Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock. The transcript identifies the host as Chip DeBloc; prior BBS/LEO Roundtable usage supports the corrected spelling Chip DeBlock.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken. The transcript repeatedly identifies him as an attorney, former police officer, and representative connected with FOPLawyer.com. His last name appears in several inconsistent automated renderings, so only “Attorney Ken” is used consistently in the transcript unless verification is provided.

Speaker 3 – Commercial / Prerecorded Promo Voice. This label is used for sponsor advertisements, station-style transitions, and prerecorded promotional segments.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio. This label is used for short quoted audio from videos played during the show when the exact speaker cannot be reliably identified from the transcript alone.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
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 from a law enforcement perspective.

Let me introduce attorney Ken. You can find him at FOPlawyer.com. Ken is a former police officer, and he still has his certification. Yes, he is still active. He is also an attorney, and this guy has been representing cops forever and a day. If there is a case, if there is an issue, he has brushed up against it. He has either represented someone connected to it, saved a cop’s career, or worked out a really good exit strategy. Thanks for being on the show, Ken.

I also want to give a shout-out to our sponsors. Our title sponsor is Galls.com. We also have our satellite sponsor, CompliantTechnologies.com, as we make the transition from Westwood One satellite to SiriusXM. We have GunLearn.com, MyMedicare.live, and 2Bells, which built our new online store at LEORoundtable.com. Also, a shout-out to Brian Burns from the Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com, and to the other outlets and entities that help make the show happen.

Don’t forget, guys, you can pick us up on podcast, radio, TV, social media, and all those outlets. If there is a podcast outlet, we are going to be on it, especially when you are talking about things like Spotify and Apple iTunes. We are also on Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Truth Social, so check us out there as well.

Now, what in the world are we going to be talking about? Let me see if I can whet the appetite with some of the stories we are covering.

The first one is “Florida Tragedy Inspires New Federal Honor: Medal of Sacrifice Act for Fallen First Responders.” This is a Trump thing, and I’m pretty excited about it, so I think that is going to be good.

We also have a 28-year-old Florida cold case that was just blown wide open. I thought Ken might have some information or some scoop on that.

We have 12 years behind bars for a California deputy who shot a fleeing, unarmed man in the back. That used to be legal, Ken.

We have a suspect armed with a box cutter and scissors who was wounded in a shooting after stabbing a Buffalo police officer. We are going to talk a little bit about that one.

We also have a Susanville police officer who fatally shot a suspect who struck an officer with a machete. I believe it was the officer who got struck who shot him. When we did yesterday’s show, we had someone watching from Susanville who was talking about this, so we are covering it today. If that person is watching today’s show, I would love to hear from you.

We have an Ohio police chief who visited Cincinnati public schools. I think we previously covered that one, and he ended up getting fired.

We have no charges for Gastonia police officers who shot and killed an armed man at a convenience store.

Lastly, we have Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara resigning. That is the best news in today’s lineup. That guy is finally gone.

Ken, if you’re ready, let’s go ahead and cover the first story. Ken, can you see me yet? Let me go back. Can you hear me at all?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
I can hear you, but I can’t see you.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Yes, I can’t see myself either. I will work on that in a second. Let me see what we’ve got here to bring this back again.

Okay, there we go. You can see and hear me, right?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes, you’re up and running.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
All right. Sorry for the little technical stuff going on, guys. I didn’t realize my camera went off, but I think we have that cleared away now.

Starting this thing, we have an update story on our main one. We have the Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com. Florida tragedy inspires a new federal honor. They call it the Medal of Sacrifice Act, and it is for fallen first responders.

Obviously, if you get in a shootout with a bad guy or something like that, you are going to be recognized, but this is something else. A new federal law establishes a posthumous presidential award for first responders killed in the line of duty. It is directly related to a deadly crash that happened on Palm Beach County roads.

President Donald Trump signed this bill. It is H.R. 3497, called the Medal of Sacrifice Act of 2025. He signed it into law last Thursday, and it directs the executive branch to issue a Medal of Sacrifice for law enforcement officers and first responders who have lost their lives on the job. It also mandates the creation of a dedicated commission. These guys are going to advise the White House on the medal’s design, presentation, and, most importantly, the strict eligibility guidelines for being able to get it.

