Is the presence of a melee weapon such as a knife enough legal justification for a police man to shoot the possessor of the knife? Background Recently, Jacob Blake of Kenosha, Wisconsin was shot in the back 4 times by police officer Rusten Sheskey while the officers were attempting to arrest Blake over a domestic violence dispute. When talking to Wisconsin state investigators later, Jacob Blake admitted to investigators that he did have a knife in his possession as stated by Attorney General Joshua Kaul: Kaul says Blake had a knife. &quot;Mr. Blake admitted he had a knife in his possession and DCI agents recovered a knife on the driver's side floorboards of Mr. Blake's vehicle.&quot; However, the shooting committed by Officer Rusten has caused unrest in the area of Kenosha, Wisconsin, given the concurrent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement at the time of the shooting. It is the fact of the knife as well as the strong response that has encouraged me to ask the following question: Question Given the presence of the knife in addition to the officers attempting to arrest Jacob Blake for a domestic violence dispute, was that enough justification for the 7 shots (4 of which hit Blake) as a reasonable response by Officer Rusten Sheskey?
The mere presence of a weapon is probably not, on its own, justification to shoot the possessor. Ultimately, the actions will be judged under the totality of the circumstances related to the shooting. I want to be as neutral as possible here in sharing the information that has thus far come to light but nowhere has &quot;the presence of a melee weapon&quot; been used as justification for the police shooting. This shooting may be found, after an investigation, to be unjustified or it may be found to be justified. Here is some of the information available. The report issued by Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul has additional information: Kenosha Police Department officers were dispatched to a residence in the 2800 block of 40th Street after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises. Although the statement from the Attorney General doesn't mention a restraining order filed against Mr. Blake, the criminal complaint filed by an Assistant District Attorney on July 7, 2020 seems to indicate that Mr. Blake had waived the necessity of a restraining order and agreed to stay away from the property. An arrest warrant had been issued based on the criminal complaint. Police officers are trained to be extra cautious when approaching individuals subject to felony arrests. The Attorney General stated: During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Jacob S. Blake, age 29. Law enforcement deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake, however the taser was not successful in stopping Mr. Blake. Mr. Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned forward. There are reported witness statements from Raysean White that the police repeatedly told Mr. Blake to &quot;drop the knife.&quot; No witnesses, that we currently know of, have come forward to say if Mr. Blake was holding the knife that was reportedly found on the floorboard. Also from the Attorney General report: During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr. Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. DCI agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons. Under Wisconsin law, it is a felony to resist arrest while armed with a dangerous weapon or threatening to use a dangerous weapon whether or not the arrestee has a dangerous weapon. All of the above information, along with any other information gathered from the investigation being conducted by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation will be used to determine if the use of deadly force was reasonable. It would be unreasonable to draw a conclusion either way regarding the use of deadly force with the limited information available to us. It is not unusual, though, to see the use of deadly force, or the threatened use of deadly force, when an arrestee physically resists arrest. Your ultimate question as to whether or not seven shots were justified is much more difficult to answer. If we assume that the use of deadly force was justified, a fact currently undetermined, it is much more difficult to say that too many shots were fired. A properly trained police officer will be taught to shoot until the threat justifying the use of force is neutralized. The Attorney General's report states: While holding onto Mr. Blake’s shirt, Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon 7 times. and further states: No other officer fired their weapon. Kenosha Police Department does not have body cameras, therefore the officers were not wearing body cameras. It is possible that only Officer Sheskey knows if seven shots were justified. It's possible that Officer Sheskey was affected by adrenaline and shot more times than necessary and it's also possible that Officer Sheskey shot until he no longer perceived Mr. Blake to be a threat. It is not possible, today, to answer your question about the reasonableness of seven shots and it's possible that it will never be answerable.
There are no such laws that are specific to rape, but there are general laws about false statements. In every state there is some law against making a false statement to a government official, e.g. Washington RCW 9A.76.175 which says that one who "knowingly makes a false or misleading material statement to a public servant is guilty of a gross misdemeanor". To shift context slightly, if you report to the police that Smith stole your lawn mower when in fact you gave it to him, that is a false statement. However, there would have to be clear proof that you lied in your report, and not that there was a misunderstanding. If Smith stole the mower but the evidence did not support a theft conviction, that does not mean that you can be prosecuted for making a false statement (whereas, if someone has a video of you telling Smith "Here's a mower, which I give to you because I like you", then you could almost be prosecuted for making a false statement, were it not for the fact that the video is illegal in Washington). Perjury is the other related crime: RCW 9A.72.020 "a materially false statement which he or she knows to be false under an oath required or authorized by law". [Addendum] About the video of the mower being given away... Washington is an all-party consent state, meaning that you can't just record people, you have to have their permission (everybody's permission). RCW 9.73.050 says that information obtained by illegal recording shall be inadmissible in any civil or criminal case in all courts of general or limited jurisdiction in this state, except with the permission of the person whose rights have been violated in an action brought for damages under the provisions of RCW 9.73.030 through 9.73.080 which is to say, "unless the person(s) who did not give permission to be recorded now give permission for the evidence to be admitted". Since "you" would be the one making a false statement, "you" would have an interest in suppressing the video, thus "you" could withhold permission for the video to be introduced.
