Knives: Rescue tools or edged weapons?

tremendous psychological endurance. The officer must have mentally prepared himself in advance to the feel, sound, smell, and even taste of an opponent being cut with a knife.

Using a knife on a person requires the officer to be extremely close to his opponent. Unlike when using a long gun, or even a handgun which allows the officer to create and maintain a certain distance. This close proximity elevates the psychological stress, and an officer who is unprepared will doubtfully be able to effectively use his knife as a weapon.

At such close proximity it is likely the officer will feel the blood, smell the opponent, and get the opponent’s bodily fluids all over himself. All senses are likely to be in extreme overdrive when using a knife on another person.

An officer planning on using his knife for defensive purposes must be prepared for such encounter.

Legal
Make no mistakes about it: if the officer’s life is on the line, and he can not access his sidearm, or for whatever other reason he pulls his knife out first, he can and should use it to defend himself. 

In any use-of-force continuum the response for an attack that could result in severe bodily harm or death, the officer is warranted in using deadly force to stop the oncoming threat. There is no difference in the “deadliness” between a firearm and a knife. Both have the potential in taking a life and stopping a threat.

The issue becomes when agencies do not have written policies regarding the use of an edged weapon for defensive purposes. In such case, if the officer is tried for using his knife to stop the threat, he will be judged for operating outside of departmental guidelines.

That said, if the officer does become a victim of the circumstances, he must keep in mind two things:

Surpassing any departmental policy are federal laws that frame the extent of use of force allowed by police officers. If and when the officer finds himself on trial for using a knife for defensive purposes, he must remember that his actions must be judged accounting for the “totality of circumstances” and through the eyes of another “reasonable officer” (Graham vs. Connor, 1984).

It is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. At the end of the day, the officer must take whatever actions he needs to take in order to preserve his life and the lives of others, even if that means using his knife outside of departmental written policies.

An easy way to avoid all of these issues is to have the departments and agencies look at the current written use of force policies and augment those by adding a statement which will cover both the officer and the agency in case a knife is used.

In addition, training should be implemented in deploying and using a knife for defensive purposes. A training program is easy to employ and will assure the officer’s safety is maintained if he ever does decide to use his rescue tool for self-defense purposes.

In my next column I will offer more discussion of the use of knives for defensive purposes.

(I am writing this column since I was recently approached by a few different agencies asking me to develop a training program for them for the use of knives. If you, your agency, or organization would like assistance in developing a training program or in developing policies for use-of-force, please e-mail me.)

Tzviel (BK) Blankchtein, a defensive tactics instructor, is founder and president of Masada Tactical, and may be contacted through the company’s Web site. Readers may send him questions on topics and issues which are of interest to them. He will post some of these questions, and his answers to them, in the column.