The national push for the legislation was driven by the deaths of three Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies on November 21, 2024: Corporal Lewis, Ralph “Butch” Waller, and Deputy Dan Diaz. The first Medals of Sacrifice were presented to the families during a White House ceremony back in May 2025.

I suggest that Tampa police officer Jesse Madsen, who crashed head-on on the interstate into a guy going the wrong way, saved countless lives, no doubt. I suspect it is guys like that whom they are targeting.

Ken, I know your mic is open. With the FOP, you probably had similar stuff over there in Pinellas. What is your line of thinking on that?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
It is about time. Honestly, I don’t know why it was not done a lot earlier.

However, the state of Florida has a lot of robust benefits for the families of officers killed in the line of duty as well. I did not see anywhere in the article where this provides any other benefits other than the recognition of the presidential Medal of Honor, which I think is certainly a worthy cause. I would have liked to have seen some benefits thrown in on the back end, but that may come later down the road.

This is way overdue, if you ask me.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Representative Brian Mast sponsored it, and he attended the Oval Office signing with the president on Thursday. In a press release, Mast said that because of this law, your loved one’s name will be honored and remembered by the president and a grateful nation.

They talk about all the bipartisan support in the House and the Senate on this thing, which I have to admit impressed me. I think some of this went through the Senate during Police Week. That impressed me, at least that the Democrats, who are not normally that enthusiastic about law enforcement, were involved across the aisle. People were holding hands and making this thing happen.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
No question about it. But think about it. If they did not take a stand with this medal, how would they look when voting is right around the corner?

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
There is always a little element there. I have thought that on other issues before, and I have to say, especially in Florida, there are so many things in play now if you are killed in the line of duty.

Your spouse is taken care of. Your kids can go to college. How do I say this without offending people? Working with the union and stuff, if you do it right, a million dollars today is not really a lot of money, especially if you have a family. But if you do it right, and your husband is a cop and he gets killed in the line of duty, you will likely have over a million dollars’ worth of benefits from my recollection of what is enacted, especially if it involves narcotics or something like that. The availability of benefits is even more.

I know a lot of people do fundraisers and sell T-shirts and stuff like that. I have been part of that before, and I think that is great. But I also do not think it needs to be overdone, at the risk of sounding like I am being a prude or insensitive or something.

I really love the fact that your kids can go to college, or you can learn a new trade if you are a spouse and need to learn one. If there is not enough money, which there probably is going to be, but if you want to learn a trade, they will pay for everything. There is so much money available through the state, federally, and sometimes locally, not to mention pension benefits and stuff like that.

There are a lot of things in play right now. I am pretty happy with the recognition from the president on behalf of the country. I am pretty happy with just that.

Any final words?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
No. I think it is a great thing that was passed, and kudos to President Trump here.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Yep, another one. There you go.

We have two and a half minutes. Our next one here is at TampaFreePress.com: “A Family Tree Just Blew a 28-Year-Old Florida Cold Case Wide Open.”

We are in Tampa. A late-night ride home from a Ybor City club back in 1998 ended in a brutal assault near the Gandy Bridge. Let me cut to the chase. A woman ended up brutally raped. She survived, but she was raped, and they collected DNA evidence.

This involves the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Now, through new technology and DNA evidence, they hooked up with FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The cold case did a DNA profile and submitted it. FDLE’s genetic genealogy team did a submission, and they identified a 53-year-old named Lester Austin III. This guy still lives in Tampa.

They used the Marshal’s Office task force to go down and grab him, and he has been arrested for two counts of armed sexual battery.

I say that to remind people, especially if you are with a medium or smaller-sized agency and maybe you do not have a cold-case task force, cold-case agents, or you have stuff sitting on a shelf, hook up with a larger agency, FDLE, or the equivalent. You might have GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or wherever you live, but you have a state agency that does stuff like this. Submit it now with the technology.

Ken, you and I were talking before the show started, and you said something similar as well. With this new technology, there is no reason not to be doing DNA submittals. You never know what you are going to get. You certainly have nothing to lose. If you cannot do it yourself, partner with a larger agency. State agencies have these task forces now. There is no reason you cannot do it.

