SALINAS, Calif. -- Typically police don't want witnesses to intervene during crimes. But there are circumstances where your intervening could help.
Salinas Police Commander Dave Crabill said if you see an officer in danger, you should help him or her out, without putting your own life on the line.
As someone whose been assaulted on the job, and even had someone try to take his gun, he knows it all too well. @
"We're expected to react to what we're posed with and when we're faced with a deadly-force situation, we're going to react with whatever means that we need to in order to protect ourselves," he said.
So it's no surprise on Thursday when a video showed a Santa Cruz Police officer, who was trying to make an arrest, doing everything he could to ward off his attacker. Punching, kicking, headlocking.
At one point the suspect, Lawrence Segarini, even tried taking the officer's gun.
While Crabill isn't speaking on the case, he said sometimes officers' tactics aren't pretty when it comes to trying to save their own lives.
So having the extra back-up, even if it's coming from a witness, could be helpful.
"We can always fall back on our training, but what we truly fall back on is our instinct and it's a survival instinct," he said.
Even though officers train all the time to anticipate different scenarios, they said things can always change quickly.
That's why they receive intense training on defense, with or wtihout their weapons, almost daily.
In Thursday's incident, the suspect wasn't able to get off with the officer's gun, and the officer was able to subdue him with pepper spray.
Segarini was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail.
