[Wesley Lawrence]

[Limelight Gaming]

The staff-members have received your unblacklist-request, Wesley Lawrence.

It will take a while for it to be reviewed.

[Bambo]

[Wesley Lawrence]

[Enzyme]

Situation summed up:

Bus was stuck on a van. The bus managed to move with the help of the van under it, and the fact that there was a driver in the van. As the driver of the van stepped out of the vehicle, the bus was unable to move. The bus was stuck and it was caught in a tough position where it wasn't able to move. You shot the instant the engine revved up, even though the bus did not pose a direct threat towards you nor anyone else on the scene.

The issue in this situation is that you decided to shoot the driver of the bus even though it was stuck, even though it was unable to move and even though it didn't move on the ground. it made a slight nudge-movement against the van it was stuck on top of but it did not move.

If we are to continue drawing IRL comparisons with a bean bag shell:

Dangers[edit]
A bean bag round can severely injure or kill in a wide variety of ways. They have caused around one death a year since their introduction in the U.S.[2] A round can hit the chest, break the ribs and send the broken ribs into the heart. A shot to the head can break the nose, crush the larynx or even break the neck or skull of the subject. This is why many officers are taught to aim for the extremities when using a bean bag round. A strike in the abdominal area can cause internal bleeding or strike the solar plexus which can disrupt breathing or heartbeat, but such a hit is generally safer than most other areas as well as presenting a larger target than an extremity. Fatalities are occasionally the result of mistaking other shotgun rounds for bean bags.[2]

In 2013, in Park Forest, Illinois, an autopsy showed that a 95-year-old man had died from hemoperitoneum as a result of being shot by police with a bean bag gun.

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David Klinger, senior research scientist for The Police Foundation in Washington, D.C. who is an expert on police decision-making and the use of deadly force, said that officers are trained to fire the beanbag rounds at some distance, rather than being up close, and to aim at the extremities.
Typically, we don't want officers to fire the beanbag shotgun rounds in close proximity, but there's always, like anything else, extenuating circumstances," Klinger said.

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Another case where the dangers of bean bags are brought up:

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We can bicker back and forth about the real life dangers of a bean bag rounds, and they are dangerous. It's a projectile shot out a firearm meant to hurt and incapacitate, not by penetrating a body and causing internal wounds but rather to spread all the kinetic energy on the surface of the target. Anyone with any slight understanding of firearms can understand the risks that come from using a less-than-lethal firearm such as a beanbag round. 

The issue in this situation is that you discharged your firearm at someone who didn't pose as a direct threat towards you nor anyone else on the scene. The bus was immobilized, and it was not positioned in such a way that it could hurt people unless people actively chose to position themselves in front of the bus. Spike-strips were deployed and the situation was under control. The bus was stuck and was unable to move as the driver attempted to accelerate. The bus-driver was unable to move the bus, and you decided to shoot after only being on scene and talking to the driver for a few seconds.

Again, as I said on TS:

We were able to observe the scene from all angles due to one of our tools that allow us to see incidents that have already occurred on our servers. The decision was not made solely from the video from the PR.

[Wesley Lawrence]

[Doctor Internet]

[Bambo]

[Doctor Internet]

[Wesley Lawrence]

Doctor Internet, from what I've understood, the ejecting and the damaging was not intended correct? So if Wesley decided to use the Beanbag as a means to eject that should be fixed and if the player was damaged in the vehicle, that is already fixed. So the fix been rolled out would not factor in the removal of this blacklist as both what was intended and what happened was not planned to be a feature? Meaning the usage of the beanbag was in that way at that time and changes that happen after should not be a factor at all in this UBL.
 
I didn't decide to use the bean bag round as means to eject the person. I was using the less-lethal options to somehow scare him off enough to stop and get out of his bus on his own. I did not have an idea that the bus driver was going to explode backwards and hit the concrete like that. And even then, a fix was supposed to be pushed through a week prior to that. It wasn't however and thus created this situation. I do think it accounts for in the possible removal of my recent blacklist item.
 
As well as it being used to eject people, players were also getting damaged by it when in vehicles and they've written it in OOC. Something that rarely occurred incident but known by most. I do not know if this was fixed prior or after but I am aware it was a problem at one point.
 
