I know the logic, but clearly something is wrong here, in my opinion at least.
Do you disagree? In other words, given the circumstances (no pepper spray or taser, suspect has a knife that he or she refuses to put down, multiple officers on the scene), you think shooting to kill is unquestionably correct?
Ricochet isn’t a valid concern, that’s only something that happens in movies. Bullets tend to break apart, or splatter when they hit something. They very rarely bounce, or are deflected preserving enough energy to penetrate something.
They shot because they made the decision to kill that person, they aimed center mass because that’s how you stop the “bad guy” when he’s coming for you.
Maybe they were worried that pepper spray would bring this person too close, and put themselves in danger? I don’t know, but I know there are countries where the police aren’t normally armed, and they can handle these situations without anyone dying.
We need better police training.
would the flow of discussion be different if other workers were chosen by Scout to be the agency of his death - a train or truck driver?
For anyone still talking about less-than or non-lethal use of a firearm, please examine the image and pick out which area you think 120 grains of fragmenting copper and lead can travel through at 1200 fps, safely.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that any gunshot will be “safe” to the victim, but rather that some targets are much less likely to be lethal than the “center of mass”. There’s also the option of firing just one shot instead of multiple. I haven’t watched this video and don’t know if they fired multiple times, but they usually do.
Shooting the ground near his foot may not have been a bad idea. Obviously, there were better ideas in play (pepper spray, taser, or even trying to grab the knife, since some police have gear which is resistant to slashing from a knife), but standard issue pistols are loud. Like, much louder than you’d think, from TV and videogames and such. Loud enough that it would likely make even a suicidal person say to themselves, “OH SHIT”.
Love handles, or a grazing shot are about it. Even then, no assurance that you don’t end up with a fatal blood clot, or infection, or shock. I’ve heard it from cops a bunch of times–movies lie. Gunshot wounds are very serious business. At best, you can only make an educated guess on what won’t kill you immediately or within a few minutes.
Here’s a Quora article that cites a study of 111 gunshot incidents that puts the survival rate at about 80%:
Mortality rates by region were 38.5% head and neck, 28.6% upper torso, 23.1% lower torso, and ZERO for butt and pelvis and the extremities!
Not to say death from a shot to a limb is impossible, but it’s certainly much less likely than a shot to the torso.
Batons would have been the way to go here- they could have reached out and smacked his hand with no danger to themselves. IMHO.
I thought reports said the police were called to respond to someone with a knife and gun (though a gun wasn’t actually found)?
I think it’s more complicated than that. Apparently the victim was charging at least one of the cops with a tool disguised as a knife.
Hmm, define “everyone”.
Actually I’m pretty sure these cops were following procedures, to the letter. Someone charged with a weapon, they warned the person to stop, the person ignored the commands, they were shot dead. I’d argue that we need to make a stink about incidents like this to revise training procedures.
where they choose to shoot a person might matter, but it’s far beyond the point.
why are cops being trained that violence is the best way to solve problems?
the annual average number of police deaths is about 49.6 – mainly due to traffic fatalities – in 2015, the police shot dead 995 people. that means multiple people every day of the week, every day of the year.
one way to look at this is that the police are keeping themselves safe by shooting people. that is – their training is working. but, its come at the expense of people being killed for literally no reason. they are so scared of being in harms way – despite all factual evidence to the contrary – they shoot whatever moves.
the training they need – the training american society needs to agree to give them – is not how to shoot people better, but how to shoot people less.
some sources:
[ edit: for comparison’s sake last year, police in the uk shot and killed… 6 people. 6. all year. and that was double the year before. ]
Holy fucking apologists gone amok, Batman…
No, and I never said or even remotely implied it was. I have been more than candid here in the past about my objections to unnecessary police violence and a lack of emphasis on de-escalation. There were countless ways this could have ended without the gunning down of a young and disturbed student. Even if they were trying to get killed doesn’t make what happened here right.
The only point I was making is that the, “why not just shoot 'em in the legs”, or “why not shoot to incapacitate instead of kill” cries that I’ve seen all to often are simply not realistic under the best of circumstances. Firearms are not designed to injure or incapacitate.
Watch the damned video. What you describe is not anywhere close to what actually happened.
You are making excuses for murder.
Hell no I’m not! I’m doing exactly the opposite: I’m saying the training philosophy in America for cops is dead wrong, that they’re too quick to use deadly force.
When I say the cops are following training procedures, I’m not excusing them, I’m saying that the absurdity of this situation is proof that the training procedures need to be revised.
I accept that it was not your intention.
But by repeating police lies, even without malice, you reinforce murderous oppression. Scout did not charge anyone; they were very slowly walking forwards, while obviously disoriented and confused. They had a half-opened multitool in hand, with the blade retracted.
There was no charge, there was no “disguised” knife.
Yes, I do take this one personally. “Mentally ill person executed for the crime of being mentally ill” strikes rather close to home.
Fuck that, I’m not repeating police lies, and if you can possibly frame this as anything other than “someone with what looked like a weapon refused to put it down after being told to by the police”, I’m all ears. And I’m doing the opposite of reinforcing murderous oppression, I’m questioning it’s foundations.
There was no charge, there was no “disguised” knife.
There was no justification for the police to do anything except to continue talking and maintaining a safe distance. The only life in danger here was Scout’s.
