Welcome. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip Dublock, and I'm your host. We're a group of law enforcement professionals that talk about today's news and issues, but we do it from a law enforcement perspective. And, yes, you recognize him.

I don't know if he's gonna be Oblin today or not because, you know, we have to have an interpreter in some of the shows, but we have chief Ralph Ford Nellis. He's a former commander with the LA County Sheriff's Office because oh, I'm sorry. Department because they don't have offices in California. They have departments. And and then he went on to become a police chief, and he you know what?

He he just can't get out of the system. He he he refuses to leave California, so he's still there. He's living he's living the life. So welcome welcome to the show, chief. Thanks for being here.

Hey, Chip. Hey, Chip. Thank you, and thank you, audience. And, I really gotta commend you for how you put all the topics together because I know that's a lot of work to organize what you do to get this show running in in the right direction. So thanks a lot.

I try. I try. I don't always I don't always get it right, but I try. So, hey. Shout out to our sponsors.

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So I'm just trying to keep our users, you know, up to speed on what's going on. And I'm getting background noise. Ralph, if you can fix that for me real quick and mute that mic. Also, shout out the gunlearn.com. We have my medicare.live, safeguardrecruiting.com, and 2bells.com.

And, also, a shout out to all the guys that carry your content, Brian Burns with the Tampa Free Press at tampafe.com, Ray Dietrich, formerlawman.com, and Travis Chase with law officer dot com. Thanks, guys. And, yeah, a little reminder again. I I already mentioned it, but Spotify, Apple, iTunes. If there's a podcast platform, we're gonna be on it.

And also social media, Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, True Social. We're streaming to about a million followers right now during the live show. So, yeah, we have a lot going on. So thanks to all those entities for helping make this show happen. And now what in the world are we gonna be talking about today?

We have done some last minutes, adjustments, for chief Ralph. And so with the first thing we're talking about is, yeah, we've got a mass shooting here. What we know about the San Diego shooting victims, suspects, and possible motive and more. So, yeah, that is a surprising news detail that we're gonna be covering in the day show. Also, a former Connecticut officer charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting a guy who approached him with a knife.

So, yeah, there's gonna be some interesting observations on that one. We got Greensboro police officer justified in the deadly shooting that happened back in August 2025, which really wasn't that long ago. We've got Illinois State Police released a video from trooper's fatal shooting of a guy, Harleen Carpenter. We've got another one. No charges for Gastonia police officers who shot and killed an armed guy at a convenience store.

And then Davenport police dashcam shows two squad cars colliding. That's just a little reminder, to just be careful and be on your a game at all times. So if you're ready, chief, let's go to the first one. You know, we've got, I'm gonna drop the last reference to the Tampa Free Press. So we're really taking this from nbcnews.com and the libertydaily.com.

The last one, I you know, I was talking about Cash Patel, Sean Hannity. I don't think it really pertained enough to the story to keep it. But what we know about the San Diego Shooting victims, suspects, and possible motive, and more. So for people who slept really good last night and they're unaware of the news of what happened in San Diego, we have two teenage gunmen. They killed three people at a San Diego mosque, and this happened on Monday.

And investigators, they're working to determine the motivation of the attackers who were believed to have later died of self inflicted gunshot wounds, which I gotta say for their ages, in my opinion, it's a little unusual that they were able to do the self infliction thing. And they it says the San Diego police chief said the violence was being investigated as a possible hate crime. Investigators are trying to authenticate a document that they found. It's filled with extremist material posted online. It's espousing, and and guys, put your seat belts on, any Islamic, any Semitic, and any l LGBTQ views that reportedly purported details their detailing their motivations, and they were this is according to three senior law enforcement officials.

So we have a police chief in San Diego, Scott Wall, said that the event was every community's worst nightmare. And and you're right. We wouldn't want that to happen to anyone. So we have three men killed in the attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego, described on his website as the largest mosque in San Diego County, and they are identified well, they identify and and, you know, the names are really hard to pronounce, but they identify the three victims, and they have a guy named Abdullah. You're gonna hear this guy's name.

