Deadly Force, Moving Vehicles, Gun Rights, and the Limits of K-9 Deployment

Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Host: Identified as Chip DeBlock because the speaker introduces himself as the host of Leo Roundtable and repeatedly moderates the episode.

Speaker 2 – Guest: Identified as Dr. Joel Shults, retired police chief. The transcript renders the surname inconsistently as Scholz, Schulz, Schultz, and Shults, so the spelling should be verified.

Speaker 3 – Prerecorded Sponsor Voice / Announcer: Identified from the polished, scripted commercial segments for Galls, Comply Technologies, and GunLearn.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio: Identified as partially audible law-enforcement and suspect audio from the video clips discussed during the episode. Several lines are unclear and are not attributed to named individuals.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Welcome to Leo Roundtable at LeoRoundtable.com. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host for a group of law enforcement professionals who talk about today’s news and issues, but we do it from a law enforcement perspective.

You recognize him, and we have Dr. Joel Shults, retired police chief, on the show. You can find him at ScholzCo@gmail.com and also on LinkedIn. Every time the chief comes on the show, we have some really unique and deep topics, and we do today as well. We will not disappoint.

Also, shout-out to our sponsors. We have Galls at Galls.com. Don’t forget that discount code in order to get 15 percent off your next purchase. All you have to do is type in Radio15 to get 15 percent off at Galls.com.

ComplyTechnologies.com is our satellite sponsor. We also have GunLearn.com, AmericanPoliceAndTroopersCoalition.com, and TubeBells.com, which built our new online store at LeoRoundtable.com. So if you want cool shirts like the one I’m wearing, or the coffee mug behind me that was off camera, all you have to do is go to LeoRoundtable.com and go to the online store.

Also, shout-out to Brian Burns with the Tampa Free Press, attorney David formerlawman.com, and Travis H with LawOfficer.com. Thanks to all those entities that help make the show happen.

And for anyone looking to pick up the show, we’re on every podcast platform known to man, including Spotify and Apple iTunes, the two biggest. We’re also on social media, including Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, formerly X, and Truth Social. The best way to find out how to locate us is simply to go to LeoRoundtable.com. It tells you where we are on TV, radio, podcasts, and social media.

So with that said, let’s go to what’s on the appetite and let you guys know what we’re going to be talking about. Our first story, I’ve got it listed as the main story. It’s an unfortunate story. We have a one-year-old boy shot dead by cops in a Walmart parking lot as he sits on his mother’s lap, with the family demanding answers. There are flags in the story. You know I’m big on flags. You guys may or may not pick up on them. We are going to go over that. I’m sure the chief has picked up on them too, but we’re going to discuss this and find out. It’s not good, but we’re going to find out how bad it is and where the responsibility falls.

Then we have guns and ganja. That’s kind of a cool title. Guns and ganja: Supreme Court strikes down a federal firearm ban for marijuana users. They did a pretty good job explaining this and selling it, but this is one of these deeper articles, Chief. I can’t wait to get into it with you.

We have a machete-wielding man who injures a K-9 and is shot by Oxnard police inside a restaurant. We have a robbery suspect fatally shot by an Albuquerque police officer when he raises a gun and attempts to carjack somebody. There is another body cam showing a shootout between a suspect and Oklahoma City police officers.

Then we have a couple quick ones. They’re short, sweet, and to the point. We have Davenport police dash camera footage showing two squad cars hauling butt, and they collide with each other. Then we have a chase involving a U-Haul caught on camera that ends in a crash, with the driver in handcuffs. I believe there was a PIT involved in the U-Haul truck. So if we have a short window or a small amount of time, we can cover those and fit those in. That might be a little bit of fun to cover.

So let’s go ahead and start off with the main topic, if that’s okay with you, Chief.