Ken?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
No doubt about it. You read about this stuff happening throughout the country more and more these days, with the immense number of people signing up for 23andMe. That is what I signed up for, to look at my heritage.

Yes, it is a great investigative tool. No question about it.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
All right. I love it.

Perfect timing. We are up for our first commercial break. Guys, stick with us. We will be right back.

Speaker 3 – Commercial / Prerecorded Promo Voice:
My family only cares about one thing: that I come home safe.

At Galls, every order begins with a promise. Made with purpose. Stitched for support. Backed with pride. Answered by dedicated hands. Delivering the standard you have sworn to uphold.

We serve more than the mission. We serve the person. Each piece is engineered to help get our first responders through the shift and back home safe.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LEORoundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host. We are joined by attorney Ken.

We just got done talking about cold cases, advancements in genetic genealogy testing, DNA, and cold cases. If you are at a smaller department and maybe you are not on a task force, or there is no task force in place that you are aware of with a larger agency, reach out to your state agency, like your state department of investigation, and hook up with them. Have the stuff submitted because there are ways to do it now, and you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Ken, if you are ready, we have an update story we are going to talk about. We are going to jump over to Colorado for a second. At the Tampa Free Press, at TampaFP.com, we have 12 years behind bars for a California deputy who shot a fleeing, unarmed man in the back.

This is federal. A federal judge sentenced former San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Aaron Richard Russell to 12 years in prison on Friday for the fatal 2020 shooting of an unarmed guy who was running away from custody.

Russell, 29, was convicted by a federal jury in March following a two-week trial. The jurors deliberated for less than seven hours and found him guilty of violating the civil rights of 36-year-old Nicholas Bils by shooting him from behind while he was running away.

District Judge Todd Robinson ordered the sentences for Russell’s two convictions to be served consecutively. Russell got 24 months for deprivation of rights under color of law and a mandatory minimum of 120 months for discharging a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence. The judge mentioned that law enforcement is rightfully held to a higher standard, and I have no issue with that.

The shooting occurred back on May 1, 2020, in downtown San Diego. California State Parks police officers were transporting Bils to the San Diego Central Jail. He escaped from custody and was running away. Russell, our sheriff’s deputy, fired five shots at Bils. Four bullets hit him. One pierced his heart and lung. He collapsed and was pronounced dead at the local hospital.

The fifth bullet missed the bad guy and went into a civilian’s vehicle driving down the street. I am glad nothing else happened with that one.

The incident was captured on surveillance cameras, and eyewitnesses, including a nurse and a firefighter, testified that they were shocked seeing this guy shot in the back by the cop.

Ken?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
I have a couple things. I do not know if there is video on it, but I can assume some of the facts.

If he is in custody and on his way to jail, I am assuming he is probably handcuffed in the back. I am guessing that is our protocol here in Pinellas County. If he escaped, unless he had a hidden key or somehow got out of his cuffs, I am assuming he was still handcuffed, maybe behind his back, maybe in front. I do not know.

Either way, in Florida, that would be a problem as well, because you cannot shoot a fleeing felon in Florida, even one escaping, unless he poses an immediate threat of death or great bodily harm to innocent civilians or other officers. If he is just fleeing to get away and you shoot him in the back, let me put it to you this way: I would have a lot of hair on the back of my neck standing up if I had to represent him.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
It says there was downtown surveillance camera footage that captured it, so they do have some kind of video. I suspect they do not have sound. It would be nice if we had the video or had more information. But in California, his goose could have been cooked either way.

That is the latest and greatest on that. Any final words?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Sure. Prior to the Tennessee v. Garner case in 1985, which came out of Tennessee, it allowed you to shoot someone escaping from custody and allowed you to shoot fleeing felons. Prior to that, it was a green light.

However, after Tennessee v. Garner, they said yes, but only under limited circumstances, such as when the person poses a threat of great bodily harm or death to innocent civilians or other officers. If you take that element out of it, then you just call the canine, call the helicopter, and track this guy down, because you cannot shoot him.

As much as I like defending cops, that is a big no-no.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Just like the song says, Ken, all good things come to an end.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
That is wild, that legal transition. We evolve. It is not saying that cops back in the day who were shooting fleeing felons before the laws changed were doing anything wrong. It is just that we evolve as a society.

