Inside the Mind of a Cop: Shoot or Don't Shoot?
BROWN: We saw it this week in Chicago, unrest over a police shooting of a black suspect. While each case is unique, one thing is clear. Since Ferguson, this issue has become a national concern. In a new CNN Kaiser Foundation poll, 90 percent of African-Americans say they've been treated unfairly because of their race, compared to 17 percent of Hispanics and 3 percent of white people. And that's just in a span of the past 30 days. In the same poll, 84 percent of African-Americans say anger over police treatment is a major reason for protests in several U.S. cities. So, what goes through the minds of police officers during those tense situations and what kind of training do they get and what makes them decide to shoot or not shoot? CNN's Carol Costello went to training herself.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's not always a right answer for when to shoot and when to hold your fire.</s>GILLIAM: You should eliminate all the variables that you can.</s>COSTELLO: It's a decision that law enforcement officers are asked to make every day on the job.</s>COSTELLO (on camera): Oh, that's heavy.</s>GILLIAM: How much would you say this weighs?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably 25.</s>COSTELLO: Twenty-five pounds, wow.</s>GILLIAM: Yes.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): I'm being outfitted for a tactical training course where it's up to me to decide whether to use deadly force. I'm also wearing a monitor that's measuring my heart rate.</s>GILLIAM: There's a lot of different weights that law enforcement are caring. They're carrying physical weight and they're carrying mental weight, where they have to go into these different scenarios.</s>COSTELLO: Jonathan Gilliam, former FBI and Navy SEAL, is my partner.</s>GILLIAM: In order to go through the use of deadly force rules, you have to practice these types of things. And this is what law enforcement practice when they go through an academy and this is what they face when they're on the street.</s>KIRBY SCOTT, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: This first scenario is going to have is suicide by cop.</s>COSTELLO: Kirby Scott is a retired special agent for the FBI. He's my sergeant today.</s>SCOTT: Officer is responding, which is you, to a domestic call of an EDP person, emotionally disturbed person, who left his residences and after threatening to kill himself at his residence.</s>COSTELLO (on camera): My hands are already sweating. OK.</s>GILLIAM: And this is -- this is good. This is the stress that a cop is already feeling daily.</s>COSTELLO: OK. I'm ready.</s>GILLIAM: Do you see anything in his hands?</s>COSTELLO: Can we come in, Sean (ph)?</s>SEAN: No!</s>COSTELLO: No, he doesn't have anything in his hands.</s>GILLIAM: OK, go ahead and go in.</s>SEAN: Do not come in!</s>COSTELLO: Sean, we just want to -- we just want to help you out and -- and make your family feel more comfortable.</s>SEAN: There's nothing you can do! There's nothing you can do. My world is over. I'm done. I'm ready to die. I suggest you leave or we're all going to die.</s>COSTELLO: And why do you think your world is over?</s>SEAN: Why do you think my world is over?</s>COSTELLO: Uh-huh.</s>SEAN: You talked to my wife. What do you think?</s>GILLIAM: Why don't you show us your hands? Let's see your hands.</s>SEAN: Who are you?</s>GILLIAM: I can see your hands in there, but can you just put us all at ease by putting your hands on the table.</s>SEAN: How is that?</s>GILLIAM: How about both of them?</s>SEAN: How about no.</s>GILLIAM: How about your put both your hands on the table for me.</s>SEAN: How about you leave.</s>GILLIAM: Put your other hand on the table for us.</s>SEAN: I'm telling you now if you don't leave I'm going to kill everyone in this room including myself.</s>GILLIAM: Sir, why don't you put your other hand on the table? No, no. Put your other hand on the table.</s>SEAN: I'm telling you, it is time --</s>GILLIAM: He's got a gun.</s>SEAN: -- to leave.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): What would you do? Shoot or not shoot? Sean is mentally ill, suicidal. His wife wants you to save him.</s>GILLIAM: There's a gun.</s>SEAN: Now.</s>GILLIAM: There's a gun. He's got a gun. Listen, place your hands on top of your head.