A Matter of Definition

Unarmed?

• Authorities said 43-year-old James Clark, an MRI technician at Southern Tier Imaging, struggled with Smith before grabbing the officer's gun and firing at him. Smith, an 18-year veteran of the force, was hit three times and died at the scene.
• A Navy news release Tuesday said the man approached the USS Mahan late Monday night at Naval Station Norfolk and was confronted by ship security personnel. The Navy said a struggle occurred, and the civilian disarmed the petty officer, and used the weapon to fatally shoot a sailor. The news release added that Navy security forces then killed the suspect.
• Two Metro-Dade police officers wearing bulletproof vests were disarmed and killed Monday by a man who shot them in the head, apparently with their own weapons. Less than two hours later, police arrested a suspect in the shooting. He was identified as Charles Harry Street, 34, of Boynton Beach, who was released from prison 10 days earlier after serving eight years of a 15-year sentence for attempted first-degree murder.

This is not an exclusively American phenomenon. 

• Three police officers and a suspect have died in two shooting incidents in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) on Friday and Saturday. One police officer was shot dead and two others were critically wounded by a suspect inside the Pinetown Police station west of Durban. The three police officers were busy charging the suspect, when he apparently disarmed one and opened fire. Meanwhile at Dududu on the South Coast an officer went to the home of a female colleague and shot her before turning the gun on himself.

Gun retention. Officers all over the world train to prevent suspects from disarming them. There are several techniques, none of which are any fun. One, a most effective method, involves reaching for a back up weapon and shooting the assailant at ultra close range.

"But the person was unarmed."

No, they weren't. They were making a violent, concerted, often sustained effort to arm themselves by taking a firearm from the officer. The struggle sometimes is a fistfight. Sometimes, a brawl. It is always a fight for survival.

Sam Brownlee was a Weld County deputy who attempted to apprehend a domestic violence suspect who'd fled in a car. He, and others, got the vehicle stopped. The attempt to arrest the guy went badly. Deputy Brownlee was disarmed and murdered. Right up to the moment the suspect obtained Deputy Brownlee's service weapon the guy was....

Unarmed.