Officer Justifiably Shoots Good Guy: Lessons For Armed Citizens

In this video, Personal Defense Network’s Rob Pincus dissects a particularly heartbreaking law-enforcement bodycam video–and we’ll warn you, although it’s not graphic, it’s definitely tough to watch. What makes this so tragic is that, as Pincus demonstrates, neither the armed homeowner who was shot by the officer nor the officer himself did anything wrong legally, morally, or ethically. But as unpleasant as it is to think about this event, which happened earlier this year in Aurora, Colo., it’s still got a number of lessons that we, as armed defenders, should internalize. The armed defender, a hero veteran who can actually be heard on the video saving his grandchild’s life, could just as easily be any one of us defending our families. That’s why it’s so critical that we pay attention to what was going on from the officer’s perspective so we can take away lessons of our own about how to interact with law enforcement as legally armed citizens.