I sure hope you hear his name a lot. He is a hero, an armed security guard, working at the mosque. This dude saved lives. I an incredible performance for him. It's it's the sad part about the story.

He was killed. The good and great part about the story is that he did the right thing for the right reason, and he and he saved lives. And he really should be treated as a hero. He was hailed as his hero for having delayed, distracted, and ultimately deterred the suspects, plural, because we had more than one from targeting nearby areas of the mosque where there were as many as a 140 kids according to the chief wall. And during this gun battle with the suspect outside the center, and this is on the outside, Abdullah, our hero, was struck, but he continued the fire at the shooters.

This is what cops are trained to do. This is amazing. Chief Wall is given the account. Security video review by law enforcement showed that after Abdullah was shot, he reached for his radio, implemented a lockdown protocol for the building. The video showed the suspects entering the mosque.

They're moving room to room. But by then, others in the building had already found the safe locations to hide, thanks to our security guard. It talks about, two other people, in the parking lot, that were victims, Kazia and Awad. They were inadvertently they drew the shooter's attention, and it it it makes it sound they did it on purpose. Video showed the shooters pointing at the men through the window, and then they run out to engage these two guys that ended up being victims as well and dying.

When authorities responded to a 911 call at the mosque shortly after noon, chief Wallace said they found all three men dead outside the building. It goes on to say as police officers deploy what a chief wall described as an active shooter response to the mosque and an adjacent school, more gunfire, excuse me, was reported blocks away. A landscaper who was working in the area was shot, but not were shot at, but not struck according to the chief. And then less than a quarter of a mile from where the landscaper was at, police found a vehicle in the middle of the street. It had our two teenage shooters or who we believe was the shooters inside, and they're both believed to have died by self inflicted gunshot wounds.

And two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation, and a federal law enforcement official identified the suspects as a 17 year old and an 18 year old. I'm not gonna give their names, but one of them attended a high school virtually. There could be issues with that, and was set to graduate this month according to the school district officials. And it goes on to say that he participated on the school's wrestling team while he studied virtually, and it said that anyhow, guess other information about the school, the mother, one of the suspects called police saying that her firearms and her car were missing, and she describes the scene that the the this her teenage son is being suicidal. He was most likely with a friend and dressed in they were both dressed in camo.

And and so this is the information he's given to police. And so they're trying to piece together where they might be, and then they then they, you know, hear what's going on at Madison. Well, going on at the mosque, but they were from Madison High School. And the FBI official, Mark Remley, said investigators recovered more than 30 guns, ammunition, tactical gear, and they executed search warrants at the homes It said that, I guess, some of the stuff belonged to the parents. They're trying to figure out how the kids got ahold of it.

And, anyhow, as far as motive goes, I know we're going down the rabbit hole here, but hate rhetoric. And I already talked about some of the anti stuff. They have a 75 page document that they are trying to authenticate, but it's got some pretty this manifesto has some pretty hateful stuff. So chief Ralph. Well, number one, great, recap of the whole incident ship.

I gotta tell you, I commend Abdullah for what he did to save so many, probably so many lives by intervening and doing the job that he was hired for, but it saddens me to see that him and his family have lost a good man. It does, you know, as you brought up, these two young men, you know, focused on killing somebody in a in a religious facility and and going after young children of that, obviously, 90 of the children. You know, what what what kind of mindset do you have to do that? What kind of what kind of hatred do you have in your heart? But I'm glad that the, chief wall, he did a very good presentation, a presser, and, I'm glad that his detectives, along with the FBI, are obtaining probably all the, communications of the computers and phones and dissecting that apart and probably seeing if these people, these suspects, I shouldn't say people, suspects, are connected to any other groups or organizations.

This this is still in the beginning stages of this investigation. Yeah. I mean, both of them, killed or committed suicide, but now it's the hard part putting all the pieces together for this, whole investigation and what really precipitated this. There is a lot of things on social media about these two young men and maybe alternate lifestyles. I don't know.

