The police officer climbed up the building after Thomas Matthew Crooks with the help of a colleague who tried to hoist him up. The officer scaling the side of the building saw Crooks on the roof. Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, and the officer promptly let go of the roof and fell to the ground. On its face, a reasonable response, and one most are unlikely to question or dwell upon.
Firefighter Corey Comperatore heard and/or saw initial gunfire. He yelled, "get down," threw his wife and daughter to the ground, and shielded them with his body. One of Crooks' shots struck Comperatore in the brain, killing him. This was heroism and self-sacrifice in its purest form.
At first glance, the decisions of this police officer and Corey Comperatore may not appear to be comparable. Yet, in my opinion they were faced with very similar choices. The officer must have known in climbing up after Crooks that Crooks was likely planning to either attempt to assassinate Trump, or at least to harm or kill another person or people. The officer's awareness of the extent of Crook's threat to others was enough that he had another officer hoist him up to climb that building. When Crooks pointed the gun at him, the officer chose to save his only life rather than risk it in hopes of preventing or at least hindering Crooks from killing others. Did the consequence of the decision in that moment register with the officer? Was it too brief and the officer's response too reflexive for him to realize this? Even if it did not register, did Crooks begin firing too soon afterward for the officer to have made another attempt to ascend the building, with or without the help of the other officer? Officers necessarily at least think about the prospect of being injured or killed in the line of duty when attempting to mitigate or prevent harm to others. Perhaps this even specifically comes up in training.
Comperatore was a firefighter. Hence, thoughts of self-sacrifice, being injured or killed in the line of duty while saving others from harm were required by the job. He had to be prepared to do this for strangers. With his wife and daughter in the path of bullets, the immediate decision to sacrifice himself would have been even easier. Would the officer have continued up the building despite Crooks aiming a rifle at him if his wife and daughter had been near trump at the rally?
As a complete outsider to both these occupations, the training involved, and the situations and decisions, I wonder how much disaster situation preparation affects one's ability to make the tough decision of self-sacrifice if and when confronted with the decisions these men faced. Comperatore was a true hero, and the world will remember him as such. The name of this officer is nowhere to be found in any media I have come across thus far. And regardless of public opinion about him, I doubt that if he sleeps at night, he does so without thinking about what he could have done differently this past Sunday, and how he might have mitigated or prevented the death and harm that was done.
In preparing for oral arguments, we have colleagues throw the most difficult questions at us so that our responses when such questions are asked during actual oral arguments, our responses are as polished and perfect as they can be. Similarly, in surgery, we study pitfalls and complications not only to avoid them, but to study and prepare for how to repair or remedy them when they arise. The lawyer or surgeon who lacks such preparation will almost certainly have a spectacularly worse performance when the direst situations arise. In my opinion, greatness is best achieved through preparation and training rather than relying on what our spontaneous best may be when faced with the the worst scenarios we could possibly have imagined.
Luck favors the prepared, as the old saying goes. One's performance in court under pressure depends on preparation. There are rare individuals who can fake their way through anything. Odds are none of us fall into that category, so we need to work at it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the local police officer who dropped back down from the roof's edge after seeing the shooter on July 13, there is logical explanation that in my view would not cause him to lose sleep at night. He was boosted up to the roof's edge by a colleague and needed both hands to grip the roof edge. His sidearm was holstered on his hip beyond reach.
There was no way for the officer to maintain his position on the roof edge and take action against the shooter if he removed one hand from the roof edge to reach down for the gun in his holster. He had to drop down to the ground to regroup and plan another approach to disable the shooter.
Unfortunately, time was not on his side and the shooter fired toward the stage. His action was not only objectively reasonable, but it was also the only option available to him.
It's hard to say that the police officer acted unreasonably. We are born with a fight or flight response and I am not sure how much we have control over what we do in moments where our life is in danger. Not only that, but the police officer likely would have been killed if he continued toward the shooter and the result would have been the same, or worse.
ReplyDeleteThe firefighter certainly acted quickly to protect his family, and I think at the end of the day this is probably would caused him to act so instinctively. Like you said, in addition to his training as a firefighter.
That being said, preparation is definitely the best way to elicit a best reaction in the event of an emergency, when the lives of ourself or others are in immediate danger, or in an oral argument or at trial. Preparation reduces anxiety in moments of intense pressure.