Just like when we used to confiscate video footage from people filming police operations. Now, with the First Amendment and all that, it has been interpreted. Challenges were made, and now we behave differently. There is nothing wrong with that.

Are you ready to cover this shooting by Buffalo police?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Sure. Let’s do it.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
This is going to be painful. I warn you now. Of course, you know that already.

Rumble.com, our favorite law enforcement video channel, This Is Butter. We are in Buffalo, New York. I have two minutes, and I will try to go through all of it.

In a newly released video, a civilian is seen approaching a Buffalo police vehicle and pointing out a guy on a sidewalk.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio:
Is that actually him or not?

Stop that. Stop that.

Taser, Taser. Get on the ground. Roll over, or you’re going to get tased again.

He stabbed me.

Roll over. Roll over, or you’re going to get tased again.

Drop the knife. Drop the knife.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
An officer then pulls over. Now we have audio. Another officer is already dealing with this guy, so he is ahead of the officer getting out of the car whose body camera we are watching.

The closer officer is approaching the guy and ordering him to drop a pair of scissors and a box cutter. The guy has a pair of scissors in one hand and a box cutter in the other. A box cutter has a razor blade, for people who do not know.

All of a sudden, a brief struggle takes place on the ground. My immediate flag was: why am I reading about a struggle when you are dealing with a dude with two weapons?

During the encounter, the suspect can be heard yelling, “Shoot me,” and “I’m killing myself,” as one officer deploys a Taser. That would be our second officer who gets there, the one whose body camera we are watching. He gets out and sees his partner fighting with a guy with two weapons. Does he go for his gun? No, he pulls a Taser out.

The officer who first approached the suspect can then be heard saying, “He stabbed me.” Shocker.

The suspect gets back up off the ground. He starts running away before stopping and turning around. Our officer, who has already been stabbed, is chasing him and trying to grab onto him. They are in close proximity, and now he finally fires two shots. The suspect goes down.

As the officers are approaching him, he can be heard saying, “Kill me.” They are still fighting with the dude and still trying to wrestle the weapons out of his hands.

I will tell you what. We are coming up on a commercial break. I will finish this when we get back. You are going to want to hear this. I am going to take my time, and then we are going to dissect this case. Stick with us. You do not want to miss this. We will be right back.

Speaker 3 – Commercial / Prerecorded Promo Voice:
It is time to talk about Compliant Technologies at CompliantTechnologies.com. They are committed to providing nonlethal solutions to help officers gain the upper hand safely and rapidly in a humane, low-optics manner, utilizing what they call their CD3, which stands for Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device technology.

Their flagship product, as we all know by now, is called The G.L.O.V.E. It has not only helped officers tens of thousands of times, but it has also had over 250,000 deployments and, guess what, no injuries and no deaths. That is an amazing stat.

They have actually achieved nonlethal status in an arena that predominantly can only offer less-lethal results. When it comes to weapons retention, transitioning to a sidearm, or a conductive energy weapon, The G.L.O.V.E. from CompliantTechnologies.com has virtually eliminated weapons confusion.

Stay ahead of the game with Compliant Technologies and the revolutionary CD3. Hundreds of agencies have already turned to it nationwide. Friends, take it from me: when it comes to safety, this is one of the most common-sense, hands-on solutions that has ever come along.

Go to CompliantTechnologies.com today. Tell them Chip sent you. CompliantTechnologies.com.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LEORoundtable.com. My voice changed while I was talking.

We left off talking about a suspect armed with a box cutter and a pair of scissors, one in each hand. He ends up being wounded in a shooting after he stabs a Buffalo police officer.

I already kind of ran through the story. Our main body-camera guy gets out of the car, but the closest officer to the bad guy is wearing a different body camera. The closest officer goes hands-on with a guy who has a box cutter with a razor blade in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. He is fighting, and he gets stabbed in the back. Shocker.

Then the guy who gets out of the car, whose body camera we are watching, goes Taser. That is what we are looking at.

The suspect is saying, “Kill me, kill me.” He ends up breaking away and running away. Then, when our first officer, the one who got stabbed, goes up to him again, he ends up shooting him a couple times. The guy was shot in the torso and in the hip.

