| | | Reluctance To Fire On Attacker Nearly Costs Officer His Life
Posted by Bob Owens on June 16, 2015 at 1:19 pm
We analyzed the on-camera shooting death of African immigrant Deng Manyoun yesterday. We showed that Louisville, KY officer Nathan Blanford was clearly justified in shooting Manyoun, as Manyoun attacked and struck Officer Blanford with a flagpole estimated to be 7'-8' long. Where we fell short in our analysis at the time was focusing narrowly on whether or not Bland was justified in firing at Manyoun… and Blanford was clearly justified.
We should have gone further, however, and explained that Officer Blanford not only could have fired his sidearm sooner, but that he should have fired his handgun far sooner than he did.
We noted yesterday:
Blanford stops in his tracks and puts his hand on his sidearm at 44 seconds into the video, the draws his weapon, holding it at the low ready, then quickly raises it to eye level at the 46 second mark.
At 48 seconds, Manyoun comes charging back into frame, a metal flag pole in his hangs, and Blanford retreats as quickly as he can, attempting to put a mailbox between himself and the charging Manyoun.
 In our opinion, Officer Blanford would have been justified in opening fire on his attacker when Manyoun was still out of frame of the camera 10 yards away, and certainly should have been firing a controlled pair as Manyoun closed the distance to five yards as shown above. Instead, Officer Blanford retreated, let Manyoun close to withing striking distance, and swing a blow with his makeshift weapon with all his might.
Hindsight is of course 20/20, but instead of retreating at this point behind the mailbox and effectively pinning himself against his patrol vehicle, Officer Blanford should have fired a controlled pair by the time Manyoun closed to five yards, and probably should have fired at an even greater distance. He should have already fired two bullets at the center of exposed mass (Manyoun’s upper chest) and should have been gauging Manyoun’s response (or lack of response) to determine whether or not he needed to conduct a failure drill.
Instead—no doubt hesitant to protect himself due to the pressures radical anti-police activists of the “Black Lives Matter” movement are putting on law enforcement nationwide—Blanford didn’t fire his first shot until Manyoun was right on top of him, already swinging the pole in a downward arc with as much force as he could muster towards the officer’s head.
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