The Behavior Of US Police Officers - Part 3

[Thermal]

So just shoot first, better not take any risks.
Maybe they would be better working in a Library.

Seriously, tell NSW Australian police all about it. An Inspector Scott, in particular. You'll be able to spot her quickly, as she's the one being praised as a hero with medals of valor clanging around her neck.

The Independence police talked calmly with the woman for 11 minutes. She suddenly attacked and lunged with a hidden weapon. This one really isn't a case of over aggressive police. It's a pretty cut and dry self defense.

I surely wish they tried something else first, but when a plunging knife is headed for you face, well... I don't think being able to go home to your kids indicates the cops are sadists.

 

[Thermal]

Unpopular opinion: people who try to murder police might actually be the real problem in these stories.

 

[plague311]

Unpopular opinion: people who try to murder police might actually be the real problem in these stories.

No one is going to argue with that but shooting everyone by default isn't a problem solver. bluesjnr linked to some prime examples. I do think that being injured as a police officer IS part of your job description. If it weren't they wouldn't have a gun, taser, pepper spray, etc. all on them. They KNOW it can happen, and given that "he was coming right for us!" is their go-to response after shooting someone a handful of times, then they realize their job can be dangerous....sometimes. The average police officer sees little violence towards them.

I also guarantee that if we took the guns away from cops and let them use other non-lethal weapons that the murder rates of cops wouldn't move the needle. Yeah, we'd probably see some injuries, maybe a few issues here and there, but I have no doubts they'd be fine more often then not.

 

[Thermal]

No one is going to argue with that but shooting everyone by default isn't a problem solver. bluesjnr linked to some prime examples.

Bluesjnr's vids were not the greatest, i think. One has a guy surrounded by cops in a wide open backyard. Ok, optimal situation for not shooting. Another has a guy who didn't have a knife out at all, but he cut the officer after being tackled. The one where cops stood outside the foyer where two knife dude was by himself is again, a little atypical. They had a nice long convo with the guy, then tazered him and he got a couple thrusts in haphazardly when already screaming on the ground. Compare with the sudden lunge in the Independence shooting. No half hour of polite chit chat; just straight to do or die without warning.

Like, I wish to hell they would do something else. But it really is a legit self defense situation. As much as I dislike handguns, I don't feel right about saying a cop shouldn't be able to *legitimately* defend themselves from a deadly attack with one. The cops have life partners and kids too. Asking them to go all Goku and not use every means at their disposal to stay alive might be an unreasonable ask.

I do think that being injured as a police officer IS part of your job description. If it weren't they wouldn't have a gun, taser, pepper spray, etc. all on them. They KNOW it can happen, and given that "he was coming right for us!" is their go-to response after shooting someone a handful of times, then they realize their job can be dangerous....sometimes. The average police officer sees little violence towards them.

I also guarantee that if we took the guns away from cops and let them use other non-lethal weapons that the murder rates of cops wouldn't move the needle. Yeah, we'd probably some some injuries, maybe a few issues here and there, but I have no doubts they'd be fine more often then not.

I'm confident that if you disarmed American police, a lot of these interactions would not go lethal as fast. But we live in the States. Our bad guys are carrying, and if the cops were unarmed, I think the bad guys would get much more brazen, really fast, and we'd have dead cops picking up quickly.

Interactions like this Independence killing are the rarity. More common is the cop confronting a guy with a handgun (statistically, police kill armed attackers something close to 100x more). On the one hand, it seems like a non lethal takedown should be do-able. But I'd hate to be the one explaining to the cop's kids that their daddy died because people felt like wannabe cop murderers should be given priority.

 

[plague311]

Asking them to go all Goku and not use every means at their disposal to stay alive might be an unreasonable ask.

I'm only asking them to be somewhat similar to Goku in that they don't shoot first. Again, maybe, MAYBE this isn't an example of it. Perhaps you're right and in this case the cops were fine blasting away this mother and a newborn. I always feel like more can be done.

If we're using DBZ as an example, I view our cops as more like the Frieza force than a force for good. Either do what you're told or go to the morgue and often two of the cops give opposing instructions at the same time and shoot the person anyway. We can bring up thousands of examples of unnecessary shootings by cops. The autistic kid who had his handler shot while the handler was laying on the ground with his hands out is a prime example. Doing as he was told, got shot anyway.

I'm confident that if you disarmed American police, a lot of these interactions would not go lethal as fast. But we live in the States. Our bad guys are carrying, and if the cops were unarmed, I think the bad guys would get much more brazen, really fast, and we'd have dead cops picking up quickly.