Remember, the officer got stabbed in the back. They go down, and they are still fighting with this guy. Now we have a bunch of cops there. Everybody is grabbing onto a hand, and they are fighting over the weapons. It is the craziest thing.

Both men end up being taken to the emergency room with injuries considered non-life-threatening. Police say the guy who stabbed the officer and was then shot allegedly stabbed another guy on Friday night. They say that hours after that, the same man robbed a Lyft driver and held him at gunpoint. The following day, which is where we are now when this happens, the girlfriend of the guy who was stabbed flags down police. That is what she was doing. She was pointing out, “Hey, that is the guy who stabbed my boyfriend yesterday.” That is how this whole thing started.

The man shot by police remains in the hospital and has received medical treatment. The officer who was stabbed was released from the hospital the same night, surprisingly.

There you go. Ken?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Where do I start?

I just went through defensive tactics on Monday with my agency, and I am thinking to myself, why, or what were you thinking, to go hands-on with somebody who is armed with two deadly weapons? What is even more fascinating is that he does not just go hands-on. He goes hands-on with a gun in his right hand, fighting a guy with his left hand. Obviously, he is putting himself in a very, very bad situation.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Did you see what he had in his left hand? It was a little flashlight.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes, but he is going hands-on with this guy with the gun in his right hand.

What is even more amazing is this: if you see your partner being attacked by somebody with a pair of scissors, which is a knife in my book, and a box cutter, you do not default to a Taser. You go right to a firearm. It is a deadly weapon. He is using it on a police officer. What is he doing with a Taser?

I do not know. This reminded me of something I am sure your viewers are probably all too young to remember. Back in the day, we used to have the Keystone Cops on TV. That is what this reminded me of.

This guy breaks loose after the officers go hands-on and after they had him down. He gets up, which should never have happened. Then he starts running across the street where people are stuck in traffic, which is obviously a hazard to them. There could be a potential carjacking, whatever.

Then they go hands-on again, and then they end up shooting him. If you look toward the end of the video, the officer who originally had his gun out actually still had his gun out after the guy is on the ground and has been shot. The officer takes his firearm and puts it down on the ground within reaching distance of the bad guy, who is still alive and just got shot.

There was nothing in this video where I said, “Good job.” Nothing. This was an abortion from the word go.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
I am going back through my notes here because there was some stuff I had forgotten about.

The backup officer, armed with the Taser, approaches. Of course, our cop has a gun in his right hand and a flashlight in his left hand. He does not have full function of either hand because both are occupied. He is trying to fight this guy. Why he is fighting him, I have no idea.

After the suspect goes to the ground, our closest officer, who has already been stabbed, holsters his weapon. Then he tells his backup that he has been stabbed, and the suspect still has weapons in each hand. Our backup cop, wearing the body camera, still only has his Taser out. I do not think he ever went to lethal.

The closest cop, who holsters his gun, still has the flashlight in his other hand. Now he is dragging the guy by his hoodie across the road and starts kicking him before the suspect gets up and runs away. Then, of course, he fires the shots. The bad guy goes down, and he goes up and kicks the suspect again. It is just the craziest thing.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Explain this to me, because maybe I missed something. Why does the first officer, who is approaching the bad guy to go hands-on with the gun in one hand and the light in the other, even have his flashlight out when it is daytime? Can you explain that one to me?

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
It looked small enough that it may have been like a Kubotan. Remember the Kubotans?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes, but you would not do that with a guy who is armed with a lethal weapon.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
No, no. You cannot grab anybody. He should not even be close enough. The blood from the cop who got stabbed was everywhere, all over the ground. When you are looking at the frames, if you look for it, you will still see it.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
You know what? If I was a supervisor, both these cops would be off the street. They are a danger to themselves, to the community, and to each other.

I am not saying I would fire them. Maybe. But they certainly would be off the street. They would have to get remedial training if they were allowed to keep their jobs. It is that bad.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
I will tell you this: they made a wonderful training video for law enforcement recruit classes as to what not to do.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes. There was nothing they did where I said, “Great job.” Everything was terrible. The whole incident.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Buffalo PD, if anybody is thinking about going to work for Buffalo PD, I will tell you what: just based on the training, we did not see one officer do this stuff. We saw two officers who should both be dead because of what they did.

