We analyzed the on-camera shooting death of African immigrant Deng Manyoun yesterday. We showed that Louisville, KY officer Nathan Blanford was clearly justified in shooting Manyoun, as Manyoun attacked and struck Officer Blanford with a flagpole estimated to be 7′-8′ long. Where we fell short in our analysis at the time was focusing narrowly on whether or not Bland was justified in firing at Manyoun… and Blanford was clearly justified.

We should have gone further, however, and explained that Officer Blanford not only could have fired his sidearm sooner, but that he should have fired his handgun far sooner than he did.

We noted yesterday:

Blanford stops in his tracks and puts his hand on his sidearm at 44 seconds into the video, the draws his weapon, holding it at the low ready, then quickly raises it to eye level at the 46 second mark.

At 48 seconds, Manyoun comes charging back into frame, a metal flag pole in his hangs, and Blanford retreats as quickly as he can, attempting to put a mailbox between himself and the charging Manyoun.

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but instead of retreating at this point behind the mailbox and effectively pinning himself against his patrol vehicle, Officer Blanford should have fired a controlled pair by the time Manyoun closed to five yards, and probably should have fired at an even greater distance. He should have already fired two bullets at the center of exposed mass (Manyoun’s upper chest) and should have been gauging Manyoun’s response (or lack of response) to determine whether or not he needed to conduct a failure drill.

Instead—no doubt hesitant to protect himself due to the pressures radical anti-police activists of the “Black Lives Matter” movement are putting on law enforcement nationwide—Blanford didn’t fire his first shot until Manyoun was right on top of him, already swinging the pole in a downward arc with as much force as he could muster towards the officer’s head.

That’s it… that’s the ball game, folks.

Officer Blanford allowed his attack to cover far too much ground and close to within striking distance. Blanford even allowed a potentially deadly blow to begin before he finally fired his weapon, far too late to stop the blow from being delivered.

If this had been a pole made of some more substantial material—wood, or a moderate-gauge steel, for example—Blanford could have been seriously injured, incapacitated, or killed outright by the blow, giving the violent and irrational immigrant immediate access to the officer’s handgun in a heavily traveled business area with passersby on the street.

* * *

This sort of reluctance to fire was easy to predict in this current political climate, where a rogue president sends representatives to the funerals of attempted murderers like Michael Brown, while all but ignoring law enforcement officers who have become a casualty of the hate that Obama not only allows, but encourages through the actions of his race-obsessed Department of Justice.

We’re seeing more anti-police “activism,” more unsubstantiated allegations of racism, and more fabricated alternate realities (“hands up, don’t shoot”), all created with the goal of undermining civil society.

This is a proxy war on our liberty.

If we do not stand against these attempts to force local and state police into defensive postures, we will see crime rise dramatically, officers targeted and murdered in the line of  duty, and our civility shattered.

This isn’t the “hope and change” we were promised.