Newsbreak.com: One-year-old boy is shot dead by cops in a Walmart parking lot as he sits on his mother’s lap, with the family demanding answers. The toddler is one year old, and the family is now demanding answers. The Senatobia Police Department in Mississippi encountered two adults and a child at a Walmart, and they were allegedly seen fleeing the store and getting into a vehicle, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

So MBI, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, is kind of like, here in Florida, we have FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. These are usually some top-tier law enforcement guys, or people retired from other local law enforcement, who go to work for the state agency. They normally know what they’re doing. I have had some problems with FDLE in Florida, in all honesty, but I’m not trying to let that negatively affect my opinion of the other state agencies in the other states.

So they say that they had two adults and a child in the Walmart, and then they fled the store. The police department confirms that officers were responding to a shoplifting report, which led officers to discharge their firearms. Well, that is kind of like a first flag, because whoever is writing the story is making it sound like it started and ended as a shoplifting, and the cops ended up shooting, which of course could not be further from the truth.

Officers tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of cops and nearly struck one of them. Now we’re getting somewhere. They finally get some truth in there. One officer fired their weapon, and the vehicle fled the scene, according to MBI. The driver drove to a local hospital, where a young child inside the car was pronounced dead. Unfortunately, another occupant of the car sustained critical injuries.

Family members of the victims told WREG the child was one year old, and his name was Cohen Wiley. It goes on to say that video of the vehicle captured by WREG shows at least one bullet hole pierced the front windshield, while the passenger-side window appeared to be heavily damaged. We can ascertain, or at least with pretty good accuracy probably determine, how that happened.

The family said that Cohen’s aunt was driving the car, while his mother was in the front passenger seat holding him in her lap at the time of the shooting. I went and checked out Mississippi law. She was holding the one-year-old, but if they are under four, they have to be in what they call a safety seat, which of course we know what that is. Then they can be in a booster seat if they’re four to six. So that was another question. That’s another flag.

The MBI confirmed the investigation into the officer-involved shooting remains open and ongoing, so we’re really kind of lucky that we’re even getting this much information.

Carlos Hain says, “I’m just at a loss for words, to be honest. Somebody needs to be held accountable for it.” That is what Cohen’s grandfather told WREG.

“It didn’t have to happen this way. It could have been handled differently,” according to another relative, whose name is unclear in the transcript.

Then the article says that Senatobia, Mississippi, police opened fire in a public setting over allegedly some Pampers, which is what they are saying. Of course, that is not true.

One woman who witnessed the shooting recalled seeing officers with the Senatobia Police Department, and another flag, Tate County Sheriff’s Office, running on foot after the vehicle. Now we know there were two agencies involved. Tate County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were at the Walmart doing an unrelated incident or dealing with that, and then their assistance was required. The suspects fled the parking lot in their vehicle after an officer fired at the oncoming vehicle. Again, the last flag.

Chief Shults, your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Well, the most significant things about this story are the things that we really don’t know. As you alluded to, we have bits and pieces. As always, we get the grieving family, and justifiable grief, terrible loss, and tragedy. But we get their story and their narrative, and the cops, of course, can’t say anything about the case right now. So that narrative persists, and will never be forgotten.

Months and months from now, when the whole investigation might be revealed, the emotions and the facts, in the minds of those who see this as an outrage, may very well already be cemented. I’ve said that facts matter, but we just don’t know all the facts.

Let me talk about some general principles. First of all, it’s a shoplifting. They are typically misdemeanors, and yes, it is often small things. But shoplifters can be druggies. They can be armed. They can be part of an organized crime effort to target retail. They may be on probation or parole. So they are not automatically harmless. To say that somebody was shot because they were stealing some diapers for their baby makes a sad story, but that is not the story.

Exercising caution when approaching shoplifting suspects is something that every police officer ought to do and is compelled to do, for their safety, for the safety of the suspect, and for those who may be around.

Secondly, this idea of shooting into vehicles has continued to be controversial. Was it Danny King who was originally scheduled for today?