Which would have been tolerable. If they were getting small hits being inside a vehicle but weren't ejected out, that would have been the perfect application of it as it might manually get a driver to exit his vehicle. I know they can mostly penetrate thin panels of glass but the way he ejected and slammed onto the concrete is not something I could have prevented. Plus, the whole excessive part shouldn't apply to me as I immediately stopped firing after seeing the damage it does. That's what you usually do, if it incapacitates them and halts them in any actions they are doing, stop firing. (obviously).

Last note, as you said you had enough time to warn the driver countless of times and had the same amount of time to move away from the front of the vehicle, take other precautions, spike-strip, vehicle block and so on. You've said that you study to become a law enforcement officer, but even I know that shooting any kind of weaponry be it non-lethal, less-than-lethal or lethal IS a last resort.
 
And as the bus driver was given multiple commands, just as in real life during a BTGV (or felony stop, or dangerous situation however you want to call it), it was a last resort because he evidently did not want to listen. Or as later was proven: wasn't able to listen due to his lag.
 
You said, and I quote;
 

You don't have enough time for more patience and observation during a split second situation though, Bambo.

 
However given that you've stated that you've given commands to the driver multiple times which would be beyond a split second situation and allow you to observe and find ways to immobilize the vehicle even more with the tools you had access to.
 
If that split second situation is referred to the nudge the vehicle had while in a position that it was highly possible that it couldn't move due to it's state, can you decide if a person is a threat in that split second and possibly do something that could potentially end in a bad way?
 
Potentially end in a bad way, Bambo. If I had let the bus driver go on with accelerating and it would have gained momentum or move more than it was going to, it could have potentially ended in a bad way too. Again, we come back to the split-second decision where you either have to figure out if you, your officers and civilians are at risk or if you, your officers and civilians aren't at risk. And I decided they were. I am sure many other players would have taken the same choice taken the circumstances.
 

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That is an article that gives some insight on what split-second decisions can be as I don't think you completely understand the concept behind them. They're usually based on a totality of circumstances and seeing the circumstances that have risen during this incident, I had all the right to discharge my firearm the second he continue to disobey the orders given to him and started to try and make his way out of that scene.
 
You are probably going to say that it wasn't meant to kill and that it was meant to be used as a ram in a way but from Doctor Internet's post, the damage the beanbag had as well as the ejection was not an intended feature thus both of them are not factoring in this. The main case here is you discharging your weapon through assumptions. Assumptions that the vehicle revving up the engine without the driver of the van was still a threat without observing. Observing might not happen in a split second but if you had multiple chances to give commands to the driver, you had multiple chances to observe.
 
I had multiple chances to observe when I first got onto the scene. I observed how a bus/van was ramming into our vehicles. I observed how it hit ForceGhost after he stepped out of his vehicle to try to verbally make it to stop. I observed how it got to a stop and under gunpoint of me (and probably a few others), I observed how the driver pressed down the pedal. Nothing was done out of 'plain assumptions' as you two are trying to put it, everything was done as what happened prior and what was about to happen if I hadn't pulled the trigger once. You do not have time to observe during split-second decisions and that split-second went live as soon as he started pressing down the gas pedal. Not when I was still trying to talk him out of the bus. Most officers would have made the same choice.
 
The bean bag round was also not supposed to work as a... ''ram in a way'', it was supposed to work as a deterrent for the bus driver and his idea to start driving again.
 
"Any suspicious action and you will be shot.'' is what I kept in mind. It is a line (out of many) we practised during BTGV. He made a suspicious action and was shot. Not fatally, but in an unconscious and injured state. It is not my fault the game's engine decided to throw him out of that bus and smack him onto the concrete.

I obviously know the effects of that on lethal weaponary (being the normal M3 or my Glock I usually carry) but I expected differently from a less-lethal shotgun.
 
Not only that, but if the staff team will start handing out blacklists everytime THEY think we discharged based on an assumption, there will be a long list of weapon's blacklists after mine and I certainly don't want to see that happening.
 
What I want in this UBLR is for the staff team (not just you and Enzyme) to take a look at the situation and to deter whether or not one bean bag round was suffient and whether or not it's fair to keep this on my history even though I had no idea the bean bag round was going to act the way it acted. It's only because of the damage the suspect gained through the game's engine that this got out of hand so much. It's not because I figured one less-lethal round at someone that was still a threat and was actively continuing to be a threat was justified, which, in my opinion it was.

