This story was relayed to me by a friend and fellow police officer (who will remain anonymous). He told me about a traffic stop he recently conducted where the driver’s actions almost led to fatal consequences. He wanted armed citizens everywhere to know about what happened and learn from the actions of the man he stopped.
My officer friend recently conducted an evening traffic stop on a busy highway. When he approached the car, he saw that the driver was extremely nervous, with shaking hands and a trembling voice. The man was sitting in his seat at an odd angle.
The officer got the man’s driver’s license and asked him a few questions. He asked the man for the vehicle registration and insurance card. As the man leaned forward to get the requested items, the officer saw a hidden object that was wedged between the man’s back and the car seat. When the officer said “What’s that?” the man suddenly leaned back so that the object was hidden again.
The officer told the driver not to move and reached inside the car to grab the hidden object. Suddenly the driver leaned forward again and attempted to grab the item himself. It turned out to be a hatchet tomahawk.
The officer beat the driver to the grab while simultaneously reaching for his gun and ordering the driver to stop moving. The driver recognized what was happening, stopped moving, and let go of the hatchet. The officer removed the hatchet and secured it.
The officer told me: “There were a couple of things that could be happening. One was that this guy is a criminal dirtbag who was trying to hit a cop with a tomahawk. The other is that it could be a normal guy like you and I train with who was carrying a weapon for protection and panicked when he got stopped by a cop.”
The officer talked to the man for awhile and ran his criminal record. It turned out to be option number two. The man had never been arrested before. He had been carrying the tomahawk for personal protection and he didn’t know if it was legal or not. He panicked when he got stopped and tried to hide the tomahawk so he wouldn’t be arrested.
The officer secured the tomahawk in the man’s trunk (where it can be legally carried) and let him go with a warning.
Read the Remainder at Active Response Training