Last year, Brian Lande, an officer in the Richmond, Calif., police department, had to draw his gun to stop two drunk men from clobbering each other to death with metal rods.
In 2015, he threatened deadly force to stop a fight between two more drunk men. One was armed with a hatchet. Another, with a wrench.
On another occasion, he drew his firearm to arrest a man hopping a backyard fence, fleeing the scene of a burglary.
None of these was remarkable in Richmond, a working-class city just east of San Francisco that’s notorious for its drive-by shootings, break-ins, carjackings, and countless petty crimes.
