Man with "flaming rag" charges police, kills officer with officer's own gun

[Sefner]

http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_13304026

Almost immediately, the 34-year-old Dockery charged at them with the flaming rag, O'Malley said. Trying to protect Terry and her daughter, Crittenden pushed them out of the way. He then began to struggle with Dockery.

North St. Paul Police Chief Tom Lauth said Crittenden had a safety holster that would have made it difficult for a suspect to disarm him.

"A weapon can't just be pulled out of there," Lauth said. He said because the battle with Dockery was at close range, the suspect was able to get the gun out of the holster. There was not a safety lock on the handgun, so all that
was required to fire the pistol was for the trigger to be pulled, Lauth said.

There is even a map.

So this one is different. Two officers are charged at after opening the door by a man with a burning rag of some sort. The BG then manages to shoot one officer with his own gun, causing a firefight. Tactically, there are a few questions. Did the BG know there were cops at the door or was he expecting his wife and her daughter (read the article for background on that)? We probably will never know exactly how the officer's gun left his holster in the wrong hands. How does one fight around a carpet that is on fire? How could the situation have been avoided?

[markj]

Sounds like an ambush, those police had no clue what was about to happen.

I still say a gun with a safety is key here, the glock allowed the shooter to aim and pull the trigger. If he had a weapon with a manual safety the BG may have hesitated long enough trying to fire it the other officer may have been able to shoot BG. Maybe not.

My heart goes out to the family of the LEO, he tried his best, he may have saved the gals life too. Most folks just dont appreciate police, I have family here on the force and I pray I get to see em again almost every day.

[Mikeyboy]

They were joined by Olson outside the apartment. Terry unlocked the door, and the group walked in.
Almost immediately, the 34-year-old Dockery charged at them with the flaming rag, O'Malley said. Trying to protect Terry and her daughter, Crittenden pushed them out of the way. He then began to struggle with Dockery.

Dockery struck Crittenden with the flaming cloth, burning his head. Crittenden and Olson tried to subdue Dockery. The rag fell

on the floor and started a small fire in the living room, O'Malley said.
Dockery managed to grab Crittenden's holstered gun and shoot the officer once in the head. Dockery then pointed the gun at Olson, setting off a gunfight. Despite being struck in the right arm, Olson shot Dockery five times. In total, there were 14 shots fired between the two guns, both 40-caliber Glock pistols, O'Malley said.




I think having a flaming rag suddenly thrown on your head would screw up even the most skilled police officer. Then your going to comment on why crazy 37 year old was able to out wrestle a 57 year old officer with a burnt face and trying to push innocent civilians out of the way. PLEEAAZZEE it was an ambush, both officer did the best they could.

God bless them and their families.

[csmsss]

Sounds to me like officer Crittenden had extraordinarily incompetent backup, costing him his life.

[MLeake]

Sounds to me like officer Crittenden had extraordinarily incompetent backup, costing him his life.

How incompetent was the second officer, csmsss? She: took a round herself; didn't lose her own weapon; and, despite taking a bullet wound, put down the BG and won the gunfight.

csmsss, please enlighten us all as to how "competent" backup would have performed.

[csmsss]

How incompetent was the second officer, csmsss? She: took a round herself; didn't lose her own weapon; and, despite taking a bullet wound, put down the BG and won the gunfight.

csmsss, please enlighten us all as to how "competent" backup would have performed. Since you asked, exactly what on earth was she doing while the perp was assaulting the primary officer, struggling with him and removing his weapon? Biding her time? This situation should never have become a gun "fight", as she should never have allowed the BG to obtain control of Officer Crittenden's firearm.

[MLeake]

... did you READ the article? The part where it says Crittenden and Olson tried to subdue Dockery.

In other words, she was also in the physical struggle; both officers were trying to use non-lethal means to subdue the BG up until the point that the BG took Crittenden's gun.

He then shot Crittenden, and then shot Olson. Olson returned fire. Twelve rounds were apparently fired from that point, but it's not clear how many were fired by the BG. Olson scored 5 hits, so even if she fired all 12 her hit percentage would be 41.67%, but odds are the BG fired a few so her hit percentage was very likely closer to 80% or better. And that's after taking a GSW to the arm.

That should both answer your question, and at the same time tell you why I think you are way out of line.

Out of curiousity, what is your line of work? Do you have ANY experience in subduing a combative male, whether one on one or as part of a team? Or do you just like to malign cops?

[jgcoastie]

Do you have ANY experience in subduing a combative male, whether one on one or as part of a team?

It's a heckuva lot harder than most people think.