That has not been confirmed yet. But, you know, what makes young men at 17, 18 years old have such hatred in their hearts and minds to go after young people, children in a mosque or any any any type of religious, institution to kill anybody, Chip? It just baffles me. Where are we at with this in this country? I believe this, it comes down to parents that have to be holding their children accountable.

The other thing is this, Chip, is California going to looking after the the control of these weapons and go after the parents about the accessibility of these weapons, Jeff, at the audience? You know, I, I didn't include it originally, but, you know, this, Amin Abdullah, you know, the the our hero security guard, they've actually started a fundraiser for him, and they've actually got, at last count, 1,600,000 in just under twenty four hours. Correct. And I and I hope it doesn't stop. This this guy, they say he's got eight children.

He you know, he's a pretty impressive looking guy if you ask me. He's he was a he was a pretty big guy. Looks like he took care of himself, that he was in shape. And I would have thought that he you know, just by the looks of stuff, I would have thought easily he could have been a, you know, a a cop, but we've got cops that look better and would not have performed as well as this dude. I mean, this guy I mean, it's really all about you know, I usually say training.

I don't you know, this guy just had something special in him, I think. And and I can see my clock's flashing. We're we're we're twelve seconds out. Don't forget about the fundraiser, guys. We're going to our first commercial break.

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Each piece is engineered to help get our first responders through the shift and back home safely. Welcome back. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I'm your host. We're joined by chief Ralph Ornelis all the way from California.

And, you know, we've been talking about this San Diego moss shooting. We've got two teenagers, 17, 18, you know, that are really basically adults that did this, and apparently, it looks like they committed suicide afterwards. We've got three people that ended up dying. You know, a a a senseless crime that was motivated, it appears, by hate. And then we've got an overperforming security guard that is just I mean, a hero is like an understatement for what this guy did.

He sacrificed his life. And we and just before the commercial break, we covered about how they've already raised over a million dollars for him and his family and the eight kids that he has. I don't know if he had you know, I hope that he has insurance and stuff, but nothing no amount of money will ever replace this guy. You know, just ask his family members and his and his kids are gonna grow up without a father. And and this guy sound looks like he was really squared away really good.

So I I hope that a lot more money is raised for him and for his family, and I hope it sets an example for what other other people, you know, what they do when you're in situation like this. And Ralph, you know, chief, you know, all growing growing up, and I'm talking about growing up in law enforcement, you know, because it's a growing process. Right? And you work with guys that are more senior than you. They know more than you, and you learn from those guys.

Right? And I have to say that in a at a very early age in law enforcement because I started at 21. It was instilled to me that, you know, if you get hit, you don't, you know, used to even if it's a lethal shot, you know, you you normally are gonna have, you know, four or five seconds or eight seconds before you bleed out and you can still return fire and and and you can neutralize that threat. So worse things like that, I I I'm not gonna say that just because you hear it and believe it doesn't mean you're gonna do it. Every guy people are built differently, so you really don't know what you're gonna do until you're there.

Right? I mean, you real realistically, you people could say anything, but you behave differently. You know, a lot of people do, but I this the performance was great on this guy. You know you know, it's great thing you bring that up to all the audience and young officers watching this is this, is that I remember when I was in the academy in 1979, we had a a great lieutenant that did officer survival up and down California around the country. Lieutenant Mike McGandridge.

One of the things that audience, he always mention is you never never give up in the fight even when you're hit. And his words resonated with so many of classmates of mine and classmates after when they did get engaged and got shot. They always brought up his words in the and when he got debriefed about a shooting and in a training video, they always brought up that they always remembered lieutenant Mike McGandridge's words, you never, never give up. And you know something? You're a 100% right, Chip.

But I'd to circle back on something too about those the investigation on these two suspects at the mosque. I bet when they dig deeper, they did surveillances on that mosque knowing where that, that god was, Abdullah, and I bet they find photographs or other writings about what the layout was and where he was stood outside. I I I just I bet that's gonna come about. I just guarantee it. It's sad.

It's sad. It's really sad. It is. So at least they didn't get what they wanted. They didn't.

