Two Officers Stabbed, Suspect Tased and Arrested — So What Determines Who Gets to Live?

Let me begin by making something perfectly clear: I am glad Makayla Jacobson is alive.

I am glad the two Columbus police officers she is accused of stabbing survived their injuries. And I am glad officers were apparently able to bring a dangerous and violent encounter under control without taking another life.

But that is precisely why we need to ask some uncomfortable questions.

According to Columbus police, 22-year-old Jacobson was involved in an incident Sept. 26 in which officers attempted to take her into custody. Police say she pulled a knife and stabbed two officers. Assistant Chief Lance Deaton later told WTVM that one officer was stabbed three times and another was stabbed once. He said officers used a Taser to subdue Jacobson before taking her into custody.

Think about that.

Two police officers were allegedly attacked with a deadly weapon. They were actually injured. Yet officers found a way to use less-lethal force, take the suspect alive and allow the criminal justice system to determine what happens next.

Again, that is a good thing.

But it inevitably raises questions about another Columbus police encounter just three months earlier.

On June 23, 33-year-old Jerome Marquis Willis was shot and killed by Columbus police. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's preliminary account, officers were searching for Willis in connection with a homicide when they located him. The GBI says Willis failed to comply with commands, officers released a police K-9 to apprehend him, and Willis produced a gun, fired toward the K-9 and continued pointing the weapon toward officers. Police then fired several shots, killing him. A police officer and K-9 Havoc were wounded during the encounter.

Those facts matter. The two encounters were not identical, and any fair discussion must acknowledge that.

But the Jacobson case still raises a legitimate question:

What determines when officers decide a dangerous suspect can be subdued and when they decide deadly force is necessary?

Jacobson is accused not simply of possessing a knife or threatening officers with one. Police say she actually stabbed two officers. Yet she survived.

She was tased. She was arrested. She went to court. She was given the opportunity to plead not guilty. That is what our justice system is supposed to look like whenever circumstances permit it.

The question should not be, “Why wasn't Makayla Jacobson shot?” The better question is, “What can we learn from the fact that she wasn't?”

If officers were able to exercise restraint, transition to a Taser and take an armed suspect accused of stabbing two of their fellow officers into custody, the public deserves to understand what made that possible.

Was it distance? Was it the type of weapon? Was it the number of officers present? Was it the suspect's position when force was used? Was it the officers' training? Was the threat already diminishing when the Taser was deployed?

Those details matter because police use-of-force decisions happen in seconds, and comparing two incidents responsibly requires more than looking at the final outcome.

But transparency matters, too.

The public should be able to examine body-camera footage, incident reports and investigative findings and understand why one encounter ended with a Taser and handcuffs while another ended with multiple gunshots and a death.

And yes, given the history of policing in America, people are also going to ask whether race played any role in those different outcomes. Asking that question is not the same as declaring that it did. The evidence should answer it.

The standard cannot depend upon who the suspect is. The standard must be the threat presented at that moment and what force was reasonably necessary to stop it.

Makayla Jacobson survived an encounter in which police say she stabbed two officers. That should demonstrate something important: even during an extraordinarily dangerous confrontation, there are circumstances in which officers can stop a threat without ending a life.

We should be grateful those circumstances existed. But we should also demand enough transparency to understand why they existed in one case and apparently did not in another. Because accountability is not anti-police. Accountability protects good officers, builds public trust and helps communities understand the split-second decisions being made in their name.

Jacobson got something every person accused of a crime should receive whenever safely possible: She lived long enough to face a judge.

The question Columbus should be willing to ask is whether that opportunity is being protected as consistently as it possibly can be.