Speaker 1 – Host:
Yes. He had some medical issue.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Danny has said some interesting things on video on another show about how cops can end up in front of a vehicle. We get this idea that a cop has been Superman, and they stand out in front of the vehicle and draw down on them. That is so rare. Sometimes being in the target zone of a moving vehicle can be entirely outside the control of the officer.

Now, the decision to fire is one that is made under great stress, under deadly conditions, and it is generally not very effective in terms of stopping the vehicle. It may divert the vehicle. So we don’t know all of that. It will be interesting to see if there is surveillance in the parking lot so the experts can triangulate that and look at speeds, locations, and all that kind of stuff.

Sometimes officers end up in front of a vehicle in a very vulnerable position, completely out of their own choice. We will have to see what that is. Whether the firing and use of deadly force was justifiable, we will know when all the facts are in.

Probably the political reality, regardless of the physics of the whole thing, which is really key to determining whether the officer was justified, lawful, or correct in the variety of decisions those officers made, is that he will probably need to be criminally charged at some point. I can’t imagine an elected district attorney, and I assume that is the system in Mississippi, because it is in most states, could politically survive by washing his hands and saying, “No, this was lawfully justified. It was tragic, but it was within the realm of the law.”

I think criminal prosecution is going to have to happen. Obviously, some big checks are going to get written that will not need to go to trial, regardless of the merits of it. But we don’t want to forget the culpability of the people in the car. They should not have been stealing stuff with the baby. They should not have been lifting the baby up trying to tell the cops, “Hey, don’t try to do anything to me. The baby’s here.” That was part of the story. There is a lot of culpability inside that car.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Right. Perfect timing, Chief. We’re going to come right back to this. Guys, commercial break. We’ll be right back.

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Speaker 1 – Host:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LeoRoundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host. We’ve got Dr. Joel Shults on.

We’ve been talking about a use-of-force case out of Walmart involving two females who were with a one-year-old and allegedly decided to shoplift. I will use the word “allegedly.” They got into a vehicle, and when they were headed toward a cop, reportedly, shots were fired.

The passenger window of the vehicle looked like, from the reporter’s description, it had been busted in. Apparently, there were not necessarily shots fired through it, but I suspect maybe an impact weapon was used to break the window. A shot went through the windshield, from what I suspect. We don’t have a video to watch, but the child was killed. The child was being held by his mother in the front passenger seat.

It raised the question, and I know the chief was just talking about whether he expected there would be criminal charges in reference to this. We all have a lot of questions. My questions are, with the passenger window being broken and with the child being on that side of the vehicle, did the officer or officers know there was a child inside?

It is very possible there were two different guys: one guy breaking the window on the passenger side, another guy in front of the vehicle when they accelerated. It said somebody was critically injured. I’m assuming that was the aunt who was driving, not the mother holding the child, but I don’t know for sure. They did not really clear that up.

So there are a lot of questions. There is most certainly liability on the family, but if the shoplifting is true, I suspect it is huge. Just don’t break the law. Don’t run from the police would be the second flag. Third flag: the child should have been in a child seat in the rear of the vehicle, where presumably there would have been no risk at all.

I suspect when we find out everything that went down, the guy breaking the window may have known there was a child there. The child may have been in the back seat and grabbed, or hopped over the front. Who knows? Maybe, at worst, there was no communication between that cop and the guy shooting, telling him, “Hey, there’s a kid in the front seat of the car.” But of course, this is just a best educated guess at this point.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Well, the family was, and I want to be careful about guessing, but those two women were using that child as an instrument of their crime and an instrument of their escape, based on the facts and information we have. Some negligence and endangerment charge would seem absolutely appropriate for those adults.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Yes. Well, they’re certainly using the child now. I used to do shoplifting before I became a cop, and I was young, but I tell you, I’ve seen it all. I used to work for Montgomery Ward’s, if you remember those stores back in the day.