[MLeake]

... if somebody attacks me with a flaming anything, I'm not going hands on, we've already escalated to the handgun end of the force continuum as far as I'm concerned.

I won't fault the officers. They were reacting to an ambush; also, they may have been concerned at first about gunplay with the woman and child in a confined space with them. I'm just saying I consider a flaming rag, a torch, or anything similar to be a deadly weapon, and would recommend reactions should take that into account.

[cracked91]

This is a sad story, and a worse situation. I can see why a man only armed with a flaming piece of cloth might not seem to warrant lethal force right away, but no matter which way I look at it the original actions of the officers seemed tactically unsound, though maybe Im just reading it wrong. Assuming it was a right inside the door ambush(which they made it sound like) how did 4 people get in before they noticed him? Officers are trained to always be aware of their surroundings. Why did the officer even try to take the two females back into the apartment when they were aware that there might be someone inside, I would also say why did the officer not back out of the apartment right away, but the answer is because there were 3 females right behind him. Once you get into a wrestling match, especially with multiple people, you lose track of whose hands are where and you get tunnel vision with the adrenaline, so I can see how he got his gun taken from him, I just think there could have been measures to prevent this.

Im not bagging on the police, and I feel for the officer and his family, but this is tactics and training, and the purpose is to learn from other's mistakes.

[TexasGunSlinger]

Do you have ANY experience in subduing a combative male, whether one on one or as part of a team?


Horrible incident, we cant afford losing good officers, especially now. This does show the need imo for better hand to hand combat training for police. or at least forced refresher courses to help prevent being overpowerd by a bg.

[MLeake]

... even when you know somebody is probably in there, you still need to spot exactly where he might be. This doesn't happen via mysticism; the officers may not have had much time to look around after going through the door.

Without knowing the layout of the apartment, we don't know how many hiding spots were within easy access of the front door.

Also, a flaming, fuel soaked rag thrown at one's face might pose a serious distraction.

For those who are simply posing what if's in order to use this tragedy as a chance to discuss tactics and learn from what happened, great, that's why they have forums like this.

For those who want to start out by assuming that the officers were incompetent: NYT reporter Stephen Farrell was rescued by British SAS forces in Afghanistan this past Wednesday. His interpreter died in the crossfire. One of the SAS troops died, as well. Would any of you like to suggest that the SAS are incompetent?

The sad fact is that trained people can do things according to procedure, and sometimes the good guys still get hurt or killed. We don't like it, and for many of us the first impulse is to start shrilling that "he did it wrong; she screwed up" etc. Often, what we really mean is, "I need to believe that I would do better because it's too frightening to think otherwise, therefore I must believe that he or she screwed up."

Just my take on things.

[w_houle]

I understand most of what's going on except this:
There was not a safety lock on the handgun, so all that was required to fire the pistol was for the trigger to be pulled, Lauth said.
So are cops suppose to have some kind of super secret decoder ring for their guns?

[Slopemeno]

Decoder ring? No, but remember there's a gun at *every* call they respond to- Thier own. An "on-safe" carry mode is smart, and has saved lives before.

[MLeake]

... this refers to the argument put forward by many that autos should have safeties because in the event the officer loses retention, if the safety is on it might confuse the BG long enough for the officer to draw his BUG, use his Tazer, etc.

Frankly, I don't think most BG's are quite that stupid, and I also think that the mental effort would be better spent on more weapon retention training. I'm not sure how often that training is required, but IMO it should be included any time there is recurrent weapons training or qual conducted.

[w_houle]

I think it was the word lock that threw me off. You want a safety on the gun? Fine, but let's not go down the road of a "smart gun", because that's what I first thought when I seen the word "lock".

[MLeake]

... that the police chief said "safety," but the reporter's notes, and firearm knowledge, weren't quite on and the reporter added "lock." It's possible that the chief misspoke - he'd have been under enough stress.

However, given the retention holster, I think the safety argument would have been moot here because that holster means one of two things:

If Dockery (the BG) pulled the gun from the holster, that would imply he knew how to work the holster, in which case he'd have probably known how to manipulate a safety.

If Dockery did not know how to work the holster, that would imply that Officer Crittenden had been attempting to draw the weapon himself, and Dockery took it at that point; if that had been the case, Officer Crittenden likely would have thumbed any safety off during the draw.

Either way, I don't think a safety would have helped.

And again, sometimes the good guys get hurt, even when they don't do anything wrong. Sometimes the other guy is stronger, faster, or more skilled; sometimes the other guy just gets lucky.

