Police Use of Deadly Force

      When it comes to US police officers firing their weapons, the rules, on paper, are very clear. "Ultimately you come to your firearm as a last resort," says Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Order of Police. "You should only use that weapon in a situation where you felt your life or the lives of civilians in the area were in danger." [The Supreme Court in 1982 ruled that shooting at an unarmed fleeing felon who had not just committed a violent crime was not justified.]

     The use of Kevlar vests and other protective police gear have enabled police officers to work with less fear of their lives than in the past.

     Only a small percentage of the nation's 500,000 police officers are involved in shootings. Most retire without ever firing their gun in the line of duty. Still, officers are 600 times more likely than a non-officer to kill a citizen, and about 400 people are killed a year by police. [According to my research, the police shoot about a thousand people a year, killing about half of them. Over the past few years, the number of police officers who are shot or in some way physically assaulted has been on the rise. Increased hostility and danger from the public has kept the rate of police-involved shootings high.]

"What Goes Through a Policeman's Head Before He Shoots?" BBC, August 20, 2014

Officer Shoots Arrestee Who Grabbed His Taser

     Late on the night of November 16, 2014, in Inverness, Florida, Citrus County Deputy Sheriff Jacob Chenoweth responded to a disturbance call in a trailer park involving a woman trying to set fire to a neighbor's truck. When Deputy Chenoweth arrived at the scene, the officer, with four years on the force, encountered 46-year-old Dawn Renee Cameron.

     Citrus County deputies had arrested Cameron five months earlier for violating her parole on a grand theft conviction. Cameron's arrest record also included charges of domestic violence, drug possession, and burglary.

     When officer Chenoweth informed Cameron that she was under arrest, she took a swing at him and missed. With the arrestee's arm wrapped around the deputy's neck, the officer used a leg sweep that dropped them both to the ground where they continued to struggle with Cameron reaching for the officer's firearm and taser.

     Before officer Chenoweth was able to place the resisting woman into handcuffs, she jumped to her feet, stood over him and yelled, "You done it now motherfucker! You're going to get it!" The threatened officer reached for his Taser and realized it wasn't in his possession. The arrestee had taken his stun gun and was pointed it at him. Officer Chenoweth responded by shooting Dawn Cameron three times. She was rushed to a local hospital where a few hours later, she died from her wounds.

     Pursuant to standard protocol, officer Jacob Chenoweth was placed on administrative leave pending the investigation of the fatal shooting by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

     Following the investigation of this police-involved shooting, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that officer Chenoweth had not only been in danger of serious bodily injury from the Taser, the arrestee could have disabled him and gained possession of his firearm. As a result, the investigating agency concluded that officer Chenoweth's use of deadly force was justified.

     The Citrus County District Attorney, based upon the Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, decided not to press criminal charges against the officer.

     As it often happens in police-involved shooting cases, Dawn Cameron's family filed a wrongful death suit against officer Chenoweth in federal court. In June 2018, the district judge for the Middle District of Florida issued a summary judgment in favor of the defendant officer. The federal judge found the shooting, on its face, an "objectively reasonable" use of deadly force. 

Robert Thomas: Old, and Dangerous

     On January 2, 2020 at ten after nine in the morning, a female employee at the Vista Del Valle apartment complex in Las Vegas, Nevada called 911 about a man in the office with a gun. The caller reported that a 93-year-old resident of the complex was making threats and arguing with the maintenance manager over water damage in his apartment. The dispatcher could hear the man, Robert Thomas, yelling threats. Mr. Thomas, in possession of a Glock 9 mm pistol, would not calm down.

     After Mr. Thomas fired a random shot that knocked out a computer screen the woman who had called 911 convinced him to let her leave the office. Shortly after she walked out of the building Robert Thomas shot the maintenance manager, causing the victim to fall out of his chair. As the manager lay on the floor Mr. Thomas shot him again.

     The first Las Vegas Metropolitan police officer to arrive at the scene, Ronald Hornyak, a 16-year veteran of the force saw the old man with the gun through the glass entrance. Officer Hornyak ordered Mr. Thomas to drop his weapon and walk out of the building. When the suspect didn't respond Officer Hornyak fired a shot through the glass door. The bullet didn't hit the old man's body but pierced his coat lapel.

     Mr. Thomas, after being shot at by the officer, placed his gun on the desk and backed away. Officer Hornyak entered the office and dragged the suspect out of the building.

     The maintenance manager was rushed to a local hospital where he was expected to recover from his gunshot wound. Robert Thomas, after being treated at a medical facility for a minor injury received in his encounter with the police officer was treated and released back into police custody.

     Officers booked Robert Thomas into the Clark County Detention center on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, discharging a firearm within a structure, burglary with a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. At his arraignment the magistrate set the suspect's bail at $25,000.

     On January 7, 2020 Robert Thomas, confined to a wheelchair and wearing earphones so he could hear the judge was back in court. The defendant was informed that if he posted 15 percent of his $25,000 bail and agreed to house arrest and an electronic monitoring device he would be released from the Clark Country Detention Center.

     Officer Ronald Hornyak, pending the results of an inquiry into the police-involved shooting was placed on paid administrative leave.