I completely disagree but again we get into this circular argument of "the US can't do what any other country does because we are completely different and nothing can change. This is what we have." and we'll get nowhere. How many times have you and I done this in a thread? Every time. What comes from it? We disagree and we do it again when some other person gets shot. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

Interactions like this Independence killing are the rarity. More common is the cop confronting a guy with a handgun (statistically, police kill armed attackers something close to 100x more). On the one hand, it seems like a non lethal takedown should be do-able. But I'd hate to be the one explaining to the cop's kids that their daddy died because people felt like wannabe cop murderers should be given priority.

Yeah, police officers will die. They're armed through the teeth the way it is and they still die. It's tragic, no one likes to see people die. I don't think it's at all surprising though the police officers can be the loudest voices for gun reform.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Yes, he could totally have acted against any sort of human surprise or survival instinct and any sort of police training the world over and just calmly let her stab him to death. Or stab the child she was holding to death, being so very clearly in her right mind with such clearly and obviously discernable motivations

Contrary to surprisingly widespread delusion it is not actually reasonably possible to consistently disarm an adult, knife-wielding assailant when ALREADY within stabbing range without sustaining life-threatening injury. Barring the use of specialized protective gear that police officers do not regularly walk around in.

And finally...funnily enough...neither batons, tasers, nor pepper spray are actually instant off switches.

I bet you An Garda Síochána could have dealt with the situation without killing the two. In fact I personally know Gardaí that could do it without armed support.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Don't talk rubbish.
Police elsewhere in the world are trained to deal with knives without shooting people.
A police office shouldn't be relying on surprise and survival instinct, he's supposed to be trained to deal with high stress and life threatening situations.
As for protective gear, stab vests are, and have been standard issue for most police forces for decades.

I would say that doesn't include large swathes in the US where the cops are taught "kill them all, we can declare them guilty later".

 

[plague311]

I would say that doesn't include large swathes in the US where the cops are taught "kill them all, we can declare them guilty later".

Don't forget the newest fad of "If you voted for someone I didn't vote for I won't help you in your time of need."

That's a fun one too.

 

[Thermal]

I'm only asking them to be somewhat similar to Goku in that they don't shoot first. Again, maybe, MAYBE this isn't an example of it. Perhaps you're right and in this case the cops were fine blasting away this mother and a newborn. I always feel like more can be done.

If we're using DBZ as an example, I view our cops as more like the Frieza force than a force for good. Either do what you're told or go to the morgue and often two of the cops give opposing instructions at the same time and shoot the person anyway. We can bring up thousands of examples of unnecessary shootings by cops. The autistic kid who had his handler shot while the handler was laying on the ground with his hands out is a prime example. Doing as he was told, got shot anyway.


I completely disagree but again we get into this circular argument of "the US can't do what any other country does because we are completely different and nothing can change. This is what we have." and we'll get nowhere. How many times have you and I done this in a thread? Every time. What comes from it? We disagree and we do it again when some other person gets shot. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.


Yeah, police officers will die. They're armed through the teeth the way it is and they still die. It's tragic, no one likes to see people die. I don't think it's at all surprising though the police officers can be the loudest voices for gun reform.

I hear you. I really see both sides here and can't fully commit to either.

I mean, give cops medals and promotions and pay raises and whatever they want when they choose the non lethal option and bring the suspect in alive. Absolutely. But I just can't bring myself to say it's *wrong* to shoot when someone you didnt know was armed plunges a knife at your face unexpectedly when the cops have been doing everything to peacefully deescalate.

 

[plague311]

I hear you. I really see both sides here and can't fully commit to either.

I mean, give cops medals and promotions and pay raises and whatever they want when they choose the non lethal option and bring the suspect in alive. Absolutely. But I just can't bring myself to say it's *wrong* to shoot when someone you didnt know was armed plunges a knife at your face unexpectedly when the cops have been doing everything to peacefully deescalate.

Undoubtedly. It's perfectly acceptable to shoot someone lunging for them with a knife (in the US, apparently not so much other places but I can agree with that), and if we didn't have the thousands of other instances of cops consistently abusing their power along with the stacks of dead bodies they leave behind them by overreacting commonly, we wouldn't be here. We'd be talking about how horrible the situation had to be for the results to be a woman and a newborn dead. Instead we're, sadly, having a conversation on if it was acceptable.

 

[stanfr]

Unpopular opinion: people who try to murder police might actually be the real problem in these stories.