I remember one case where grandparents had their granddaughter with them, and they were using her to steal items. Obviously, she did not know what she was doing, but they were using her. When they were arrested, she was obviously at no fault, and she was a young kid, but the grandparents went to jail. I’ve seen some horrible atrocities with that, so I’m with you.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Yes, we will see how this plays out. I hope the investigation is done well, with the kind of experts that you have on the show. I could name all the folks you have who do great work trying to understand use of force, the physics, anatomy, the brain, environment, lighting, all those things, and the analysis of video.

I hope there is a really super-professional job done, whatever the outcome is. If the cop did wrong, then he needs to be held accountable. But we need to make sure that everybody’s rights and interests are protected in this investigation, regardless, and absolutely above the politics. That will be the real measure of whether this is an objective and professional investigation.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Yes. People, I just want to say, and I’m going to throw this out there. If you don’t agree, let me know. I know you’ll let me know anyhow, whether I want you to or not. Knowing what we know, and knowing the possibilities, there is a plausible explanation where the cop would not definitely be criminally liable in the situation if certain things happened in certain ways. We just don’t know that.

There is a scenario that could exist where the cop would be cleared and it would be a justified shooting. Although a child died, there is a scenario that could exist where that would happen. We just need to let the investigation happen and find out what happened.

I don’t want people hearing this and automatically thinking there is no way this went down where the cop is not guilty of a felony or this or that, because that is not necessarily the case.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
No, you’re actually right. There is a term out there that we see called “lawful but awful.” There are things that look atrocious to the ears and eyes of a civilian, and even many police officers. They make assumptions. Without the micro-millisecond analysis of these things, the proxemics, and all those scientific factors, we really don’t know whether that officer was justified.

It depends on what the officer knew or believed reasonably at the time they made that decision. All the other optics of it, or what we think the officer should have done, should have known, should have seen, or should have communicated, are not relevant. The relevance is what that officer thought and knew at that time, and whether he deviated from any acceptable professional standards.

We won’t know that for months after we’ve forgotten about the story.

Speaker 1 – Host:
You’re right. It’s not about 20/20 hindsight. We’ll move it along, Chief.

We’ve got Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com. Guns and ganja: Supreme Court strikes down federal firearm ban for marijuana users. Now, we’ve got less than a minute, so I’m going to try to go through this as quickly as I can.

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously struck down a federal law that prohibited regular marijuana users from owning firearms. Listen, it is a great argument. The ruling centers on the case United States v. Hemani, which involved Texas resident Ali Hemani. He was charged with a felony under the federal statute for possessing a handgun for self-defense while admitting to using marijuana every other day.

I’m going to leave it off there. It’s a really interesting story, so I’m going to start the music. We are going to our second commercial break. Stick with us, guys. This is a fascinating story as well. We’ll be right back after the commercial break.

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Speaker 1 – Host:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LeoRoundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host. We’re joined by Dr. Joel Shults, retired police chief.

We left off talking about a very interesting case, guns and ganja: Supreme Court strikes down the federal firearm ban for marijuana users. We were talking about this case, United States v. Hemani. This guy lives in Texas. Ali Hemani was charged with a felony, and that is for possessing a handgun for self-defense after he admitted that he uses marijuana every other day.

Now we have Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom we are all familiar with. He authored the opinion for the court, arguing that the federal government failed to prove that Hemani posed an actual danger.

So here’s the argument, or I should say the reasoning from the court. “We do not question that sometimes an individual’s unlawful use of marijuana, or any other controlled substance, may render him a danger to others,” is what Gorsuch wrote.

But he continues: “But again, the government disclaims the need to show anything like that in this case. Instead, it asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous, without any further showing, and all based on little more than its current say-so, one at odds with its own regulatory actions. Affording the government that kind of broad power to designate any group as dangerous, and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun, would risk allowing it to quickly swallow the Second Amendment.”

I have to say, it made a lot of sense reading that. The gun-rights guys are loving it right now. Chief Shults?

