There are learning points in the death of Jacob Albrethsen. There are things to be learned about policing in the shooting of that 17-year-old Orem High School student.
Start, maybe, with what we learn about officer Joshua Hansen's mindset. He told investigators that while he was trying to coax Albrethsen to drop the knife, it was "like nothing I said, no matter who I was, nothing was going to change his thought process."
Hansen felt that since he was an officer, that should be the full of the matter. Albrethsen should have dropped the knife because he was being told to do so by someone in authority. But, it seemed "that no matter who I was," Albrethsen didn't care that Hansen was a police officer.
That thought is reinforced by the account of how the officers had approached Albrethsen. Hansen "identified himself as a police officer" and instructed the 17-year old to put the knife down.
What do we learn from this? Sometimes it will not matter that you are a police officer. They are not going to put their weapon down just because you are who you are. This can particularly be the case when the person is on drugs, or mentally ill.
If we had had a social worker answering the call, instead of police, that worker would not have come in with such a confrontational style. The social worker would not have been demanding, would not have cited his or her authority with the suggestion of, "Do as you're told."
We have a lot of cases where the mentally ill are killed by police. This is one of the reasons why. They are not trained to deal with the mentally ill. And, the switchboard dispatchers who receive the 911 calls are not trained to call the social workers, who would handle the situation more delicately.
"I'm the law around here. You'll do as you're told, or I'll have to shoot you dead," is not always the best approach.
We also learn that just as police can be scared, so can the person who is fleeing. Officer Hansen told investigators he feared for his life. How threatened he felt is reflected by his reporting that it was, "Like, he (Albrethsen) was a hundred percent focused on me."
If someone had you cornered in a closet, and a gun pointed at you, would you be scared? Would your every thought be focused on the guy who had you cornered? If we allow that the officers were scared, we should see how those who flee can be also be scared.
We learn that if there is no great immediacy, take time to learn all the facts before going in. Albrethsen had lost his girlfriend. He was on drugs. He was paranoid. He had suggested that if anyone attacked, he would kill them. Perhaps officers interviewed the mother before they entered the home and found out all these things. Perhaps they didn't. But, they should have. And, from that, they should have realized that if they did anything that came off as if it were attack, things would not go well. They should have avoided doing anything that would come off as an attack. Being confrontational, not letting him out of a closet, pointing a gun at him -- those are things that fit in the "attack" box.
We learn that there are times to back off. What would the harm have been if the officers had just left the home, and called social workers to come in to help? Why force the situation till it culminates in a killing? There was no need to get the kid to drop the knife. If you leave the home, then no one else is there, and the kid can't harm anyone because there is no one there to harm.
"The nature and immediacy of the danger posed by (Albrethsen) and the extremely high probability that actions would lead to their death or serious injury were facts obvious to the officers," says the DA's report. It seems the DA would disagree with what I just said. He did not feel the officers could have backed away, or didn't even consider that they could have just backed off and left.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the officers could have said when they first saw the knife in his hand. "Are you are okay? We're leaving." They could have at least said that, and at least started to back away. If he then lunged at them, then shoot. But at least try to deescalate. When officers don't at least try to deescalate, this is what can happen.
(Index: Questionable shootings)
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