I just watched the video, and at first watch, yeah you see a huge knife coming at you and you think, 'ok, this is a life threatening situation so deadly force seems appropriate' but after several rewinds and looking at the overall situation, I'm not so convinced their response was justified. Was she really "trying to murder" the police? Hard to say when you have someone with clear mental issues, but suicide by cop seems more likely. If her intent was to kill the cop, holding the baby with one arm while wielding the knife with the other seems a very inefficient way to do it. She was obviously not well balanced or really capable of any coordinated assault. In the final seconds of the edited footage it even looks like she is backing up a bit. I'm not sure I'd fee that threatened in that situation even if I was not armed to the hilt. Especially if I were actually trained for these sort of situations. So no, I think the "real problem in these stories" is that the first line of resort is always to employ maximum deadly force directed at everyone and everything in every given situation.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I hear you. I really see both sides here and can't fully commit to either.

I mean, give cops medals and promotions and pay raises and whatever they want when they choose the non lethal option and bring the suspect in alive. Absolutely. But I just can't bring myself to say it's *wrong* to shoot when someone you didnt know was armed plunges a knife at your face unexpectedly when the cops have been doing everything to peacefully deescalate.

Which implies you already have your gun out and ready to shoot. OK, so have your none leathel out and ready.

It's not hard.

 

[plague311]

I just watched the video, and at first watch, yeah you see a huge knife coming at you and you think, 'ok, this is a life threatening situation so deadly force seems appropriate' but after several rewinds and looking at the overall situation...

I'm generally in agreement, but refs can't even get calls right without a replay. It's tough to be impartial with the benefit of rewinding the video.

 

[Thermal]

Undoubtedly. It's perfectly acceptable to shoot someone lunging for them with a knife (in the US, apparently not so much other places but I can agree with that), and if we didn't have the thousands of other instances of cops consistently abusing their power along with the stacks of dead bodies they leave behind them by overreacting commonly, we wouldn't be here. We'd be talking about how horrible the situation had to be for the results to be a woman and a newborn dead. Instead we're, sadly, having a conversation on if it was acceptable.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ A. The only thing I'd like more than seeing Derek Chauvin and Amber Guyger rotting in their cells is for them to have been removed from the force before they had the chance to kill anyone.

That's what bothers me about the Independence story. Lousy reporting made the cops look like animals up front. The real ◊◊◊◊ going on is appalling, and reporters should be more careful not to get the story that wrong. People are ready and willing to go burn down a police precinct over that kind of thing. We don't need yet more bodies stacked like cordwood because journalists are fanning the flames with bull ◊◊◊◊ stories. The real ones are already killing us.

 

[plague311]

Which implies you already have your gun out and ready to shoot. OK, so have your none leathel out and ready.

It's not hard.

Yeah, that's a good point. It would be a bit threatening but might help to dial the situation back when the woman sees she might be getting fitted for a few hundred volts.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Or a steel baton across the Ulna or Femur

 

[plague311]

Or a steel baton across the Ulna

Pain compliance is a real thing.

 

[Andy_Ross]

British Police are trained to strike at the arm to force a drop or the Femur to take someone down, the modern extending steel baton can break your leg or arm

 

[Thermal]

I just watched the video, and at first watch, yeah you see a huge knife coming at you and you think, 'ok, this is a life threatening situation so deadly force seems appropriate' but after several rewinds

Thats the problem with our perspective, though? That cop didnt have multiple reviews to consider his actions. One second, calmly talking to a suspect. The next, "wtf is that a knife OH ◊◊◊◊ STRAIGHT AT MY FACE".

and looking at the overall situation, I'm not so convinced their response was justified. Was she really "trying to murder" the police? Hard to say when you have someone with clear mental issues, but suicide by cop seems more likely. If her intent was to kill the cop, holding the baby with one arm while wielding the knife with the other seems a very inefficient way to do it. She was obviously not well balanced or really capable of any coordinated assault. In the final seconds of the edited footage it even looks like she is backing up a bit. I'm not sure I'd fee that threatened in that situation even if I was not armed to the hilt. Especially if I were actually trained for these sort of situations. So no, I think the "real problem in these stories" is that the first line of resort is always to employ maximum deadly force directed at everyone and everything in every given situation.

Agreed, in hindsight we can come up with a variety of ways that this could have played out better, and I sincerely wish that more forces would explore the non lethal alternatives. Wood bullets have a strong non lethal effectiveness, but are virtually unheard of in the states. Tasers I am ambivalent about. Loose or heavy clothing and they are useless.

 

[Thermal]

Which implies you already have your gun out and ready to shoot. OK, so have your none leathel out and ready.

It's not hard.

Did he? Or did he draw what was on his dominant side fast?