I interpret the sentence &quot;intruder enters your home using the internet&quot; in the question as not as physically entering the home but as virtually entering the home, in other words hacking into the victim's home network remotely. When that interpretation is incorrect, please comment. Note that an action can only be considered self-defense when the self-defense prevents a crime currently in progress from being completed. When A hacked into B's computer and then B punches A in the face later, that's not self-defense, that's illegal vigilante justice. The self-defense argument would only work if it actually prevents the completion of the crime. For example, if A and B were in the same room, A sees B hacking into A's computer right now and uses physical force to prevent B from completing the hack (like yanking the keyboard out of B's hands). Also keep in mind that the intensity of self-defense must be appropriate for the severity of the crime. What is and is not appropriate is for a court to decide in each individual case, and the guidelines that are to be applied vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But causing bodily harm to people when the crime they are committing does not cause bodily harm is often not considered within the limits of self-defense. For further information about what is and is not allowed in self-defense, I recommend the series about self-defense by Law Comic.
Illinois has a &quot;Castle Doctrine&quot; which includes dwellings and other qualified buildings, but not a general &quot;Stand your Ground&quot; doctrine. Normally, to claim self-defense one has to show that they were not able to retreat and had to use force, but in Illinois you do not have a duty to retreat if you are preventing criminal interference with a dwelling or with real property that you or a family member owns, or you have a legal duty to protect (see Ill Code 720-2 and Ill Code 720-3). In order to use deadly force in any case, it must be to prevent a forcible felony, which is defined as (720 ILCS 5/2-8): &quot;Forcible felony&quot; means treason, first degree murder, second degree murder, predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual assault, robbery, burglary, residential burglary, aggravated arson, arson, aggravated kidnaping, kidnaping, aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual. So, assuming you have no legal duty to protect the 7-11, you would not be justified in using deadly force against rioters merely on the basis that they were committing a forcible felony against the building. On the other hand, if you were in the store or could see someone in the store being attacked, you may be able to successfully defend deadly force used to protect yourself or that person.
§Sec. 54-212 of the ordinance states (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture, sell, offer or display for sale, give, lend, transfer ownership of, acquire, carry or possess any assault weapon or large capacity magazine in Cook County So if the gun is an assault weapon, it is not legal to sell. That ends the legal inquiry. Beyond that, we can only conjecture as to possibilities, for example (1) you may be mistaken in your assessment of some particular firearm, (2) the authorities don't know yet so haven't taken action or (3) they do know and they have taken action. Your link did not lead to any obvious things that count as an assault weapon, perhaps you could be more specific.
There is a relevant law, Title 18 section 907 which states that "A person commits a misdemeanor of the first degree if he possesses any instrument of crime with intent to employ it criminally". So possession of lock picks is not a crime per se. In Com. v. Gendrachi 389 A.2d 604 we are reminded that "intent need not be directly proved, but may be inferred from the circumstances surrounding the incident out of which the charges arise". The accused was busted in mildly suspicious circumstances at 5:20 am in the dead of winter, urinating. The court notes that "There is no evidence that appellant's hands were on the door or that he made an attempt to extract the tools from his pocket and apply them to the door. In fact, there is no act or statement by appellant that would lead one to infer that he intended to use the tools at that time", and that "appellant is a certified locksmith and it is not unreasonable to find the tools of his trade in his pocket, especially when he is wearing his work attire". Note that this is on appeal: he was convicted initially. The point is that there is a lot of slop in cashing out the legal concept of "intent". Pennsylvania does not, apparently, have any specific laws that refer to lock picks. It does have a statute that addresses having criminal tools, which are defined as (including) "Anything used for criminal purposes and possessed by the actor under circumstances not manifestly appropriate for lawful uses it may have". Mr. Gendrachi had those very tools, and the appeals court did not say anything to suggest that the tools were not "criminal tools" (and in FN 5 they actually point out that the Commonwealth cannot say that the tools were weapons, a ludicrous proposition never raised by anyone – so by failing to deny that lock picks are criminal tools, they are adoptively admitting that they are criminal tools). Thus I conclude that there is a law in PA, that lock picks are burglary tools, and that the government would have to prove intent to use criminally.
These charges aren't the same offense. They are three different offenses, all of which arise from the same conduct. Imagine throwing a grenade in a building because you saw a police officer about to discover evidence connecting you to a crime. I think most people would agree that there's no reason you could not be charged with murder, arson, and tampering with evidence under those circumstances. Likewise, Chauvin committed multiple distinct offenses when he kneeled on George Floyd's neck -- for instance, murder charges are based on the act of causing a death, while manslaughter charges are based on the act of creating a risk of death -- and the state is free to seek punishment for all of those offenses. Double jeopardy doesn't have any application to the case at this point. The Double Jeopardy Clause doesn't say you can't face multiple charges for the same conduct; it says you can't face multiple trials for the same charges.
Note that an essential element of the offense here is &quot;with purpose to use it criminally.&quot; The specifications in B allow a presumption of such purpose, but such a presumption is rebuttable. The tools of a locksmith are somewhat different from those of a criminal &quot;cracksman&quot;, I understand, and would probably not be considered &quot;designed or specially adapted for criminal use&quot;. But even if they were, proof of regular employment as a locksmith would tend to rebut the presumption of criminal intent. Possession of tools with the intent of lawfully opening one's own lock would not be criminal intent, but a judge or jury might not be convinced of that.