They got three. They got they killed three adults. Kids were safe. This could have been so much worse, guys. So all I'm saying is is that this provides the deterrent for for losers like this that wanna do this stuff.

Is it really worth it? You know, they killed three people, and then they killed themselves. You know? They did not have look at do you guys that are listening to show, do you remember how many guns and how much ammo I quoted in the story? They did not.

They didn't even come close to accomplishing what they wanted to. So let this be deterrent for people. There are they've got people, churches, synagogues, mosque. These guys are prepared, so just be forewarned. So I know we have some other stuff that we're gonna be going to.

So if you're ready, chief Ralph, I've got another story here, and we got little over three minutes. So globalordnancenews.com. We have a former Connecticut officer charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting a guy who's approaching him with a knife. Now there's a lot of other officers there. Look.

This is not a cut and dry story, and and we've covered it before in the stores I mean, on the on the show. So Hartford, Connecticut, a a hey. Look. Connecticut, these are the same guys that wanted to create that twenty twenty hindsight build where you criticize cops and decide whether it was a good shoot based on twenty twenty hindsight information that you now have that the cop didn't have at the time. So that's how they roll in Connecticut just to give people a little, you know, a little preview of what's coming down the pipe.

You know, they're they're you know, if you're a cop and work in Connecticut, you should have considered other places to work. But a former Hartford police officer has been charged for fatally shooting a guy named Stephen Jones in February after an investigation found it not to be legally justified. In a release, their state inspector general, Elliot Prescott, said that officer Joseph Magnano, he was charged with first degree manslaughter. Magnano was released on a $50,000 bond pending arraignment in the state superior court in Hartford, and that's gonna happen on June 5. So in the arrest warrant, the inspector general Prescott said the shooting was not justified and that the officer Magnano acted recklessly and that he caused the death of Jones, the bad guy.

And he was a bad guy. He had a he had a knife, he refused to comply with police officers. Not just one officer, a number of officers. Officer Magnano was widely criticized for not following the lead of the other officers who, for the most part, kept their guns down and calmly tried to get Jones, our bad guy, who's walking at them with a knife, to drop his knife. And this is all, you know, seen in body cam.

When officer Magnano gets to the scene five minutes after the first officer was already there, he yelled for the bad guy that dropped the knife while walking towards him. So Jones, you know, Jones, you know, our bad guy, our officer's walking towards him telling to drop the knife. And our officer Magnano, the one that got charged, is pointing his firearm at the man who appears to say nothing the entire time. And, I mean, according to the preliminary report and also the video. So Jones, our bad guy, then turns and takes about 24 steps towards our cop that just to ride Magnano who walks backwards to put space between them before he fires nine shots.

And then, you know, I I hate I hate it when cops walk backwards. In his termination letter, which came from the mayor, not from the police chief, that's another flag. So the mayor, Arnon Aloof Aloof Palm, however you pronounce it, he said that it is expressly not for disciplinary purposes or for misconduct. I offer no opinion with that regard, but that was the termination letter. Rather, the letter said it's because PPO or officer Magnano did not demonstrate the requisite skills to effectively operate within a team, which is necessary for the city of Hartford employees.

Now we're, we're getting close to commercial break. I'm gonna stop there. We are when we come back from commercial break, we're gonna finish this, and then we're gonna dissect the story. Guys, trust me. You don't wanna miss this one.

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And, friends, take it from me when it comes to safety. This is one of the most common sense, hands on solutions that's ever come along, so go to comply.com today. Tell them that Chip sent you complytechnologies.com. We are back. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show.

My name is Chip DeBlock, and I'm your host. We're joined by chief Ralph Hornellis all the way from California. And, guys, yeah, we're talking about a a really a really fascinating story. We've covered it before, but now we've the cop is in the grease. We got a former Connecticut police officer that's been charged with manslaughter, for fatally shooting a guy, a bad guy, who was they they they they used the word approaching him with a knife like, you know, this dude this dude's advancing on with a with a, you know, with a deadly weapon.

