Not directly-relevant, but a story that this reminds me of involving state of mind – this one where a camera and video pretty clearly indicated intent – that really stuck with me was a kind of tragic video I saw a while back, involving two police officers and some guy. The police department stuck the videos together and you can watch a unified video and go “oh, no” as it unfolded.

Basically, from memory, what happened was this:

• Police Officer A – who sounds basically half-asleep, kind of groggy – gets a call about some guy wandering around with a rifle on the street in the early morning, goes to check it out. He pulls up in his car, announces his location on the radio and that he’s found the guy and that he is indeed carrying a rifle. Calls out to the guy. The guy ignores him. Police Officer A asks guy to set his gun down, guy, who sounds pissed-off, tells Police Officer A to go fuck himself or something along those lines.

• Police Officer A gets on his radio and says that the guy isn’t complying with instructions.

• Police Officer A goes back to talking to the guy. Guy isn’t happy about that, fires one shot straight up into the air. Now, okay. This is in some residential neighborhood. That’s probably a minor crime, illegal discharge of firearm or something along those lines, can’t be firing without a self-defense justification within a certain distance of residences in most places or something like that. And having someone who is armed with a loaded weapon, is pissed-off, is ignoring a police officer, and is firing random shots into the air isn’t a great situation. But it’s still not that severe. Guy is breaking a couple laws, but he’s also not looking like he’s trying to attack Police Officer A or anyone else, and I don’t think that the initial call to the police reported him threatening anyone. Police Officer A is keeping back, clearly wants some reinforcements present in case this situation goes bad quickly, but also doesn’t feel like the guy is going after him. So, not a great situation, but not that serious.

• Police Officer A, still sounding kind of groggy but now a little more snapped-into-it, gets on his radio, reports “shots fired”. Now, my guess is that at this point, either policing doctrine is not well-designed or one officer or the other has made a mistake in terminology. Officer B is about two blocks away, in his patrol SUV, rolling up and listening to Officer A’s transmissions as he comes in. Now, okay. What Officer A has said is literally true – the guy has, indeed, fired gunshots. But “shots fired” is also commonly used as something of a quick way of reporting for “I am in a gunfight, and the situation is very serious indeed”. I’ve definitely heard recordings where police officers report “shots fired” with no additional information when they are in a gunfight; they don’t have a lot of time to be dicking around on the radio.

• Officer B, who cannot yet see the shooter, though I think he could hear the shot from around the block, has formed himself a very different mental picture of the situation than Officer A has. Officer B is thinking “Officer A is being shot at, the shooter has a long gun (more firepower than the police officer), and may already be down.” He goes into “shit is hitting the fan” mode, hits the gas to get there ASAP.

• Random person trying to be helpful runs out into the street in front of Officer B’s car and points him down the sidestreet, says “the guy’s down there” or something like that. Officer B, who clearly believes that he’s heading into a kill-or-be-killed situation, and wants Random Guy out of potential lines of fire, yells something like “Get out of here, you dumbass! You’ve got no vest, no gun!” He veers around the guy, hits the gas, turns the corner, and tears off down the street with the shooter.

• Officer A, who if I remember correctly, is crouched behind his patrol car, is still trying to talk to Shooter Guy. He hears Officer B coming up fast. He’s not too worried and doesn’t turn around, figures that Officer B is going to pull up next to him.

• Officer B sees Shooter Guy on the sidewalk with his rifle near Officer A’s stopped vehicle, has laser-focus on him, and is determined to rescue Officer A. He floors the gas.

• Officer A hears Officer B not slowing down, can’t figure out what’s going on, starts to turn, and then suddenly it dawns on him. He yells “No, wait! No!” an instant before Officer B rams Shooter Guy with his patrol SUV, launches the guy way into the air and over a wall.

• Officer A, finally very awake and alert and horrified, yells “Jesus Christ!” He keys his mic, tells dispatch to roll an ambulance and goes running up towards Officer B and Shooter Guy.

Now, in that case, the camera and mics pretty much told the story. I’m not sure who was at error – Officer A using an unqualified “shots fired” report to indicate a situation where he didn’t consider himself at threat from deadly force, Officer B interpreting “shots fired” with no following transmissions as a report indicating that Officer A was taking fire and needed immediate help, or possibly policing doctrine for not making explicit terminology to use in that situation. I think that normally – and I don’t know if this is universal – the initial officer on scene has command of a situation, at least until they hand over control, but I don’t know if Officer B had an obligation to sync up with the commanding officer before using deadly force; he may have also believed that Officer A was down at that point.

But, point is, the beliefs and state of mind can be kind of important.