[mustang_steve]

I agree, a safety mechanism would have been a possibly life-saving feature in this case. They add no time to disengage when drawing. I have a safety on my pistol and it's easily disengaged when drawing, so long as you are familiar with your pistol. This depends on when the safety is disengaged during the process though.

On the other hand...this would have been a situation where I think tasers would have been more effective....tase his butt and sort it out when things are in control.

[MLeake]

The way I read this, the officers, woman, and teenager had just entered the house when Dockery charged them, flinging a flaming rag at Officer Crittenden.

This being the case, with five people in close quarters in an apartment, when would a Taser be deployed?

Officer Crittenden's first reaction was to push the woman and teenager out of harm's way. Officers Crittenden and Olson then immediately were involved in a physical, point-blank fight with Dockery.

Assuming this apartment was probably not so luxurious (going by Dockery's track record and mug shot, he wouldn't have been likely to afford a nice place - looks like an addict's face and rap sheet), so the quarters were probably very close.

Close quarters brawls don't tend to be pretty, and can make it very hard to deploy weapons for fear of hitting partners or bystanders.

If the situation had developed in a more spacious environment, then the officers might have had more time to use Tasers or coordinate a response. As I noted in an earlier post, though, if somebody came at me with a flaming object, I'd assume Molotov or similar, and I'd draw a firearm and not a Taser or pepper spray can.

[pax]

However, given the retention holster, I think the safety argument would have been moot here because that holster means one of two things:

If Dockery (the BG) pulled the gun from the holster, that would imply he knew how to work the holster, in which case he'd have probably known how to manipulate a safety.

If Dockery did not know how to work the holster, that would imply that Officer Crittenden had been attempting to draw the weapon himself, and Dockery took it at that point; if that had been the case, Officer Crittenden likely would have thumbed any safety off during the draw.

Either way, I don't think a safety would have helped.

And again, sometimes the good guys get hurt, even when they don't do anything wrong. Sometimes the other guy is stronger, faster, or more skilled; sometimes the other guy just gets lucky.

Good post, and good points -- especially the last two sentences.

We all have this fantasy that of course the good guys win (unless they're not really good guys, or unless they did something to bring it on themselves). It' s hard to live in the real world, where sometimes good people lose even when they've done nothing egregiously wrong.

pax

[Slopemeno]

True. A lot of people forget what putting a uniform on really means.

[cracked91]

I am not suggesting the officers were incompetent, 9 years is on the force and still alive shows better. What I am saying is that doing things a little differently might have saved the officers life. The biggest tactical problem I see here is the decison to bring the mother and daughter into the apartment. Maybe they had the key and just went in first?

And as for the hiding spot, generally if the area is dim lit, the officer should not have progressed much more than a foot into the doorway before checking with flashlight.

[MLeake]

Terry (the mother) opened the door and let them in.

I'll admit, I had the same thought about why the officers didn't clear the apartment before bringing in the mother and daughter.

I don't think the officers really thought the guy would attack them. The article said Dockery had a lengthy criminal record, but didn't specify violent crimes - lack of evidence isn't evidence, per se, but the odds are the reporter would have leapt at the chance to point out a history of violence on Dockery's part.

The article said that Dockery had four prior violations of the restraining order - which may have led the police to think this would be just another in a series of (to that point) non-violent encounters. One would think that any violent resistance to the police during the previous four violations would have put Dockery in prison for a while, so it would appear that there had not been any on the previous occasions.

Last, according to the article, Terry had called the non-emergency number to request assistance. Since 911 is easy, and the non-emergency number requires lookup by oneself or via the operator, it would seem Terry did not consider the situation to be worthy of an emergency call and went to extra effort to NOT dial 911.

Based on the above factors, I think the complainant didn't think the situation was a threat so much as an aggravation, and the responding officers entered with that mindset. Unfortunately, what they encountered was not what any of them expected.

[serf 'rett]

When I read this There was not a safety lock on the handgunI connected it with this between the two guns, both 40-caliber Glock pistols
Wasn't the chief trying to indicate the Glock's had no frame or slide mounted safety?so all that was required to fire the pistol was for the trigger to be pulled, Lauth said

[44 AMP]

Another example of an officer putting the safety of others above his own, and sadly, paying the ultimate price to protect them.

Did you look at the map? From the time the attack began, they were at arms length distance the whole time. Very tight quarters.

Point#1: Retention holsters aren't. If you can draw it, so can they.
Now, maybe the attacker knew how to work that particular holster. Maybe he just got lucky. Maybe he got control of the gun after the officer began his draw. We don't know. But the fact is that a retention holster (of any type) just increases the odds of preventing a gun grab, it is not a positive prevention.