And in the termination letter, and we've already covered some of the stuff, but the mayor said that it wasn't for disciplinary per purposes as far as, you know, him being fired, but because he wasn't essentially a team player. Hartford Police Union president James Rakowski, he had previously and he still it sounds like he's still defending the officer, Magnano. He said in a brief interview on Monday that he was disappointed by the decision to make an arrest in the fatal shooting. So he's upset that they're charging the cop. Now the president of the union also argued that Jones, our bad guy, presented an imminent threat to officer Magnano by walking at him with a knife in his hand, making the use of force justified.

He predicted the officer will ultimate ultimately be cleared of any wrongdoing. And and then we've got, you know, just in the arrest warrant, the inspector general Prescott noted that the officer and I now I feel we're jump I feel like we're we're leaving Connecticut, Hartford, Connecticut. I feel like we're jumping over to, like, California and Washington state because now they're talking about it's almost like we're leaving the reasonable standard behind, and we're going to what we what we call the necessary standard. So they're saying that he failed to deescalate the confrontation with Jones, the bad guy with the knife, and that he didn't use pepper spray that he carried. And so now they're using that.

The just the justification we're charging this guy because there are it almost sounds like he didn't exhaust all less lethal means that he may have had. And just prior to Magnano's arrival, the cop that shot the dude, Jones, our bad guy, had been acting less aggressively, swaying back and forth at times, loosely gripping the knife is what they say. Officer Magnano was only at the scene for thirty four seconds before he fired his his his gun at Jones nine times, and this is all according to the warrant. It goes on to say that he only engaged with Jones for twenty six seconds before shooting him. The other officers had been on the scene between five minutes and five seconds and two minutes.

And and well, I guess from from a little over five minutes to about two and a half minutes and had not concluded that they needed to shoot the bad guy. It doesn't say whether the bad guy was actually walking at them with a knife or not, but we have the video. Officer Magnano did not seek cover from any threat posed by Jones even though there were two police vehicles behind, which he could have sought protection. So now they want either on away from a guy with a knife and hide behind a car. Magnano did not attempt to use any nonlethal force against Jones.

So I think it's interesting that they they say nonlethal because cops don't carry nonlethal typically. I mean, the only nonlethal device I can think of is the glove. Everything else is less lethal unless it's just a typo. The warrant also said that officer Magnotta made no attempt to move bystanders out of the way. He himself had ample space to walk backwards, maintain distance from the bad guy.

Jones, our bad guy, was shot at least six times, had seven penetrating gunshot wounds, but at least four of the shots were fired after he'd already fallen into the ground, which means that he got shot in the butt in the back. So meaning he was facing away from the bad guy, which they have a issue with. Based on the totality of the circumstances, I love I love those words put together. Officer Magnano's actions were not objectively reasonable because among other things, he did not engage in de escalation measures. He failed to make reasonable attempts to use nonlethal force, not less lethal, nonlethal, and his conduct increased the risk of occurrence of the situation that precipitated the need to use deadly force in the first place.

And, of course, in my show notes, put down, what about the de escalation of the officers that were there before we even got there? There are they you know, it's like, does it does it reset when you show up? You have to discount anything that happened before you got there? And even if officer officer Magnotta believed the use of deadly force was reasonable to prevent him or others from imminent use of deadly force, the warrant said that the bleep was not objectively reasonable. So there you go.

Chief Ralph, you got your work cut out for you. Go ahead. Well, first of all, I wanna thank you for sending me the video, which I spent quite a bit of time, reviewing. I'm not like I stated before we went back out live again, I'm not gonna rehash the legal that the inspector general prosecuted this, this officer McDonnell. I will speak directly to the fact that lack of control, lack of command presence of the police department.

I I I I see to me, it looked like no one had control of this incident as a handling unit. So if I had control that that incident, and you were my backup officer, I'm counting on you, Chip, to have other less lethal when I'm engaging this person. I only want one voice engaging this suspect. The other thing is this, I don't want that sister or neighbors, I would add on my radio while I'm trying to engage this person, I would say, can you please get the crowd further away, or even try to get the person with patrol cars to move the person away from that home. Okay, number three.