I am not saying that as punitive. I am saying their tactics were so poor that they are lucky they were not killed, because in all likelihood they should both be dead. Do not work for that agency. That agency has some serious problems because, watching two officers do that, there is a huge training issue here. I do not know about the competency of the officers. Maybe they can be trained, maybe they cannot be trained, but they were allowed to go on the street performing like this. There is no excuse for that.

Wow, that is terrible. Absolutely terrible.

It is not going to get much better. We have another one coming up. I have three minutes. Let’s see if I can get to this.

Like I said earlier, we had a viewer from Susanville, and that is where we are. Rumble.com, This Is Butter. Susanville police officers repeatedly shot a suspect who struck an officer with a machete.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio:
Hey. Talk to me.

It’s okay. It’s okay. Relax.

Go, go, go.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
My notes on this one are over the top too.

The Lassen County District Attorney said that two Susanville police officers were legally justified in using deadly force during a May 6 confrontation with an armed guy accused of threatening children with a machete inside an apartment.

The Susanville Police Department released video on Wednesday, including body-camera footage of the officer-involved shooting. According to the district attorney’s office report, officers responded after family members reported concerns about children staying with this guy. The first name is difficult, but it appears to be Derek Saqong. They said he was acting erratically, possibly on meth, and had a machete. He was with three kids in the apartment.

Police said the situation escalated when Saqong, our bad guy, allegedly grabbed a two-year-old child and held the child out of a second-floor window before pulling the child back inside. It is clearly on video. We have officers on the ground two floors down watching this.

Then he grabs the machete and starts slicing and stabbing downward in the area where he had just placed the child. For anyone not really being able to tell, it looks like he is likely stabbing the child or is certainly in the vicinity where he put the child down.

Officer David Lee fires two rounds through the window. There are no long guns. He is using a pistol. They had been there for a while conversing with this guy before he even picked up the child and showed the machete and all that stuff.

Now the officers are frantically wanting to enter the apartment because this guy is swinging the machete. They took a couple shots at him. We have three kids in there. Now they are trying to kick in the door. The deputy with the gun, the one who shot, is trying to kick the door in while he has the gun in his hand. The video was pretty good, and his hand was not in the trigger guard. But ideally, it would be the guy with the less-lethal flashbang or tool next to him who should have been kicking in the door.

They end up taking turns. Our guy with the gun ends up kicking the door in successfully. When he enters, our bad guy is right there with a machete, and he strikes the cop who has the gun out with the machete, leaving a large cut across the cop’s shoulder. The officer fires three rounds as he goes into the apartment.

At this time, we have another officer, Officer Casey Cameron or Capron, with a less-lethal beanbag shotgun. He retreats, and I am starting to run up against the commercial break. He retreats and drops the beanbag. Then he ends up swapping weapons out, but he does not go in while his partner, who has been injured, disappears inside the apartment.

We have a bad guy, and we are going to cover this. There is more. Boy, there is a lot more. We will cover this in a second. Commercial break. We will be right back.

Speaker 3 – Commercial / Prerecorded Promo Voice:
It is time to talk about GunLearn at GunLearn.com. There is some new stuff going on with GunLearn, so pay attention.

If you are not familiar with GunLearn, it is the first and only company to offer a step-by-step program that takes you from your current knowledge level to becoming a safe, accurate, competent certified firearm specialist, like our attorney Ken here.

Here is the deal with GunLearn.com. If you have that certification, if you are a certified firearms specialist, even if you got it five years ago, now it is worth college credits. GunLearn.com has partnered with Smarter Degree and university partners in order to convert that to college credit. It is a really great opportunity.

Of course, they have been doing this since 1996. They have been teaching everything that LEOs, which are law enforcement officers, need to know about firearms and ammunition to all facets of law enforcement.

You can start today with online training, or you can sign up to attend a live seminar. You can even get free training for yourself and all the personnel in your agency, especially for your sheriff, by hosting a seminar at absolutely no cost.

It is an amazing opportunity. Go to GunLearn.com to get more information.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at LEORoundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I’m your host. We are joined by attorney Ken with FOPlawyer.com.

