The video clearly shows how fast a person can close. The cop had no choice. The call was a guy with a knife harming himself, when he finds the guy he get’s charged. Not much he could do.
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Another coward committing “suicide by Cop”. I feel for the Officer, at least he gets to go home.
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Murphy covered about 35 feet in just 2 seconds, according to Sandy police. The officer starts to back up and tries to get behind his patrol car.
Both body camera and dashcam videos show Murphy got within 2 to 3 feet of the officer before the officer fired three rounds. The officer then trips and falls to the ground on his back while backpedaling. Murphy, however, remains on his feet. It is unclear in the video whether he is actually hit or injured.
Discuss Tueller Drill and effects of bullets
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This is why the 21 foot rule is useless if you think of it as the distance at which someone without a firearm starts to become a threat. I’ve heard some people make that argument in the past.
Even if the officer started firing at the attacker and made solid hits when they were over 30’ away the attacker still could have easily closed that distance, made contact and inflicted damage before even realizing they were shot.
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Yep, and I recall someone making a statement on this forum, he would not start firing until threat with a knife was 7 ft away. This is an informed person. Can you imagine what goes through heads of jurors who believe in “9mm blowsa lung out of the body”?
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People wrongly interpret 21 foot rule. It shouldn’t be fixed distance, that was only made to show how fast you must react.
21 foot in 1.5 sec means 14 feet per second. That is the time vs distance you must have your firearm ready to shoot. It is more about the speed, not a distance.
If you draw stroke is fast, you can accept assailant to be at +/- 20 feet distance. If you need more than 2 seconds to get your firearm ready, this distance cannot be shorter than 35 - 40 feet.
This case showed it perfectly - 35 feet was covered in 2 seconds and shots had been fired at close range, when no other option was available.
People are asking - “why he didn’t use a taser?”. What a silly question. I’m wondering which one of people asking would put his / her life in risk seeing crazy person running towards when there is only few seconds to make a proper decision.
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Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you wrote but I don’t agree that you can accept an assailant to be at 20ish feet just because you can draw and fire in the same amount of time it takes them to cover that distance between you. Assuming you can draw and fire in 1.5 seconds and that you react the exact instant they start to charge the best you can hope for is a tie with the assailant hitting you and likely striking and/or stabbing as you fire your first shot. And likely continuing to do so after that shot.
I don’t think there is any acceptable safe distance away from a person that is making it clear they intend to assault you. Unless they are far enough away that you and the people you are with have the time and ability to escape long before the attacker can get close.
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The guy got shot 3 times and was still standing? Get’s shot 2 more times and then falls down and then get’s back up? From the sound of that I really doubt a taser would have been very effective.
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Agree. Also the assumption that you can draw and fire in 1.5 seconds - and hit a fast moving target center of mass or at least close to it is assuming a lot. I’ve seen people in class miss a target 3 meet in front of them.
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Do they ever.
All it is, is an average or typical attacker, armed with a contact weapon, starting from a rest, can cover about 21 feet and stab/poke/bludgeon you with their contact weapon in about 1.5 seconds which is faster than most people can react, draw, and fire even a single shot.
So, typically, a contact weapon armed attacker standing 21 feet away, if you are standing there with your gun concealed in the holster, that attacker can probably stab/etc you before you can get even one shot off…and we all know the joke “what do people normally do after being shot with a handgun? Whatever they were doing before being shot with a handgun” has a lot of basis in reality.
The quote-unquote ‘safe’ distance for a contact weapon individual, if your gun is in the holster, is in reality probably significantly greater than 21 feet.
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And how often do we get to practice drawing while moving backward? Creating a few more feet of distance can add some valuable time. But 99.9% of my range time is “toes on the firing line”; do not stand in front of, or behind the firing line. Even in instructor led classes, on a tightly controlled range, I’ve had very limited time being able to practice moving backward and getting a couple rounds off (where’s that support hand?).
For me, Tueller drill isn’t about specific numbers (distance & speed). It’s about: 1) The importance of being as fast as you can be out of the holster and, 2) don’t get too comfortable thinking the assailant is too far away to be a threat. Somebody could be 50ft away with a weapon and if their aggression is directed at me, I’m not going to wait for them to get to a magical 21ft. The gun is coming out of the holster while I yell commands to drop the knife/hammer/chainsaw, possibly tell a bystander to call 911, etc. Obviously there’s a lot of variables in any specific situation, but we can’t afford to wait too long.
I saw this video recently and Mas makes a good point about how many assailants are on drugs these days and two to the high center chest might not be enough to stop the threat.
I think the arguments he makes about capacity also tie in with recent convos about emergency reloads as well. My EDC is 7+1 with two spare 8rnd mags. I might need at least one emergency reload. But then again, I carry .45acp, the Lord’s caliber, so maybe not. 
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The capacity things is why, personally, I simply wont’ carry something that holds so little ammo. But, personal preference and all that
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Not trying to practice law without a license here, and I don’t know whether this can be used as a legal precedent or not in the future, but it sure seems like fodder for it.
I do most of my shooting at gravel pits so I can run around as much as I like. Creating distance is important in most situations but one thing I don’t like doing while shooting is moving backwards. It can lead to trips and falls as this officer demonstrated.
I prefer moving off the line left or right or at a 45* angle away or even towards the target. Ideally I’d be moving towards cover. But I want to see where my feet are going without loosing site of the threat if possible.
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What I meant is to not stick to the distance, but be smart enough to know what is your limitation with presenting the firearm and know if you are able to draw and shoot, or it’s better to run away.
1.5 second is not something that all of us can achieve, but I know people who can draw and shoot dead center below 1 second. In such case whoever is comfortable with this speed got a comfort with defending him / her self.
I don’t like to stick to fixed values. For me 1.5 second can be a long time, for somebody’s else not quite long. How far you allow assailant to approaches you? It is something to be determined during practice.
Or caught somewhere between.
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it wouldn’t… and that’s I was surprised and upset reading comments on the websites showing this incident.
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I don’t know that it ever has been used in a legal setting. I have read that the creator of the drill never intended it to be a measure of safety. That and the reality demonstrated by incidents like this is why it’s important not to perpetuate the myth that 21 feet has any bearing on anything to do with a real life self defense situation.
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I’ve always viewed it as just how fast things can happen, and what the work is that you will need to do to survive it. The distance was a minimum consideration.
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My draw time from concealment to first aimed shot is 1.5ish seconds. Though I have no idea if I can do that smoothly while being attacked.
Even if I had a sub 1 second draw, if someone was charging me and I had no clear chance to escape I would ideally want to have hit them with enough shots to stop the threat before they got within 21 feet. There would be no guarantee that I can hit them from there with enough more shots in the remaining 1.5ish seconds I’d have to stop them from injuring or disarming me.
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