I recently gave an edged-weapons combatives clinic to a group of martial arts instructors, one of whom was a law officer. He reminded me of a piece of doctrine that had been drilled into him: that a person armed with a knife within 21 feet must be neutralized, preferably with a firearm. This is the doctrine required to make certain that your law officers are not rundown and stabbed while deploying their weapon. It only takes two seconds for a fit male to cover 21 feet, and once he is on you, the gun is less useful than his knife.
What makes this even harrier is the fact that 21 feet is not 'close range' as far as striking your target under duress with a handgun is concerned. There are no guaranteed hits. On top of that you have cases of men taking body shots and still coming. There are also extant films of individuals running up on cops with an edged-weapon while the cops fire, and still scoring a stab.
As a counterpoint, I have often, in print, in person, and online, noted that nearly all individuals who arm themselves with an edged-weapon and place it between themselves and another party, will usually not attack, will never pursue, and are unlikely to put up an effective resistance. This factor is a deep psychological one. Read my book The Logic of Steel if you want the gritty details. But suffice it to say that the knife brandished is the knife misused by a person psychologically ill-suited for its effective use. The knife is a weapon of ruthless stealth. The knife you need to worry about is held back or concealed. But doctrine is what doctrine is.
This is a messy, messy subject, begging for standardized doctrine. But, as in all things, when a cookie cutter solution is adopted, inflexibility and eventual tragedy is the inevitable result. As a case in point I would like to discuss an egregious example of tyrannical conduct on the part of police in the small Illinois town of Park Forest. The story below was posted on rt.com at 18:23 on 7/29/13, and is summarized below.
Ninety-five [yes 95!] year-old John Warna, living at an assisted living facility, was refusing transportation to a medical center or hospital. He had no history of violence or even disruptive behavior, but armed himself with a medical cane and shoehorn and warded off hospital personnel.
Police were called to the scene at 8:42 PM. Mister Warna refused to cooperate and grabbed a 12-inch butcher knife. The police then tazed him, and shot him [apparently twice, but perhaps only once, as the text was unclear] with lead-filled beanbags from a 12 gauge shotgun. At 2:30 AM Mister Warna was pronounced dead due to abdominal trauma and internal bleeding.
The death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County Coroner, and is being investigated by the state police. A bystander said that Mister Warna had his back to an accessible area, and was of the opinion that he could have been easily subdued with a little common sense and ‘a bed sheet’. Actually, coats, jackets, and other such garments have proved very effective as counter knife measures.
I am certain that the responding officers feel horrible. They were just operating inside of the doctrinal box they have been put into, a box that allows for no flexibility on their part. If a cop would have mugged the man with a jacket, and had gotten injured, or ruined any police property, he would have certainly been disciplined. Depending on guidelines, he may have been found negligent, and if cut, have been denied insurance coverage for medical care. This was a tragedy for all involved, the kind of tragedy our police state grooms its citizens and enforcers to fall prey to.
Speaking of Illinois...Abe Lincoln once told a story about a farmer who was walking down a country road while carrying a pitchfork. Suddenly a dog from a nearby house charged out at the farmer and tried to bite him in the leg. Before the dog could do that the farmer stuck him with the pitchfork. The dog's owner was upset with this. "Why didn't you use the other end?" he protested. The farmer replied, "Why didn't he come at me with his other end?" One should keep in mind that a great many of these cases where emotionally disturbed persons brandish a knife at the cops are cases of "suicide by cop". These people want to end their lives, but for whatever reason can't muster the will to do it themselves. Consequently they intend to provoke the cops into doing it for them by placing the cops in fear for their lives. What do they think is going to happen if they threaten a cop with a knife?! We have had quite few of these type of suicide by cop incidents happen in my own part of the country with similar tragic results (which coincides with the general increase in suicides locally). Naturally the family members of the deceased suspects were upset and felt the cops could have and should have handled the situation differently. However since the subjects were clearly determined to end their lives, the situation was likely to have a tragic end no matter what kind of outside the box thinking was applied to the problem. And you can't fault the cops for wanting to go home in one piece at the end of the shift, especially if they are to be confronted with increasing numbers of these kind of incidents. This is another reason the cops tend to avoid risk and stick to approved tactical doctrine in such matters.
I agree that these incidents are largely 'suicide by cop'. The police are really stuck in a tragic situation here. In this particular case the man was refusing medical treatment to begin with, which is telling. I was once contacted by an FBI supervisory agent who was frustrated by the type of doctrine that law enforcement is locked into, and the fact that anything 'outside the box', no matter how well-intentioned, opens up liability in our litigious society. What few people are likely to appreciate is that this man, by the manner of his end, left the person who killed him with a portion of his pain that he will carry until his end. The ultimate victim here is the cop. What I have a problem with, is a society that mandates forced medical treatment as if we are livestock, leading to unavoidable violence, to enforce the ultimate violation. No person on earth came out ahead in this case [though a lawyer or suing relative may benefit monetarily]. But the 'State' gained another tiny measure of strength.