miller didn't call the Sheriff's Department to check out the truck, instead of going out there armed and off-duty.
But since I faced a gun myself, even if it was just on a screen, I got a taste of what Miller was up against, and how quickly things can happen.
Each time I was shot and killed, I had my gun drawn and pointed, ready to defend myself. I didn't know what hit me.
"You're dead, Nicole," the FBI firearms instructor said when the video-screen border turned red. "They got you."
One of them was a guy who pretended to surrender, walked toward me through a doorway with his hands up, then pulled a gun from the doorjamb. I yelled for him to drop it; he shot instead.
"We are always at a disadvantage by reacting to the actions of others," the instructor told me. No kidding.
It's easy to sit there with your coffee and newspaper, read about another police shooting and think you would have done the more moral or humanitarian thing. Shoot in the leg, the arm.
"Why did they have to kill the guy?" I've asked that question every time.
I won't be so quick to ask it in the future. Because even though I was safe on the sixth floor of a federal building, I still got a sense of how fast things can happen on the street. There's no time to strategize.
Leg or arm? Please. You just want them down. When I first picked up the gun, I was wrestling with my morals, trying to shoot to stop. I missed every time, and let an armed suspect run off into the world.
I also learned suspects are not always as they appear.
In one scenario, my partner was handcuffing a suspect when the man's son came into the hall. I noticed the boy had a strange gait. And that he had a gun in his hand. I called for him to drop it. Instead, he shot my partner, and I opened fire.
Then I imagined the headlines: Officer kills disabled boy. It would be true; it would stick with me like a scarlet letter and few would understand.
But I would. Now, I would.
Reach Nicole Brodeur at 206-464-2334 or at nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/134558720_brodeur20m.html
This is the Seattle Times columnist who once boasted that she was proud to be "the mouthpiece for the Gun-hatred culture".
First I shot a baby in a crib. Then I blew apart my neighbor's fence. All but one of the bad guys got away.
Me, I got killed. Three times.
And I thought about King County Deputy Mel Miller.
I spent an hour the other day in something close to his shoes, when the FBI gave me a run at its Firearms Training System. I stood in front of a video screen holding a Sig Sauer 9 mm pistol equipped with a laser, reacting to scenarios based on real FBI cases.
The timing was good. It's been more than six months since Miller, who is white, shot and killed a black man, Robert Thomas Sr., as he sat in a pickup on Miller's street. The deputy still is taking heat.
An inquest jury and a police review board found that he did not violate law-enforcement policy in the April 7 shooting. But Miller's self-defense argument is not enough for the black community, which held a protest march last week; or for the Thomas family, which has filed a $25 million claim against the Sheriff's Office, Miller and King County.
I criticized the shooting, too. And I still don't get why Miller didn't call the Sheriff's Department to check out the truck, instead of going out there armed and off-duty.
But since I faced a gun myself, even if it was just on a screen, I got a taste of what Miller was up against, and how quickly things can happen.
Each time I was shot and killed, I had my gun drawn and pointed, ready to defend myself. I didn't know what hit me.
"You're dead, Nicole," the FBI firearms instructor said when the video-screen border turned red. "They got you."
One of them was a guy who pretended to surrender, walked toward me through a doorway with his hands up, then pulled a gun from the doorjamb. I yelled for him to drop it; he shot instead.
"We are always at a disadvantage by reacting to the actions of others," the instructor told me. No kidding.
It's easy to sit there with your coffee and newspaper, read about another police shooting and think you would have done the more moral or humanitarian thing. Shoot in the leg, the arm.
"Why did they have to kill the guy?" I've asked that question every time.
I won't be so quick to ask it in the future. Because even though I was safe on the sixth floor of a federal building, I still got a sense of how fast things can happen on the street. There's no time to strategize.
Leg or arm? Please. You just want them down. When I first picked up the gun, I was wrestling with my morals, trying to shoot to stop. I missed every time, and let an armed suspect run off into the world.
I also learned suspects are not always as they appear.
In one scenario, my partner was handcuffing a suspect when the man's son came into the hall. I noticed the boy had a strange gait. And that he had a gun in his hand. I called for him to drop it. Instead, he shot my partner, and I opened fire.
Then I imagined the headlines: Officer kills disabled boy. It would be true; it would stick with me like a scarlet letter and few would understand.
But I would. Now, I would.
Reach Nicole Brodeur at 206-464-2334 or at nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/134558720_brodeur20m.html
This is the Seattle Times columnist who once boasted that she was proud to be "the mouthpiece for the Gun-hatred culture".
