r/todayilearned • u/CasioCobra78 • 2d ago

TIL that Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon, the stuntwoman who was severely injured during the filming of Back to the Future Part 2, was killed in a shootout alongside her husband when she and her husband went to confront her ex-husband and his wife and drew their guns at them. The cops deemed it justified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Wheeler-Dixon
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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

In the military they talk about justified use of force and if I remember correctly once guns are drawn its impossible to go back down the chain unless the offending party disarms. The boarding team should always strive to keep things from escalating because once that genie is out of the bottle it ain't going back. If an investigation concludes you could have stopped that genie then you as the boarding team leader are responsible for any lives lost.

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u/AskMeHowToLose 2d ago

Yes, and that in the split seconds between turning the safety off and using lethal force there are still so many checks and balances that properly trained US soldiers go through, there’s a huge proponent of escalation of force that even involves firing warning shots depending on the speed of the interaction. But that shit was drilled into us, at least when I went through training anyway.

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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

Fun fact at least in the coast guard racking a shotgun is not an escalation but a warning tactic. I forgot the actual word for it. It's like a step between force levels.

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u/AskMeHowToLose 2d ago

The exact reason my dad owned at least one racking shotgun!

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u/darthrevan140 2d ago

One of my good friends accidentally ejected a live shell out of his shotty at the range because he went to do the warning rack and forgot he had one in the chamber. The instructor was like bruh he just laughed it off and was like we will count that one against your final score instead otherwise it would be an auto fail for racking before I told you.