Speaker 2 – Guest:
What is interesting about this case, I think, are the concurring opinions. There was one concurring opinion from Justice Thomas, and another, I think, from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Thomas said the whole law that includes this marijuana thing should be scrapped. If you look at the federal law citation and the articles, he was basically saying, “That’s garbage. It’s anti-Second Amendment and shouldn’t even exist.”

Then Ketanji Brown Jackson, on the other side, says this decision that we are all affirming is consistent with Bruen. If you remember, Bruen said that we need to look at the historical context of the Second Amendment. Part of the rationale, apparently, is that we think all those colonial forefathers waving their muskets around were always 100 percent sober while they were in possession of their sacred firearms. I think they made that kind of connection between alcohol and marijuana use. I have never been a big fan of the parallels of that, but that is the gist of it.

So Brown Jackson is saying that, I think, we need to stop using that as a precedent, and that Bruen needs to be overruled, which is scary.

But this obviously raises some eyebrows. Do we really want pot smokers armed? But 20 percent of the American public, at any one time, is on psychotropic medication for mental health. I am not saying throw up your hands. I am saying that the more gatekeeping things we have to keep people on this side of the Second Amendment, instead of opening the gates to full freedom under the Second Amendment, we just need to be great guardians of that.

We’re seeing state legislation, including in my own state of Colorado, that taxes things out of existence, tries to monitor credit-card purchases for firearms, and increases the number of so-called safe spaces where firearms are not allowed. All of those things need to be challenged. All of those things need to be filtered through Bruen and go through to the Supreme Court to make sure we have open access to lawful firearms ownership.

So to see this impediment to exercising Second Amendment rights taken out, in that part of the legislation under which this guy was charged, and to see it ruled unconstitutional, is a victory for gun ownership.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Yes, I can see it. The law-enforcement side of me has one view on it, or one concern, but a guy who says he does it every other day has days that he does not do it. You cannot just blanketly say someone cannot possess a gun if they are not a prohibited person. I get it. You have to be able to see it both ways.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
I am curious how that case came about, and how the facts of that allegation came about. The form that you fill out to say you are complying with federal law, that you are a legal resident, that you do not have a felony, that you have not done domestic violence, and whatever those checklists are. It has been a couple of years since I bought a firearm.

It is all voluntary. It is not like you are doing it under a polygraph. They are not going to do a background investigation other than run you through a quick NICS check to see if you are a wanted felon or something. So I would be really curious about who tipped the feds off to this guy, or whether it was intentional to create a test case.

Speaker 1 – Host:
A challenge. Yes, I wonder. Because you’re right, he was charged federally, which means the local guy would not have been able to get the charge in the book. Interesting. I’m sure there is an interesting story there.

Well, if you’re ready, Chief, we have less than five minutes before we take our third commercial break. We have a story with a video component. So, for you, I’m going to jump to the story involving our Albuquerque officer, the stud who can run.

At Rumble.com, our favorite law enforcement video channel called This Is Butter, we have a robbery suspect fatally shot by an Albuquerque police officer when he raises a gun in an attempt to carjack somebody.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio:
Audio partially unclear. Several commands and expletives are heard, including repeated warnings not to do something and references to shots being fired. Exact wording is unclear in the provided transcript.

Speaker 1 – Host:
There are a lot of moving parts here. There is really a lot going on in this video. We are starting off in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Historically, we have had a lot of stuff from Albuquerque. These cops get exposed to a lot of action. If you have a job in Albuquerque as a cop, you are going to grow up very, very quickly. You get exposed to stuff that some guys may not see for years, or maybe ever, in their careers. It is just kind of crazy.

Albuquerque police officer Brad Hess chases an armed robbery suspect named James Littrell, and he literally chased this guy. Following the Amazon distribution center incident, it led to a confrontation and gunfire.

