Understanding How 'Critical Events' Lead to People Getting Killed by Police

April 16, 2021 By Ted Noel, MD 

Most people would consider the death of George Floyd or Daunte Wright to be a critical incident. They would make that rash assumption because they are "critical" to our political environment. Many pundits and businesses are piling on because the same faulty assumption is applied to voter integrity laws passed in Georgia and under consideration in other states. No one should be rash enough to discount the importance of these events. 

But the term "critical incident" refers to a completely different concept — one that can inform how we address and prevent such public events. The process of "critical incident analysis" is a method of examining a series of events to identify where a single critical intervention or altered critical choice would have brought the whole "chain of events" to a different conclusion. Daunte Wright's death cries out for such an analysis. First, let us consider what the Chief of Police in Brooklyn Center said...............

Daunte Wright was stopped for a traffic violation. During the stop, he exited the car, apparently following police commands. They attempted to arrest him for violating his bail conditions on a charge of attempted first-degree robbery with deadly force. His bail violation involved firearm possession, so the police were properly on high alert. When Wright resisted arrest and tried to flee, the officer appears to have intended to tase him but shot him instead. He died in short order............

 We should not find fault in the choice to attempt to stop Wright's flight. After all, he violated the conditions of his bail and was known to be armed and dangerous. Public safety requires that such persons be removed from the street. But we do find that every step listed above was a "critical incident." The proximate cause of Wright's death was the shot fired by the officer. But that was a direct result of his attempt to flee as part of resisting arrest. Had he not resisted arrest, we would never know about this young criminal. Hennepin County would be dealing with him in a peaceful manner. Ditto for each of the other four listed steps. 

Daunte Wright had full control over every one of those five steps. Had he not attempted to flee, he would not have been shot. Had he not resisted arrest, he would not have attempted to flee. And so on. Each one of those steps was a willful choice by Daunte Wright that directly led to the police response that took his life. At every step, he could have taken a different path and would still be alive today............To Read More....