[Bambo]

I didn't decide to use the bean bag round as means to eject the person. I was using the less-lethal options to somehow scare him off enough to stop and get out of his bus on his own. I did not have an idea that the bus driver was going to explode backwards and hit the concrete like that. And even then, a fix was supposed to be pushed through a week prior to that. It wasn't however and thus created this situation. I do think it accounts for in the possible removal of my recent blacklist item.

The fix does not account for the removal as the system was existent during the blacklist. If we follow that mindset every player that was blacklisted for a rule that has changed or removed should have that blacklist removed. You used the force when the system 'bug' was in place and hence the results. Was the bug totally not known? Was players not aware that it damages and also ejects players? I highly doubt that as there are suggestions to stop it as well as multiple OOC comments.
 
Which would have been tolerable. If they were getting small hits being inside a vehicle but weren't ejected out, that would have been the perfect application of it as it might manually get a driver to exit his vehicle. I know they can mostly penetrate thin panels of glass but the way he ejected and slammed onto the concrete is not something I could have prevented. Plus, the whole excessive part shouldn't apply to me as I immediately stopped firing after seeing the damage it does. That's what you usually do, if it incapacitates them and halts them in any actions they are doing, stop firing. (obviously).

If you know they can penetrate it why use it that up close?

And as the bus driver was given multiple commands, just as in real life during a BTGV (or felony stop, or dangerous situation however you want to call it), it was a last resort because he evidently did not want to listen. Or as later was proven: wasn't able to listen due to his lag.

He might be lagging, he might not be listening but if the person was not a threat, it didn't require such force. You had many choices to further make sure the vehicle was immobilized but those were not done.
 
You said, and I quote;
 

You don't have enough time for more patience and observation during a split second situation though, Bambo.

 
However given that you've stated that you've given commands to the driver multiple times which would be beyond a split second situation and allow you to observe and find ways to immobilize the vehicle even more with the tools you had access to.
 
Potentially end in a bad way, Bambo. If I had let the bus driver go on with accelerating and it would have gained momentum or move more than it was going to, it could have potentially ended in a bad way too. Again, we come back to the split-second decision where you either have to figure out if you, your officers and civilians are at risk or if you, your officers and civilians aren't at risk. And I decided they were. I am sure many other players would have taken the same choice taken the circumstances.

That is not certain at all though due you acting from a nudge we weren't able to see the threat the vehicle would have posed.
It's not would've but of a could've 

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That is an article that gives some insight on what split-second decisions can be as I don't think you completely understand the concept behind them. They're usually based on a totality of circumstances and seeing the circumstances that have risen during this incident, I had all the right to discharge my firearm the second he continue to disobey the orders given to him and started to try and make his way out of that scene.

One question, if the vehicle did ram through vehicles why did you stand in front of it that up close without taking other precautions?
 
I had multiple chances to observe when I first got onto the scene. I observed how a bus/van was ramming into our vehicles. I observed how it hit ForceGhost after he stepped out of his vehicle to try to verbally make it to stop. I observed how it got to a stop and under gunpoint of me (and probably a few others), I observed how the driver pressed down the pedal. Nothing was done out of 'plain assumptions' as you two are trying to put it, everything was done as what happened prior and what was about to happen if I hadn't pulled the trigger once. You do not have time to observe during split-second decisions and that split-second went live as soon as he started pressing down the gas pedal. Not when I was still trying to talk him out of the bus. Most officers would have made the same choice.
 
The bean bag round was also not supposed to work as a... ''ram in a way'', it was supposed to work as a deterrent for the bus driver and his idea to start driving again.
 
"Any suspicious action and you will be shot.'' is what I kept in mind. It is a line (out of many) we practised during BTGV. He made a suspicious action and was shot. Not fatally, but in an unconscious and injured state. It is not my fault the game's engine decided to throw him out of that bus and smack him onto the concrete.

You have experience with Garry's Mod and the server for quite a while, the vehicle was in such a bugged state that it wasn't certain if it was going to move, it wasn't certain if the driver left the car he'd die, it wasn't certain what would happen. But you used a weapon that is known to eject players at an immense force as a 'deterrent' for him to not move. There were actions that you could have taken that would have ended in a much more secure way but you chose to shoot at a glitched vehicle's driver and the result is not the game's fault but yours.