Vasquez reported that Littrell, our bad guy, attempted to hijack a vehicle. This is at the end of the chase. Although the officer’s body cam did not really capture Littrell raising the firearm, other than the shadow, police stated that witnesses confirmed seeing the bad guy raise his weapon toward the officer.

Those people observed the subject pull the firearm out of his waistband. He started to produce the firearm, and as he pointed it at the officer, it goes down, according to Commander Jeff Bernard.

Earlier in the day, the incident started with a 911 call from an Amazon distribution center employee reporting that there was an armed guy stealing from the facility. The Amazon employee said they saw this bad guy enter the facility with a gun. They identified him, and he was wearing a black hat. He loaded stolen packages onto a waiting truck, and he was the passenger in the vehicle.

Police located the truck driving eastbound on Central Avenue. Dash cam shows that our bad guy flees from the vehicle when they stop it, and now he is running. He jumps a fence, and police temporarily lose sight of him. Officer Hess later spots him on the roof of a house, and that prompts another chase.

Police said the bad guy attempts to, he is running down the road, cops are chasing him, and a car stops. The bad guy attempts to hijack the vehicle and carjack it. Officer Hess tries to tase him four times before he ends up firing three shots. Police noted that the bad guy had a long criminal history and was on probation at the time. That is pretty much what happens.

Chief Shults?

Speaker 2 – Guest:
I don’t know what the physical test was when you started with Tampa, but in my selection processes I tried to put some guys and gals through some paces. Some departments have annual tests where they have to jump through a window frame, run a little bit, get tired, do push-ups, and then shoot.

This guy is like, I did not see his uniform, but I assume there is a big S on his chest. First of all, he is out really hound-dogging this guy. He is looking for this armed suspect in a residential neighborhood. You and I both have known cops who would drive around and say, “Unable to locate. 10-7 at Arby’s.” Why get into this? But this guy is a hunter.

He knocks on a door and checks to see if the resident is okay and if he can get access to the backyard, because there were reports this guy ran through backyards. Being in a residential neighborhood is a big factor here, because you have potential victims and burglary victims. I would be careful about shooting in these neighborhoods.

But he jumps fences, sees the guy on top of a roof, and runs down the highway. The only critique I have is that I don’t see any role for a taser in this encounter. He sees an attempted carjacking in place and fires. If you notice that guy had the twisted ankles from the fall, he was dead before he hit the ground.

Speaker 1 – Host:
All right, perfect timing. We’re going right back to it, Chief. Commercial break. We’ll be right back.

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Speaker 1 – Host:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LeoRoundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host. We’re joined by Dr. Joel Shults, retired police chief in Colorado.

We have been talking about our guy who was willing to chase down a robbery suspect on foot. Then the suspect goes to carjack an innocent civilian, and the officer neutralizes the threat. Any more commentary on this one, Chief, before we move on?

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Well, once again, I’m a fan of tasers. I think there are missed opportunities, but that’s why I’m sponsoring the show. He is a solo officer. He is in pursuit of a reportedly armed suspect. At one time, he has a taser out over a firearm and then realizes he has to go firearm. What do you do with that taser? You have to spend time reholstering it.

He finally did a smart thing, which is he dumped it. He just left it on the street, which is kind of against what our supply people back at the department are going to be happy about. But that was the right thing to do, to ditch that and go to the firearm, particularly when he sees a firearm displayed.

The other thing I would be really curious about is talking to that driver who is watching all of this unfold as somebody comes up and tries to take their car, the cop shows up, and the guy goes down from bullet wounds.

The other thing I noted, and I see this in several things, is that if you are on the scene with the long gun and you are going to be involved with hands-on or close-up stuff, you need to have the right kind of strap so you can do things besides hold on to that rifle or shotgun. I see a lot of cops who don’t have the strap, and I’m a fan of being able to do something with that firearm when you have to have your hands free.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Yes, you’re right. I know Scott Steyer, our Green Beret Delta Force guy, is big on long guns. He likes a two-point sling, but he also likes just a single sling. You can throw it over your shoulder. You can run with it. You can fight with it. It is out of the way. It takes practice, but you have it with you.