The other thing is this, other officers be quiet, let the handling unit do the speaking. To me, it looked like no one wanted to handle. Everybody is yelling commands, and I have handled these situations where only one person should speak giving commands because the person's mind is all confused already. When you're yelling different commands, the sister's yelling down there, which may be agitating this suspect even more so elevated it. Okay?

The other thing is this, they use a taser, it didn't work because got a heavy jacket on. Right. Then the female officer is asking, can we have another taser? Where's the other taser? Where's where's another other less lethal?

The 40 caliber? Where are other less lethal? I gotta be honest with you the way it was like a dancing session. They're moving all around. Nobody's containing controlling the scene itself.

Okay? There are people five feet from him before McDonough steps up or arrives at the scene. I gotta be honest with you. There was one part on an angle of body worn camera. Here is the suspect right in front of one officer.

There's another officer to the right behind him. If it would have been me, I might have taken a shot, pushing him to the ground, knocking him to the ground, have my flashlight hit him behind the head. I mean, everybody is hesitant to engage chip. I know. Sometimes you have to engage the person.

I know it's a chance you're taking because he had about a 12 inches almost machete in his hand. Too close. No impact weapons. No containment. I gotta be honest.

McDonough and his other officers there, Chip, there was a crossfire. Yeah. There was a crossfire behind there's an office to the right and behind the suspect to the right. The taser didn't function. Okay, the body language of the initial officer who was chasing him around Stevie Stevie or I think his name was Stevie Jones, right?

You know, he he he never he never could get compliance with this guy. You know what's going on there. Too many chiefs and Donald Finchans. Okay? I'll tell you right now, the reason why they prosecuted McDonough because those other people didn't shoot and spent almost six minutes You get it.

Conversing. And he showed he showed no deescalation on his part when he just got there and he arrived in a matter of how many twenty something seconds he shot the guy instead of maybe did he ever taser? I don't know. Was he the person carrying the taser? The female officer was requesting.

I don't know. So, have to tell you, everything that goes on, I say this for the behalf of the young officers, Chip, that are watching, I feel terrible for McGonnell. He got put into a lose lose situation and he wanted to take command of something that really he didn't show any dis de escalation. And you may disagree with me that shit, and that's okay. That's part of my show.

I do. I do. But I'll but we'll cover. But I mean, you know, I agree with you on on most points. But so the deescalate he deescalated.

He shot and killed the guy. That's deescalation. The well but, Ralph, it is. It is. You know?

So let's not think about all the efforts from the prior cop. You know, things don't when you show up in your comp and you've got cops for over five minutes that have been trying to deescalate the situation, you don't start at zero. You don't have to start all over again with a deescalation. And number one, you don't use a taser with a dude with a knife. If you have extra officers there and you wanna do that, you shouldn't have to.

But if you wanna do that, but, you know, it is lethal as your as your mode of response to a dude that's walking at you with a knife. And you brought up some great points. There was no containment. You don't walk alongside a bad guy that's walking down a sidewalk with civilians and other potential had let me you are only a even a second. You're a fraction of a second from this guy stabbing somebody if he really wanted to.

So people, including the cops, are putting themselves in harm's way. And so I believe what you had, you had a cop that showed up on scene that knew what he was doing. You had a lackadaisical department. They didn't no one wanted to take charge. Like you said, you've got multiple command, and you're absolutely right.

You've got one person giving commands and giving good strong commands, but you didn't have any kind of command presence. I and you had a cop that showed up that did not wanna he knows better than to be backing up because he knows that the the likelihood of falling down and the guy charging you and stabbing you, it it is real. And I don't mind. I love it when they draw a line in the sand. Well, you know you know, Chip, my commentary when I say he needed to deescalate some things, the reason why I say that, the other officers who engaged him for a longer period of time made his actions look worse, Chip.

We'll pick this up in a second. Six seconds. We're going to commercial break. We'll be right back. Alright, guys.

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Gunlearn.com. Welcome back. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip Dubloc, and I'm your host. We're joined by chief Ralph Ornelis.