I obviously know the effects of that on lethal weaponary (being the normal M3 or my Glock I usually carry) but I expected differently from a less-lethal shotgun.

As I said countless of times, less-than-lethal shotgun is still lethal.

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Not only that, but if the staff team will start handing out blacklists everytime THEY think we discharged based on an assumption, there will be a long list of weapon's blacklists after mine and I certainly don't want to see that happening.

It's not everytime, it was this time because you shot at a vehicle that did NOT pose visual threat to warrant a shot from any kind of weaponary. You assumed that the bus would move and that assumption was one of the causes of the blacklist.
 
What I want in this UBLR is for the staff team (not just you and Enzyme) to take a look at the situation and to deter whether or not one bean bag round was suffient and whether or not it's fair to keep this on my history even though I had no idea the bean bag round was going to act the way it acted. It's only because of the damage the suspect gained through the game's engine that this got out of hand so much. It's not because I figured one less-lethal round at someone that was still a threat and was actively continuing to be a threat was justified, which, in my opinion it was.

Non-lethal in this case would have been my ram, but no way was I going to get closer to the bus than I already was to try and strike this guy out of his vehicle. I can already imagine what would have happened when I would move in and the guy would start accelerating. 

But you felt threatened by a nudge, wouldn't that mean you were already close enough?


I have requested everyone in the staff team to voice their opinions and have considered them and am close to reach a conclusion.
Please add anything you'd want to add before this is concluded.

[Wesley Lawrence]

The fix does not account for the removal as the system was existent during the blacklist. If we follow that mindset every player that was blacklisted for a rule that has changed or removed should have that blacklist removed. You used the force when the system 'bug' was in place and hence the results. Was the bug totally not known? Was players not aware that it damages and also ejects players? I highly doubt that as there are suggestions to stop it as well as multiple OOC comments.

I am not asking for you to delete a blacklist. I am asking for you to remove it from my history as I have already done the blacklist and feel like the blacklist was unjustified in comparison to the output of force I gave that day and because a fix was pushed through the very same day which obviously shows that the bean bag round wasn’t supposed to work the way it worked.

The bug was not known with me, nor would I ever purposely misuse a bug, which you are suggesting right now. Nor do I always look at the Global OOC messages that are being sent so even IF it was mentioned, it could have gone past my head. It turned out to be a bug that was supposed to be fixed a week prior to me receiving my blacklist and thus if that had been done, this would have never happened.

And had the fix been pushed through, the bean bag round would have served it’s goal as a warning shot instead of an explosive round that decided to sling the bus driver out of his vehicle and smack him onto the concrete 3 meters behind said vehicle.

If you know they can penetrate it why use it that up close?

Like I said, I know they penetrate thin panels of glass. Not glass they put in windshields of busses. Never the less, such projectile would be extremely slowed down having to push it’s way through said glass panel and would barely have the pain-inducing effect a ‘free’ bean bag round would have had.
So, again, the force emitted from the bean bag and the driver reacting on that force was exaggerated and not my fault that such force was emitted.

He might be lagging, he might not be listening but if the person was not a threat, it didn't require such force. You had many choices to further make sure the vehicle was immobilized but those were not done.

There is no ‘such force’. The person did not listen and after the aforementioned chain of events the person still was a threat. If someone runs over 10 people and then comes to a halt, he would not suddenly not be threat anymore. And even though the charges on this driver were slimmer, this is still someone that ran into our vehicles with intent to get away and into one of our officers that tried to stop him from continuing his path.

However given that you've stated that you've given commands to the driver multiple times which would be beyond a split second situation and allow you to observe and find ways to immobilize the vehicle even more with the tools you had access to.

Keeping in mind that the only tools I had on me where my Glock, my M3 Less-Lethal variant, my ASP baton, my X-26 Taser and some other tools I could not have applied without getting too close, I choose the less-lethal one being my shotgun that was supposed to fire bean bag rounds and not rounds of death. You cannot deny that the force that was emitted from the bean bag round was unnecessary and should have been thoroughly tested before even being released as an update AND that I immediately stopped firing after I saw the effect the bean bag round had on the person.

That is not certain at all though due you acting from a nudge we weren't able to see the threat the vehicle would have posed.
It's not would've but of a could've.