I have seen a guy fight with a long gun, and he had it in a safe position while he was hands-on with a bad guy.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
The other thing, talking about maintaining control of your equipment: if that officer, God bless him, I love that guy, had not had all of his equipment secured to his body, he would have left a trail of radios, magazines, and cuff cases.

Years ago, I saw veteran officers say, “Jump up and down before you go on shift and see if anything falls out,” so you can engage in a pursuit and a fight without stuff falling off. My concern about officers who are carrying these load-bearing vests is that they feel like they really need to have a load to justify it. They have stuff sticking out a foot away from their chest. I don’t know how you can hang on to all that stuff and still be able to access it.

I’m not being hypercritical about it, but it is something to consider. If you are going to run from point A to point B and engage with a suspect, you don’t want a trail of equipment between point A and point B. It needs to be well secured.

Speaker 1 – Host:
We have all seen it. You’re right.

Hey, we have not covered the machete wielder yet, and I’d like to cover that, if that’s okay with you.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
That’s a good one. Absolutely. There are some talking points in here.

Speaker 1 – Host:
Rumble.com, This Is Butter is our channel again. We have a machete-wielding man who injured a K-9. This is our bad guy, and he gets shot by Oxnard police inside the restaurant.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio:
Still inside the restaurant, Mr. Meneses initially complied with the officers’ orders by placing his hands on top of his head. While officers were giving orders for Mr. Meneses to step away from the machete, he ignored their commands and lowered his hands toward the weapon. Without warning, Mr. Meneses quickly bent down, picked up the machete, flipped over a table, and raised the machete.

Officer Brandy Castillo fired his department-issued handgun three times, striking Mr. Meneses and causing him to fall to the ground. Mr. Meneses quickly regained his footing and charged the officers with the machete raised. Officer Castillo fired an additional three rounds, striking Mr. Meneses and causing him to fall to the ground a second time, still in possession of the machete.

For over two minutes, officers attempted to convince Mr. Meneses to discard the machete and crawl toward them so they could render first aid. Mr. Meneses did not comply with the officers’ commands, and K-9 Officer James Kitka deployed Police Service Dog Al to apprehend him. Mr. Meneses attacked PSD Al with the machete, cutting Al’s upper lip. Mr. Meneses was ultimately disarmed by the police dog.

Additional audio is partially unclear. Officers appear to warn the suspect that if he does anything other than what they tell him, the police dog is going to bite him. Officers then discuss their response, the suspect’s location, and the location of the machete. Multiple urgent commands and exclamations are heard as officers move in and place the suspect in handcuffs.

Speaker 1 – Host:
I’m just thinking in my mind about some of the issues I have with this. Oxnard, California. Now we are in California.

Newly released video captured the moment police, or Oxnard police, opened fire on a machete-wielding guy inside a restaurant, and yes, they put a canine in there too.

The incident unfolded on April 20 after officers responded to calls about a guy with a machete. When they got there, they saw the suspect, identified as Estacio Meneses, inside the restaurant. Several people were evacuated from the restaurant, but there were still two employees who were able to get out.

So we have a bad guy with a machete, no canine yet, but we actually have two innocents in there as well: two employees. That sets the stage for this.

Footage from inside the restaurant shows the suspect grabbing the machete, lifting up a table, and starting to approach the officers. That is when one of the officers opened fire, causing him to fall.

There are glass doors in the front, and they have them open. That is how they are engaging the bad guy. There are some tables and chairs and some obstructions to hide behind, and he is kind of using the table as a barricade from police.

They release the police dog, but he ends up getting struck by the machete. I am always not fascinated, but aggravated, by cops being willing to sacrifice animals when bad guys have guns and knives, or in this case a machete.