We have been talking about a pretty interesting video. This is the second video story back-to-back. In this one, a Susanville police officer fatally shot a suspect who struck an officer with a machete. Ouch. This is in Susanville, California, of all places.

We talked about our bad guy being at a second-floor open window. He has a machete. He holds a two-year-old child out the window, then pulls the child back in. Then he takes a machete and starts chopping and hitting right in the area where he put the child down.

We have a cop downstairs on the ground level who has a pistol. Again, why don’t we have a long gun? I would love to find out. He takes two shots at the bad guy. I assume he missed because the bad guy disappears from the window. He shoots at the bad guy with the pistol while the guy is slicing in the area where he set the two-year-old down.

Now the cops are kicking in the door and rushing in. We have a lot of less-lethal. We have a dude with a Taser and a beanbag shotgun around, so two less-lethal options. Then we have the guy who took the two shots kicking the door in with the pistol.

As soon as he makes entry, he gets taken out by the guy with the machete. Our bad guy has run downstairs, and he chops the cop in the shoulder. Our officer with the less-lethal beanbag drops it, retreats out of the doorway, and then goes back to the doorway with his pistol out.

I am thinking to myself: our cop who initially kicked the door in and gets struck with the machete has disappeared. We cannot even see him. The bad guy is on the floor, and everybody is giving him commands, but no one is lethal. They let him get back up, and he goes back into the apartment.

I am thinking, “What is he going to do? Kill the cop? Is the cop injured?” There are three children inside, ages two, four, and eight. The bad guy refused to drop the weapon, and it says Saqong died from gunshot wounds. Those must have been the three shots from the cop he hit with the machete.

Going back to my show notes here, there are some beautiful freeze frames. The suspect still has the machete. He is striking the machete on the ground after he has been shot by the officer he hit with the machete. Officer number one, who was struck in the shoulder with the machete, is still inside somewhere. We have a third officer there who only has a Taser. I never heard or saw him fire.

Officer number two had the less-lethal. He had dropped it. He picks it back up after this goes down and after the suspect runs back into the apartment. He picks up less-lethal while the guy disappears back into the apartment with an injured cop in there. The guy goes less-lethal. It is just the craziest thing.

Can you make sense out of this for me, Ken?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Yes. This is called Keystone Cops, part two. Not as bad as the Buffalo one, but pretty darn close.

Think about it. You get there, and you see this crazy maniac out of a second-floor window with a machete. You know there are three kids in that house. He looks like he is making motions where he is actually attacking the little boy or little girl, whichever was the two-year-old, up at the window.

The officers are at ground level. Why they did not empty their magazines on this guy is beyond me, because the child would not have been in danger because the rounds are going upward. There is no chance of hitting the kid. He is doing upward and downward strokes with the machete, giving me the impression that he is actually attacking a child.

There should have been no hesitation. They should have unloaded. Even though they did not have a long gun, which I agree they should have, they should have unloaded their handguns and emptied the magazines. But they did not.

They take a couple shots. As you pointed out, they must have missed him because it did not look like it had any effect.

Then the officers kicked the door in. All of a sudden, this bad guy appears on the ground floor and is attacking another officer with a machete, which should never have happened. There was not any view obstruction. There was glass in the door they kicked in, so they could have seen who was coming. They should have been using full lethal on this guy as soon as they saw him. He is coming after you.

This was just like the case I had in Pinellas Park eight months ago, maybe. Same deal. An officer was getting stabbed by this crazy guy inside the ground floor of an apartment. Luckily, the officer had lethal out. No Taser, no beanbag. He had his handgun out because he was dealing with a guy with a knife. How he missed shooting the other officer is beyond me, but he fired four times, and two of them were lethal. It neutralized the bad guy who was trying to kill an officer with a knife.

This guy has a 14-inch machete chopping at an officer, and no one is shooting at him? Give me a break. Really, really bad tactics. I do not know what is going on. I do not know what they are teaching these people. I do not know what kind of training they have. But if I were the chief and I saw that, I would be a little upset personally.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
So two places not to go work. Is that what you are telling me, Ken? Buffalo Police in New York and Susanville, California? Can we just agree on that?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
That is a good bet.