And, man, have we been talking about an interesting story from Hartford, Connecticut? We have a cop that got jammed up because he shot a bad guy that was approaching him with a knife, but the cop got there about five minutes after other officers were there. Nobody was taking care of business. You had multiple officers given multiple commands to a a bad guy that they were allowing to roll down the street through the neighborhood with all kinds of potential hazards, including civilians and law enforcement officers that are too close to him. So our cop that arrives on the scene that ends up getting charged with manslaughter.

He gives the guy commands and and, anyhow, ends up shooting the guy because he's advancing on him with a knife, but but now now that officer is, has been convicted. I know that during the break, we were talking about some things. Chief Ralph, the floor is yours. Well, thanks, Chip. You know, an audience and young officers watching this, you know, Chip and I may not agree about certain things.

That's good, though, because it shows gives you different perspectives of what is going on. But the issue is this, bottom line, and remember this, you got to take command of the situation. I believe my watching the body language, watching the video, Magano, when he came and arrived, he must have been listening to all the radio traffic of this guy moving around, and while he's driving down Good Point. Seeing seeing seeing that nobody's taken command. I'd like to know what Magano's background is.

Is he from military, background? I don't know. But guess what? The previous officers on scene should have done some things to take command and control of that scene of that suspect. I'll give you an example.

I had I had an example of this same situation in nineteen early nineteen eighties, a guy on PCP with a big shovel. And I arrived and I put everything out, let everybody know come from this street behind me. He's now coming at me. I'm still in the car giving it to me. You know what I did?

I used the car as a less than lethal weapon. I hit the guy with my right front fender, spun him around, and then all of the officers got the shovel was out of his hand. We all got him, our body weight, we handcuffed him, the end of the scene, okay? Right. I saw no creativity of approaching this guy, maybe a different response, a different angle.

And the other thing, where's the sergeant on this scene? I don't know. Was was there any 40 calibers in that department to use a a 40 caliber, maybe to stun him and then have the the weapon fall out of him and then go get this guy. I'm trying to just Chip, listen, I feel terrible that McDonnell got prosecuted. I don't think he should have, but I'm not a legal mind there in Hartford, Connecticut, But I wanna give these officers these different options and different things that you have to put in place to confront a difficult situation.

And sometimes you gotta be creative. Yeah. Use the vehicle. Yeah. I I I I I really think that one of the worst things that happened is that this guy worked in the state of Connecticut and that I I mean I mean, look.

There is a difference between East Coast and West Coast policing because West Coast puts a lot more emphasis on deescalation and having to exhaust deescalation efforts. We don't do that on the East Coast. So I'm kinda surprised that Well, you say East Coast. You're saying East Coast. You're saying the Southeast part of of the country because NYPD is out is out of control.

Well, I I I mean, there may be some truth some truth that I I normally we we mostly associate East Coast with, but you're right. I mean, on the on the on the West Coast, we pretty much in my mind, there's just two states. Right? California is just so huge along the coastline and and the state of Washington, you know, whereas over here, we've just got you know, you lose kinda how many states you have. But certainly, in in South East in the Southeast, we have a different way of doing things, and it's a lot look.

We we still we still will use less lethal, but if a guy's got if a guy's got an edge weapon, if a guy's got a lethal component, if he's got a gun or a knife, it it becomes less important unless you've just unless you've got extra officers where you can use that safely. We're normally gonna be dealing with that with lethal force, and we're not gonna be we're gonna be containing that guy. And look. And, you know, a lot of times when you go when you make the move to contain or you do a forty forty millimeter, you know, not less lethal round. Sometimes a lot of the times that will in and of itself escalate the situation.

I know you're you're trying a something maybe less lethal, but sometimes a lot of times it just aggravates the guy and pushes him over the edge. I I I agree that when you can do it, you know, do it. But a lot of times the guy, you know, when you're tasering guy and he start you know, he rips the things off and start charging the police or that 40 millimeter, you know, foam round or whatever. Sometimes that will just aggravate them to the to the next level. But it it you're giving them you're giving them the option.