Then it says they fired more shots and sent the canine to the bad guy, or pulled the bad guy out. He was then taken into custody. The police dog was struck by the machete, has recovered, and is back on duty. No one else was injured.

Going to my show notes, there is surveillance video that we’re watching. Number one, the bad guy is in the restaurant. At the three-minute mark, he disregards commands, grabs the machete, picks up a table when police are firing shots at him, and they fire three shots. The suspect ends up going down.

At 3:21, he charges police with the machete before three more shots are fired, and then he goes down again. At 3:40, after two minutes, police send in the canine. That just blows my mind, to grab the suspect. They have a long leash or lead on the dog, and they are pulling the dog out of the restaurant with the suspect attached to him.

At 3:51, the suspect attacks or strikes the police canine with the machete. He is disarmed after that and handcuffed. No additional shots are fired.

Then we jump to 9:37, quite a ways into the video. There is body cam of the canine handler pulling the canine out of the restaurant with the suspect attached. At 10:43, there is more footage after that. That’s what goes down, Chief Shults.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Yes. I wonder if there was a rear entrance or exit. I can’t imagine there would not be in this restaurant.

Speaker 1 – Host:
There would have to be by fire code almost certainly, yes.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
I would think so. To get those two employees out, then you have isolated the suspect and you have all the time in the world. You can also have an officer come in from the back and then triangulate on the bad guy. You would not want to be in a crossfire situation, but you can triangulate on the guy.

Speaker 1 – Host:
It’s funny that Chief Ralph said that when we talked after the show. We did not have a chance to get to this yesterday, and Chief Ralph said the same thing about the back door and about what you just said. That is probably why you guys work so well with each other.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
Well, he is a pretty smart guy, so I’m glad we agree on that.

Speaker 1 – Host:
He tells me he’s pretty smart.

Speaker 2 – Guest:
The deployment of the K-9: they took a lot of time with this guy, which I can appreciate. It’s California, so you have to write for CYA. They have to give the formal use-of-force warning by statute, which I find hilarious. In case you don’t know it, man with the machete, if you try to hurt us, we will have to hurt you back, because we now have to make that formal announcement in California.

It was great that they had a Spanish speaker. “Suelta la cuchilla,” or whatever the name for knife is. So that was good. They had the canine. They had the taser. Again, I’m a fan of tasers, but that seemed a little out of range. They at least had multiple lethal cover.

The thing that bothers me about the canine is that we can all get hurt in the line of duty, including our service animals. But the dog dragged the suspect with the knife to the officers. So you created all this distance to stay away from this machete-wielding guy, and then you drag him right to you. Now they have to disarm him man to man, and he was still fighting.

This goes again against the mythology of television. You shoot a guy multiple times, and he is not necessarily done attacking you. This guy was still being aggressive. I question bringing the knife right to the officers when they could have kept the advantage of distance.

I guess it was a happy ending, other than the injured dog. I don’t know how the pups do it, but that would have been pretty frightening.

Speaker 1 – Host:
They said he recovered. Even Bill BC on Rumble is saying, “Why would they send the canine in?” I put down “expendable,” because it is like watching Rambo. They just think the dogs are service animals or government property, and they are expendable.

There are penalty enhancements for harming them, but you are not justified, by any statute I found, in using deadly force to protect them. That is the craziest thing. If I’m a canine handler and you want to kill my dog or injure it, there will be penalty enhancements for you, but I’m not allowed to use lethal force to prevent you from doing that. It is just the craziest thing. They treat him as a police officer in death only, but not in protection.

Chief Shults, great show. Thank you so much for being here. I do want to mention The Wounded Blue at TheWoundedBlue.org and Lieutenant Randy Sutton’s 501(c)(3), and our sponsors. Please support our sponsors. Again, they are Galls.com, and don’t forget discount code Radio15; ComplyTechnologies.com; GunLearn.com; AmericanPoliceAndTroopersCoalition.com; and TubeBells.com.

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