Part of it is that these officers are trained with Tasers, less-lethal, and all this other stuff. But understand, there is a time and a place for that. This was not it. This was automatic lethal. None of this nonlethal.

I think we drill into these kids so much: you have your baton, you have your Taser, you have your beanbag round, you have all these 40-millimeter cartridges they use now. You have all this stuff.

But here, you go right to lethal. He has a machete. He is threatening to kill people. He struck an officer with the machete. What are you doing with a beanbag? What are you doing with a Taser? I do not get it. Someone explain it to me, please.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
If this guy had run back in that apartment while that cop was in there injured and his back was to me, I would have emptied my magazine into his back.

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
You have no choice. There are three kids in the apartment. You have no choice.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Yes, very disappointing. This is terrible. Training.

We have about three minutes, Ken. Your choice. We can talk about Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who resigned amid controversy, or Gastonia police officers who shot and killed a guy at a convenience store after he pulled out a gun while leaving. Which one is your choice?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
Let’s talk about the grocery store one, the convenience store. O’Hara does not deserve any more airtime than he has already gotten.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
You are probably right.

Rumble.com, This Is Butter, our favorite law enforcement video channel. No charges for Gastonia police officers who shot and killed an armed guy at a convenience store.

Speaker 4 – Video / Body-Camera Audio:
Listen, listen, listen.

You better leave me alone.

I promise you, I ain’t the one.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
I will go through this quickly.

We are in Gastonia, North Carolina, for this one. The deadly police shooting of Derek Terrell Manigault at a convenience store in January was justified by the Gaston County District Attorney, which is a good thing.

It happened during an undercover investigation. They were doing alcohol-sales compliance involving minors, totally unrelated to this ABC enforcement operation.

A Gastonia plainclothes police sergeant and a detective were working undercover. They observed this feud between two guys that was originally in the parking lot and moved inside the store. It was really one guy who was the agitator, the one who ended up getting shot.

The two guys were identified as Manigault, our bad guy, and a guy named David Sanders, who was kind of like the victim, I think. The report says the detective observed our bad guy, who ended up having a gun, threatening Sanders inside the store while holding what appeared to be a firearm.

There are two Black men who are involved in some kind of verbal dispute inside the store. One of the guys, Manigault, pulls out a gun and holds it there. When he goes to walk out of the store, the detective is right next to the door. As soon as this guy turns his head to walk out the door, the detective draws and shoots him.

He starts running through the parking lot outside. The detective was concerned that he might shoot Sanders or endanger the lives of people in the store. The gun that Manigault was carrying was later determined to be an imitation weapon that looked realistic. So I guess it was not a gunfight, but the guy was running with the gun. Even though it could not fire, we have the other officer, or the sergeant, shooting as well.

The bad guy falls on the sidewalk, is taken to a hospital, and is later pronounced dead.

Ken?

Speaker 2 – Attorney Ken:
It is called karma, my friend. He picked the wrong store at the wrong time on the wrong day when they were doing an undercover alcohol-sales operation. He comes in and pulls a gun. Perfect ending. That is all I have to say. Great job.

Speaker 1 – Host Chip DeBlock:
Excellent commentary, Ken. Thank you so much for being here.

We had some great commentary on the show as well, so thanks to Betty Dunn, Eric Young, Sergeant George, and everybody commenting on the show. Also, thanks to our fan club over on Rumble. You guys have been excellent, so thank you to Bill, MVS, Butter, and everybody over there.

I do want to mention The Wounded Blue at TheWoundedBlue.org, Lieutenant Randy Sutton’s 501(c)(3). This helps many cops who are suffering from things like PTSD and other issues. If you are looking for an organization to support, please check out The Wounded Blue at TheWoundedBlue.org.

Guys, do not forget, if you want more information on Ken, LinkedIn is a great source. I love LinkedIn for stuff like this, but also go to FOPlawyer.com as well. If you are local and need help, you need to get ahold of Ken.

Ken, stay on. I am going to talk to you about some stuff involving unions coming up.

Guys, please support our sponsors so we can keep bringing great links and quality content to you. We have Galls.com, CompliantTechnologies.com, GunLearn, MyMedicare.live, and 2Bells.

We will see you back tomorrow at 12 noon Eastern.