There is a malignant cancer that is metastasizing through our legal system that threatens to destroy law enforcement as a social construct capable of protecting law-abiding citizens from the ravages of criminal predation.
This cancer kills law enforcement by creating standards for police officers that are impossible to maintain in any real-world violent confrontation, standards which are often never actually taught to the officers involved, and standards for which violation results in decades in prison for the officers snared in this trap.
This cancer is, of course, just another of the many fronts in the war of America’s enemies to devolve our first-world society into a third-world hellscape that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” to quote Thomas Hobbes. And like the others, it must be recognized and obliterated.
My good friend Von Kliem, who has extensive experience in both law enforcement and as an attorney, who spends many months a year consulting on and testifying as an expert witness for police use-of-force cases at trial, and so observes this metastasizing cancer in real-time, is just about to release yet another great piece of analysis for the Force Science Institute on how law enforcement is being inexorably gutted through our legal system.
Even better, he was kind enough to send me an advanced copy of the final draft—so I’m going to shar Von’s take on all this with all of you in @TheBrancaShow community even before the worst of the world gets to see it.
On April 21, 2026, ACP (Active Self Protection) with John Correia and retired LEO Mike Willever did a review of this Hartford CT shooting (on 27 February 2026) by Officer Joseph Magnano: https: //youtu.be/8-OpkSWjEdE
Twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday) they get together to do a BadgeCam video review of LEO involved incidents oriented towards police officers.
Maybe this might work: https://youtu.be/8-OpkSWjEdE?is=kfY2Bwi_4p2TZrZt
There is no such thing as “officer created jeopardy.” Officers respond to reasonably perceived jeopardy they do not create it. If Michael Brown had complied with protest slogan “Hands up, don’t shoot” he would still be alive. Sadly, this is the case virtually any time the police use deadly force.
Judges used to understand that the judgement of the amount of force required to make an arrest belongs with the officer on the scene and that juries should not second guess the officer’s judgement in the field after the fact:
“The exception to the charge is that it transfers the honest exercise of the judgment of the accused, as to the degree of force-required to overcome resistance and the means appropriate and adequate to secure submission, under the attending circumstances, to the cooler judgment of the jurors taking a retrospective view of the occurrence. It moreover ignores the question of the good faith in which the accused aver they acted in enforcing the ordinance and preserving public order and quiet …
While then the jury must say whether the defendants had reasonable grounds to warrant the arrest, and the charge in this respect is not obnoxious to criticism, there is error in an instruction which makes the criminal act depend, not upon an honest exercise of the judgment of the defendants as to the degree of force necessary to be exerted, under the restraints mentioned, but upon the conclusion of the jury, in a review of the facts, that the force was needless and the same result would have been obtained by the use of less. There must be a venire de novo and it is so ordered. This will be certified.”
State v. McNinch, 90 N.C. 695 (N.C. Sup. Ct. 1884)
The aspirational goals of Graham v. Connor and its progeny are well meaning and, on the surface appear reasonable, but they ignore the brutal reality that a small subset of society are dangerous and violent, and that officers must be able to respond to these people with any necessary level of violence in return. Modern policing involves quicker and more violent encounters than 19th century courts could imagine but good sound legal reasoning like McNinch would stand the test of time if courts had not jettisoned that line of reasoning.
The December 30, 2025 Texas Appellate Court decision (“We reverse the judgment of the trial court and render a judgment of acquittal.”) mentioned by Von Kliem nearer the end of Andrew’s reading really drives home how much a defendant is at the mercy of a prosecutor, jury, and their politics. Great read and lesson. https://cases.justia.com/texas/seventh-court-of-appeals/2025-07-25-00010-cr.pdf?ts=1767189354
Police officers are governed by the same standard as any other individual that has the right to be the first person to use force. Constitution does not give government any authority to use physical force without due process of law and the judgement of a jury. The amount of force necessary to safely make an arrest is sometimes deadly force.
Not exactly true. A private citizen may not be an aggressor, while police may have a lawful duty to be an aggressor in the performance of their duties. Police must detain, arrest, and compel compliance, which sometimes requires they initiate the use of force. There are other subtle differences depending on state law. See for example Mo. Rev. Stat. § 563.046 granting additional use of force for law enforcement (i.e., “In addition to the use of physical force authorized under other sections of this chapter …”) or case law in New Mexico, State v. Mantelli, 131 N.M. 692 (N.M. Ct. of App. 2002) (i.e., “To the contrary, there may be situations of justifiable homicide applicable to a police officer that would not fit comfortably within the confines of ordinary self-defense and defense of another as applied to the public at large.”)
The Texas appellate court case noted above (in earlier Comments) that Von Kliem referred to, appear to support MikeB’s observations, on pages 3-4 in footnote #3:
‘The Legislature recently amended this statute to give protections to peace officers from this statute. Effective September 1, 2025, “[t]he presumption under this subsection does not apply to a peace officer engaged in the lawful discharge of the officer’s official duties” …’ .
It appears the Texas Legislature recently came to recognize, then distinguish and legislate special protections for LEOs use of deadly force decision making from that of ordinary citizens.