Skulking In The Vestibule

Guns Magazine, July, 2000 by Massad Ayoob

Diallo appeared to be "skulking" in a vestibule in a neighborhood where there had been a lot of violent crime, including "push-in" armed home invasions by criminal teams that stationed their lookouts in positions exactly like Diallo's. One officer also thought he fit the description and composite sketch of a rapist, known to use a gun, who had savaged multiple black women in the Bronx. Under the circumstances, they had every right to approach him as they did.

Diallo then turned and tried to run into the house. The Supreme Court has confirmed the right of police to chase those who flee without obvious reason, and Diallo behavior was consistent with a lookout running to warn other lawbreakers. As the two lead officers, Sean Carroll and Ed McMellon, approached Diallo, he jerked a square-edged black object out of his pocket. Carroll yelled "Gun," and the dominoes began to fall.

Diallo spun toward the officers, thrusting the object toward them. They thought they saw the slide of a black semiautomatic pistol, and began firing. Backing away from what he perceived as deadly danger, McMellon fell, convincing the others he had been shot. All four saw the black object and thought it was a gun. Carroll emptied his S&W and McMellon his SIG, both to slidelock, 16 rounds apiece. Richard Murphy fired four shots from his SIG and Ken Boss, five from his Glock 19.

Diallo fell. Carroll was the first to reach him, the first to realize the object in his hand was a black nylon wallet. Anyone who wasn't living in a cave for the following year knows the rest.

This is called a "furtive movement shooting." A furtive movement in such cases is a movement reasonably consistent with going for a weapon and not reasonably consistent with anything else under the circumstances.

The law does not demand that your perceived antagonist have a real weapon in order for you to employ lethal force in self defense. It only demands that his actions create in your mind a reasonable and prudent belief that he has a weapon. If he is close enough to employ such a weapon, and if his actions are consistent with an armed person trying to kill you (Diallo turned suddenly and thrust the hand with the black object toward the officers), then the requirements have been met for you to justifiably use deadly force in order to defend your own life.