But it is a “would’ve” situation though. If I didn’t take the shot, the bus would have continued to drive, gain momentum and give us another x-amount of time to make it come to a stop.

One question, if the vehicle did ram through vehicles why did you stand in front of it that up close without taking other precautions?

Because, as you said, it had come to a halt. You would notice I didn’t get in front of the second I saw it in my sights as ForceGhost did. But after it coming to a brief stop, I thought that was my go-ahead to move closer and try and give commands towards the driver. The driver decided not to listen and continue with the madness that was already being caused.

You have experience with Garry's Mod and the server for quite a while, the vehicle was in such a bugged state that it wasn't certain if it was going to move, it wasn't certain if the driver left the car he'd die, it wasn't certain what would happen. But you used a weapon that is known to eject players at an immense force as a 'deterrent' for him to not move. There were actions that you could have taken that would have ended in a much more secure way but you chose to shoot at a glitched vehicle's driver and the result is not the game's fault but yours.

Again, due to the experience I have on the server I obviously know the effects of that on lethal weaponary (being the normal M3 or my Glock I usually carry) but I expected differently from a less-lethal shotgun that was only recently introduced. The less-lethal being used as a deterrent for him to get out of the bus (manually, on his own) and not to be thrown out like he was. I also NEVER encountered a situation like this though and by the way they were driving they had to be stopped.

Luckily, the driver of the van saw this and stopped, but the bus driver had a different opinion about it. In those few seconds of interaction with the bus driver any type of other action I would have taken towards the bus driver would have proven with serious or fatal injury for myself, other officers and/or civilians.

It's not everytime, it was this time because you shot at a vehicle that did NOT pose visual threat to warrant a shot from any kind of weaponary. You assumed that the bus would move and that assumption was one of the causes of the blacklist.

But the fact is that it DID pose a visual threat to warrant the discharging of any type of firearms. The driver should have been lucky no other police officers got out to open fire as soon as he rammed our vehicles and ForceGhost with his bus.
I shot the bus driver with the force he and his actions deserved and that cannot be denied. Whether or not the bus had enough momentum or if it only nudged a bit, it is completely legitimate to apply such force to such a suspect.

But you felt threatened by a nudge, wouldn't that mean you were already close enough?

I can say with complete confidence that I was not close enough for me to use the ram nor was I sure whether or not that was going to prove effective. The less-lethal is an effective bridge between non-lethal and lethal and I felt as this was the appropriate action for me to take at my position and the way the bus driver was acting. I also didn't only feel threatened by this 'nudge' you keep bringing up. I was threatened by the way he drove before he came to a halt and how he showed willingness to continue that after accelerating from coming to a halt.

I have requested everyone in the staff team to voice their opinions and have considered them and am close to reach a conclusion.
Please add anything you'd want to add before this is concluded.

If you have requested the opinion of every staff team member, I think it’s only fair to have those opinions publicly voiced in here and not just those from you or Enzyme. Just because I would like to know why it is such a big issue to remove this thing from my history when evidently I did not purposely kill him, I could not have prevented the game’s engine doing this to the driver, a fix should have been pushed through a week prior to the incident and the vehicle as well as the operator of the vehicle has been proven to be a threat on various levels in terms of the video, ForceGhost’s replies on the PR that was posted after the incident and the secret tools you have to re-enact a scene.

It may have ran into civilians and/or their vehicles before we got there. It factually ran into our vehicles. It factually ran into ForceGhost. It factually came to a halt and then the driver factually tried to proceed and drive again. Threat confirmed before the halt and threat continuing to be confirmed after the halt.

I used a less than lethal (so still better than a lethal) weapon to stop the incident from continuing. Something most officers with that option available would do instead of pumping the subject full of lead. I also, again, only fired one round at the driver. Both of these facts mean it was NOT excessive.

[Soviethooves]

[Enzyme]

Bambo is unable to review and conclude the situation, so he has asked me to do it. 

Reviewed and concluded.

It's been concluded that the blacklist issued is valid and that it will remain as it is.
After collecting opinions from several staff-members, it's been found that excessive force was indeed used as the bus did in no way pose as a threat towards you nor anyone else on the scene. The vehicle was immobilized, and there was no reason for the shot to be fired. This has also been explained in other posts on this thread.

Denied.