Point #2
... that the police chief said "safety," but the reporter's notes, and firearm knowledge, weren't quite on and the reporter added "lock." It's possible that the chief misspoke - he'd have been under enough stress.


Actually in this case, the term is spot on. Safety Lock is the correct term for the thumb safety. Check a parts diagram of a 1911, or the military manuals. Safety Lock is the correct term. It isn't the term in common use anymore, but it is still the correct term.

My guess is that the chief was referring to the GLock's lack of a safety lock (manual safety/thumbsafety) as a comparison against some other auto pistol (perhaps the ones his dept used before Glocks) which did have safeties.

You can argue that Glocks are no less safe than DA revolvers, or some DA autos, and you would be right, as far as that goes. And you can argue that having a safety on his gun might not have changed anything in this case, and you would be right, as far as that goes.

But the fact remains, that there are documented cases of officers lives being saved after they lost their gun, because the safety was on, and the attacker was not able to shoot them before they could take action.

These things might not have made any difference, that is true. But they might have. My personal opinion is that an officers gun should have a safety lock. A lever that stays on until moved off. Not a decocker, not a passive trigger tab, or grip safety alone, but a positive lever that "locks" the gun from operating. I'm not an officer, so my opinion is worth what you pay for it, but for what tis worth, there it is.

[Mr. James]

God bless both officers. As for Officer Crittenden, he made, trite as it sounds, the ultimate sacrifice. "Greater love than this hath no man. . . "

Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine.
Et lux perpétua lúceat ei.
Requiéscat in pace.
Amen.

Anima ejus, et ánimæ ómnium fidélium defunctórum,
per misericórdiam Dei
requiéscant in pace.
Amen.

[TailGator]

With regard to the safety issue, if Crittenden had been carrying a weapon with a safety, we would be debating whether the safety caused enough delay in his presentation of the weapon to have cost him his life. Catch 22 with no universal solution.

To me, it sounds like two cops acted heroically to protect a mother and daughter from harm. Heroism has a cost. We were all better for having shared this soil with Officer Crittenden. Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine.

[armsmaster270]

Some officers enter on a domestic with tasers ready, however I wasn't there and I will not second guess Why the officers did or did not do this or that.

[MLeake]

... this was a non-emergency call of a possibility that an ex was at the residence in violation of a restraining order.

Going along with my earlier thoughts on expectations, I think if the officers had been given reason to believe violence would ensue, they'd have waited for more backup, either in the form of several large, gym-rat former wrestler officers, or in the form of a large K-9. After all, the potential victims were outside with the arriving officer and first backup responder, and nobody was at risk within the apartment.

The fact that they went in without more support, and that they allowed Terry to unlock the door and both Terry and her daughter to enter, indicates to me that they didn't expect any violent action.

[Kyo]

Ok, I am curious on some things.
First, I don't understand why they went inside, instead of going back outside when he was charging. Maybe it all happened too fast.
Also I am curious on if the officer in the altercation tried to remove the mag after the gun was taken. That would be a tactic to limit the use of the gun to 1 time, even though it was shot more than once.
This also brings up the mag safety as well. We don't know if it could have made a difference, anything could have really, but it could have been a factor here.
Sucks that this guy had to take someone's life to get taken off this planet.

[MLeake]

From what the article said:

1) They didn't go outside because in the initial charge, Officer Crittenden was hit in the head with a flaming rag, as he pushed Terry and her daughter out of the way of the attack.
2) Both officers were involved in the physical fight with Dockery, not just Crittenden.
3) Who knows if Officer Crittenden attempted to drop the magazine? So far, there's not enough detail to know if he was trying to draw and use his gun, and Dockery managed to take it from him, or if Dockery grabbed it while the officers were trying to subdue Dockery. It's possible Officer Crittenden didn't know Dockery had his gun until it was turned on him.
4) (Not from the article, per se) Unfortunately, whether it's cops here at home, or soldiers overseas, sometimes the good guys do their best and things still turn out badly.

[iiwas]

Well said sir!

[TEDDY]

I wont consider the officers. but domestic calls get more officers killed than any other.so this was a call about a violater who might be in the house.the officer should have at the least had her unlock the door and step back. why the daughter in such close proximity.the perp had to light the rag.and be waiting.the officers should have been ready for any thing.if he had his gun ready he could have shot immediately and eliminated all the rest.to much take them in and try them.you all will hessitate,which may prove a disaster as this.its you or them.if he fired immediately and had them stay back the perp would be the only one shot.