</s>COSTELLO (on camera): Listen to my partner. Place your hands on top of your head. We only want to help you. That's all we want to do. We don't want anyone to get hurt today.</s>SEAN: There is no help!</s>COSTELLO: There is help Sean, I promise you.</s>SEAN: There is absolutely nothing you can do. But leave.</s>GILLIAM: Come on --</s>SEAN: Leave now.</s>COSTELLO: You don't want --</s>SEAN: Leave -- what's the problem? Why are you not responding to me?</s>GILLIAM: Carol, we got to get this guy --</s>SEAN: You want me to respond --</s>GILLIAM: Okay. Bam. You're dead.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): If this were a real emergency, I'd have died. (on camera): I didn't want to shoot him. Even when he had the gun on the table I didn't believe he would shoot me. Right? But he did.</s>GILLIAM: Right.</s>COSTELLO: So that was the -- because I'm not used to dealing in those situations.</s>GILLIAM: First off, he wasn't showing you his hands. That's a problem.</s>COSTELLO: Gave me a false sense of security because by then I had my own gun out when I saw his gun. And I thought, well, he's not going to shoot me because I have my gun out.</s>GILLIAM: Right.</s>COSTELLO: So as soon as he put the gun on the table, I could have shot him?</s>GILLIAM: Sure. Because action beats reaction all the time. If he presents the threat to you then you have the right to use deadly force, not just to protect your life, but to protect your partner or anybody else because if he shoots you both he can then go out and be a deadly imminent danger to the public.</s>BROWN: So, the scenario that you just saw was designed by former police officer, FBI special agent and now CNN analyst, Jonathan Gilliam and he joins me again now. We saw you in the video, Jonathan. I'm curious, are these exercises a good predictor of how a cop will perform in the field in an emergency, in a real life situation?</s>GILLIAM: Well, I don't know if they're a necessarily good predictor at first as the way Carol went through, because that was her first experience. She had no tactical experience. I actually changed my tactics so as not to lead her so she wouldn't be looking at me to lead her as to when to shoot or when not to shoot. Now, after officers go through these over and over again, which we do these types of things in academies, law enforcement academies, they do develop a better sense of the use of force rules, and when they should shoot and when they shouldn't shoot. So, as they go on on the street, remember, we go through academies in law enforcement to learn the law, but we really are raised by the communities in which we work. And that's where the kills are honed by law enforcement and the ability to communicate and decide when to use deadly force actually a curse.</s>BROWN: All right. Jonathan Gilliam, thank you very much.</s>GILLIAM: You got it.</s>BROWN: And next hour, Carol returns to the training facility, and this time there is a much different outcome. Stay with us. Next, Donald Trump demanding the "New York Times" apologize after questionable comments he made about one of its reporters. What he told a crowd in Florida, today. But first, this week's "Turning Point".</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As a young electrician back in 1992, the prime of Hector Picard's life was in front of him. But as he was climbing a transformer to dismantle it, tragedy struck.</s>HECTOR PICARD, ADAPTIVE ATHLETE: Made contact with my right arm and 13,000 volts of electricity went through my right arm, down my side and blew out my foot. Thirty days later, I wake up from a coma, my entire right arm is gone, half my left and second and third degree burns over 40 percent of my body.</s>GUPTA: But he says he never let the "why me" attitude take hold.</s>PICARD: Then I started thinking, OK, I've got to get my life back, but I've got to learn how to do all these thing for myself.</s>GUPTA: He accepted that challenge and learned a whole new set of skills to achieve it. And then he discovered triathlons.</s>PICARD: It's a great way to go out there and challenge myself, be competitive.</s>GUPTA: He swims on his back, bikes using his knees to break and steer. You may recognize him from this popular YouTube video changing a bike tire with his teeth and feet. One hundred and nineteen races later, Hector says he's never felt better.</s>PICARD: I'm happy to be alive. I got a second chance at life. I want to live it to the fullest. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.