A roofer is not deciding on using deadly force when they’re doing their job. Of course most cops aren’t making that decision on a daily basis either.
I was also not excusing every cop out there, heck, I wasn’t even excusing this cop.
It is just me or does it seem like female cops and non-white cops receive charges much faster than white male cops?
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It seems to me that the better strategy should be to make the taser the thing on the dominant side. That way instinctively that’s what you draw first. I seriously doubt guns are needed more frequently than tasers.
I too have seen some threads to this effect. Including some gun enthusiasts claiming- and I don’t doubt it- that they could tell you which gun of theirs you put in their hand blindfolded instantly. Very difficult to believe a 26 year veteran doesn’t know the difference between how her gun and her taser feel.
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It’s my understating the warrant was for failure to appear on a gun charge while he was out on bail. I feel as if I have to type the next part 47 times but… By me posting that information does not mean I believe this guy deserved to die or the cops were right in shooting him or tasing him but just letting him go may have not been an option. I have no idea how it should have been handled, I can not imagine what it’s like to be cop. Why is that statement perceived as support of the bad cops? It’s not.
And before you ask why again, I have no idea what policy is when it comes to this stuff but I’m pretty sure if they let it know they will not pursue warrants how do you keep law and order. Apparently it’s not as easay as just going and picking him up at home.
These are all questions that every police agency should be asked and their policies made crystal clear. Weed out the bad cops and train the good ones even better.
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The point is that they are trained and culturally encouraged to resort to violence as a top-line option. The courts, DAs and Attorneys General then back them up and exonerate them. Then local, state and federal legislators catch wind that a cop was almost held accountable and they make holding cops accountable illegal.
My “why” was in response to
By deadly force? Why? He’s in a state-registered vehicle with a standing warrant. He is posing no imminent threat, but the cop is. It’s that simple.
The problem with the idea of “weeding out the bad cops” is that by the time a “bad cop” is identifiable, it’s already too late. How many murders constitutes a threshold for being labeled “bad”?
The rot is systemic and intentional. It is not about bad cops, it is about a culture and legal framework of criminality and white supremacy. If these roles were reversed and the cop was the one who was “accidentally” shot, he’d be on death row already.
ETA:
So radically escalating the danger to the person under warrant, his passengers, the general public and the cop herself is better than…
Yeah, they still use that as a pretext to commit unjustified murder. Ask Breonna Taylor.
Edited to fix quote errors.
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Can I offer a bit of help? In a thread about yet another unarmed Black man being killed by an evil and/or inept cop, trying to explain the point of view of the cop or offering buffering information about how a mistake might have happened is not going to end well.
I’m a psychologist who specializes in studying and treating sexual offenders. I am in the position of knowing that public perception and actual data about things like recidivism rates and treatment success are not really in line with one another. If you ever see me coming into a thread about yet another evil bastard raping someone to point that information out I give you my explicit permission to smack some sense into me. There is a time and a place for those discussions. A place where those empathizing with the victims are feeling their raw nerves and expressing righteous anger about this plague of violence is not going to be one where that tack will be well-received even if you may have good intentions.
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And yet…
There are many jobs which are far more dangerous than being an LEO, and yet we don’t see people in those positions constantly harming and killing others.
Stop - you’re making too much logical sense and being far too considerate.
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And if it was (and that’s a huge if considering all that you just laid out), she should be fired for gross incompetence and prosecuted, anyhow. This is like a bartender serving someone bleach and then being like “oopsies, my bad!”
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This reminded me of another obvious difference between a taser and a gun: the weight. A gun is made out of steel, whereas a taser looks like it’s injection-molded plastic. Those two things shouldn’t even be in the same weight class, let alone close enough that you could “accidentally” confuse one for the other.
Worse, it’s the guy who teaches bartending classes doing that, because this woman was a trainer for other cops.
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The Oscar Grant wiki above said that their tasers weigh half as much as their service weapons.
While it was a different incident they’re using the same accidental taser defense to muddy the water. The cop that shot Grant while testifying, said that he didn’t even know he had a gun in his hand until he heard the “pop”. If that doesn’t make the populace feel safe I don’t know what will. Shake my damn head.
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I’ve been noticing that as well. It’s funny, isn’t it? Ha ha ha.
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That isn’t a bad idea, but the down side is that either non-dominate side or on the chest will cause cross drawing and needlessly muzzle sweeps things, as well as makes it easier for someone to grab on the non-dominate side. But the idea that the taser is the first go to is probably a prudent one.
Absolutely they could under normal circumstances. The problem is when you are under stress and adrenaline is flowing. That is when fuck ups happen. That is when you shove a magazine in backwards or mess up the order of unloading or make some other mistake you wouldn’t normally make at the range.
But, again, this is no excuse, she should still face consequences for a fatal mistake.
It was a traffic stop for expired tags and a warrant for a misdemeanor fine. If cops are so jacked up that they can’t deal with that without activating their sense-clouding fight-or-flight mechanisms, they need to be in another line of work. These are the assholes who are supposedly* trained to keep their cool under pressure.
Oh wait, I guess they only get super freaked out and twitchy when the driver is black.
* What they’re actually trained to do is treat every civilian interaction like it may be their last, and adopt a warrior’s stance that puts them in an escalated state of tension before any encounter even begins.
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1st. If there is any, even the most theoretical chance, that a taser could be mistaken for a gun, then there are serious issues with the design of the taser, and any tasers of that design should be illegal to carry or posses. The tasers I’ve seen pictured all have looked more like my electric shaver. No possible way in hell could that be confused with a gun. They are held totally different.
2nd. The cop thought she had a taser in her hand?
Bullshit. Complete Bullshit. She knew perfectly well she had a deadly weapon in her hand.
3rd. Even “tasering” someone should be reserved only for self defense when under violent attack. People can, and do, frequently die from being tasered. Especially when used by the cops, as they appear to have a policy for tasering multiple times for minutes at a time, rather than just for the brief single pulse couple of seconds that is the maximum before becoming a high risk of death. (not just from obvious things like electrocution, but also from things like interfering with the ability to breath, causing heart irregularities, etc)
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No, he’d be dead in a hail of bullets.
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I completely agree that isn’t how it SHOULD be. I am just giving insight on how this can happen. Humans are stupid, panicky animals and honestly most cops aren’t nearly so trained to over come this.
Personal racial biases certainly could be a factor in how one’s body reacts to a situation. If your stress levels are already elevated because you think black males are more likely to be a danger, then absolutely that is going to effect how you react. So when something happens like trying to get away, the body’s response is going to be even more severe than if one didn’t already have those elevated stress levels.
Clearly cops have a systemic racial bias in who they police, how they police, and their outcomes.
So…when the vast majority of human beings might be drawing a deadly weapon on another human being?
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A taser is a “less lethal” weapon, not a tool of convenience. They can and do kill people all the time. Weapons like tasers are only supposed to be used in life-threatening situations where more deadly force (i.e. a gun) would be the only alternative.
The idea that it’s better to use potentially lethal force on a fleeing suspect than allow them to get away is just a really fucked up mindset, but the worst part is how many Americans have accepted and internalized it without so much as a second thought.
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