Boyd used to walk people through a thought experiment in which he wanted people to use their imagination to “create a new reality,” to illustate the creative nature of our minds. In a tactical sense, we can take lessons learned from several different places and apply those principles to whatever realm is important to us.

At Tactical Tangents, we are always trying to find a balance among law enforcement, military, and concealed-carry topics—but it’s important to consider that we can all find value in the lessons learned in each of those fields. In this episode, we discuss two controversial police shootings (Philando Castile and Daniel Shaver) and the binary terms that people tend to use to describe these sorts of incidents: Justified, or not. Murder, or self-defense. Good shoot, or Bad Shoot. Sometimes, it’s somewhere in between.

Think of it like a critical thinking exercise—understand the complexities of human behavior and decision making. No two tactical encounters look exactly the same—but sometimes they rhyme. Find the similarities and differences, build a snowmobile.

Links:

Jim’s advice for traffic stops: http://www.tacticaltangents.com/articles/how-to-handle-a-traffic-stop/

Albuquerque LT shoots his own guy: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/albuquerque-police-release-video-showing-officer-shooting-undercover-cop-n549461

C-5 animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeEMiW1vMvU

Another example of wrong engine shut-down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSS1hel2z4

Graham vs. Connor full text 

Daniel Shaver (Mesa shooting, with video): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daniel-shaver-shooting-ex-arizona-police-officer-not-guilty-murder-n827641

Philando Castile (overview with video): http://www.tacticaltangents.com/articles/philando-castile/

Brian Willis TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwC-RHsC6gw

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Intro music credit Bensound.com