You've got you've gotta, you know, you've gotta go there if you can. So so you you bring up a good point, though. Your your area of Florida compared to Los Angeles County where I came from. And I said on many, many forced shooting reviews, we train our officers why deescalation because we don't want our deputies to be prosecuted like this in Hartford. So we have to demonstrate due diligence of de escalation, Chip, in the audience because I always say this, you become the officer of the deputies in LA County.

You become the Steven Spielbergs of this video. And if you don't show that, I'm telling you right now in LA and California, you're going to have some difficulty. Case we could just dovetail off, look at what's happening with Jim McDonald in chief of LAPD. It's one of your articles. Jim McDonald is shooting in 04/08/2025 with this author, Lillian Lauren, right?

Pursuit, gets in the house, comes out. I am expediting the whole story here, Chip, if you don't mind. Okay? Comes out of the back of the yard. She caps around with a nine millimeter and the police officers and LAPD are behind walls also get shot at.

They shoot back, hit her in the arm. I've got to be honest with you. That's a a a legal justified shooting. Jim McDonald, the chief, I agree with him. He gave the same justification.

Justified. Guess what? The police commission panel, so it's not justified, and it was out of policy. Now, all that is, and I tell you, I know Jim Mcdonald personally, a great, great person, a great leader, very intelligent. When he said it's justified, he knows the power.

He's been around forty plus years. It's justified. This is political, and this is the problem when you have just like maybe in Hartford, but here in Los Angeles too, I saw great de escalation in reading and studying about this LAPD shooting. Guess what? Out of policy?

I don't think so. But guess what? Politics. I believe, in my mind, the leadership of Los Angeles City, I am not even going to say the person's name, I don't want you, guess what? This person wants to minimize officers to be able to do their job.

Well, you know, I I hate it when when using less lethal, you know, or de escalation when it can jeopardize officers' lives. And there's a lot of times when you put when you put an overemphasis on de escalation, that happens. So even in this article in Connecticut, they're talking about the officer has squad cars. Now they want him to start running and hiding behind squad squad cars while this guy is roaming through the neighborhood in the street with a knife. No.

You don't do that. You draw, and you don't let the guy dictate and advance on you and walk backwards. Because as soon as you fall down, the guy's on you, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I don't care if you got other officer and and look. The line of fire, you talked about the crossfire situations.

Now you've got officers that are walking behind the bad guy, and in front of the bad guy, you've got our cop who ended up getting jammed up, and you've got some civilians and stuff there. Are they gonna try shooting the bad guy if he if the cop falls down and now he's gonna be jumping on? And even if they hit him, he's got seconds to still stab the officer and to kill him. So the people that are writing the review letters or the mayor and stuff, it's unrealistic. I'm glad they're not involved in law enforcement because they either get themselves or someone else killed.

You know, Chip, I I pray to god Hartford PD chief of police, they use this incident as a training tool and really dig deep, go around the country, not just California, go Midwest, go to Tampa Bay PD, whatever. Get get different input about how to address these situations. Get other ideas because, you know, something I saw, they should go back and and train sergeant officers. How do you take command of a situation? Yeah.

It starts at the top. It starts at the top. Mayor that mayor will never you know, the chief that does what you say would be great. He's gotta work for that mayor. And and I don't really see I didn't see a lot from the chief.

I saw you know, I read the statement from the mayor on this thing. They're they're, you know, they're they're I think they're screwed. You know? So I I hope this officer, I think that I I I have to believe that he'll pair okay when but he's gonna have to go through the court process in order to get there, unfortunately. But you better believe we're gonna be talking about it on the show when that happens.

So this is a great story and and and and a great thing to cover. You know? And and there and there's no clear answers. There's difference of opinions on this, which is a good healthy thing, you know, but it's a good it's a good conversation to have. You know?

But there are some philosophy differences. You know? But but that's okay. That's okay. And, you know Agreed.

I think that's important to have that discussion on your platform. You know? And and the other thing we didn't get to was the Greensboro shooting, which, again, go hands on. Go hands on. I you know, I agree.

Don't be reluctant to go hands on. Chief Ralph Ronellis, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. And stick around. We wanna talk about some stuff you got going on a second.

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