I dearly wish I had a time machine so I could go back to when the debates were happening over “non-lethal” alternatives and show them that of course in practice it did not turn out to be an alternative to lethal force but rather a sadistic and yes occasionally lethal respect-my-authoritay enforcement tool.
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Yep. But it’s fun to watch them do the mental back flips when it’s a white person.
If we could harness that as kinetic energy, we wouldn’t need Big Oil
This seems one of those issues whose legal solutions are all ineffective, and the effective ones are all illegal.
A report I just read notes that he has a severed spinal cord. no bueno.
But this is how it’s going to play out: Cops argue that belligerent man was acting in a threatening and unpredictable manner and was not complying with orders. Rather than just letting him go away and de-escalate the situation, clearly he had to be killed on the spot. The justification? As soon as he went to his car, they feared for their lives that he was retrieving a weapon (without any evidence that that’s actually what he was doing). Fox news fans and such trot out the old line “if you’re just polite and listen to the police you won’t have a problem” (despite evidence to the contrary).
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I had someone I know try and pull the “yes, it’s tragic, but if he had just done what the cops said…” card before I noped the fuck out and decided I don’t have to hear that person say anything ever again.
If you can’t handle a suspect walking away from you without unloading your firearm into him, regardless of his attitude toward you, you shouldn’t be a cop. Period.
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You’re right. I didn’t meant to suggest presentation of a weapon alone justifies the use of lethal force.
I meant that it should require at least the presentation of a weapon, not just the fear that they were going to get a weapon or had a weapon on them.
Here is the reasoning:
Instead of “shooting to kill” they are allowed to “shoot to wound”. The threshold for justifying a “shoot to wound” would be even lower than the current “shoot to kill”. For example someone running away is just shot in the leg to keep them from escaping.
We can see this with things like taser use. Taser are considered much safer and we have many many examples of where they have been employed for minor infractions where such force was not justified. Or worse, we see their use as punishment or retribution against people in custody - even out right torture with repeated use.
If “shoot to wound” was an allowed tactic, you would see more people getting shot, because if it is already this frequent and they are already this well protected against murder, they would even more protected against, “I was just trying to wound them to make them stop.” How many cops get in trouble for excess force other less lethal tactics? And while aiming for a non vital spot, each bullet wound has a chance to be fatal, leading to more deaths.
The other reasons that “shoot to wound” is not a good policy:
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It is much harder to hit a moving limb, endangering others nearby.
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If there was not an immediate threat to warrant lethal force, then one would rightly argue in court that there was not enough of a threat to warrant maiming through a non-lethal gunshot would. Other lower force tactics should have been employed.
“Shoot to wound” is a Hollywood trope that existed to make shows less violent. The Lone Ranger would shoot the bad guys hand. It isn’t a tactic we want in reality.
YMMV
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In the situations you outline, shooting at all, regardless of intention, is inappropriate. I will again say that shooting is always shooting to kill. The intention of the shooter plays pretty much no role at all once the projectile leaves the chamber. Take the word of someone who has heard “I didn’t mean to” wailed in abject agony as I worked a gunshot victim. The bullet does not care if you meant to.
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You and @smoulder do have a point here, if a shoot to wound policy would lower the bar for cops getting away with shooting people, we’d see more shooting.
However if shoot to wound would be only acceptable in instances where cops now shoot to kill, that’s a different story.
Shoot to kill already has a very high legal threshold. It’s just that cops, prosecutors, and courts ignore it.
Make “shoot to wound” legal, even if it’s only for shoot-to-kill situations, and you’re going to get police murders for parking violations.
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I think the problem we need to address if we want real reform, is that the bar for when lethal force is used needs to be a lot higher. In general there should be less cop shootings, period. There needs to be clear consequences and consistent enforcement for mistakes or a cop going off the rails.
Not just shootings, but all forms of police violence - baton beatings, pepper spray, tasers, and holds. There will always be grey area cases, but with proper guidelines and enforcement measures, we could at least eliminate egregious acts of cop violence.
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This is like saying you’re going to run someone over with your pickup truck to wound them.
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Jacob Blake didn’t get shot because the officer’s life was at risk. He got shot because the officer’s ego was at risk.
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A million times, ^THIS.
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This is a great example of why BLM protesters have chosen Defund the Police or Abolish the Police as slogans. Reform doesn’t work. Maybe we should keep trying it for another 40 years? Proposing new rules that sound reasonable but still depend on racist violence-addicts and their enablers to show good will is why we need to start over.
Better rules for police use of force isn’t going to help. They already ignore the rules that exist. The rules that exist only get enforced when We the People start burning down police precincts. That seems to get their attention. Everything short of that just gets ignored.
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I agree with you, and I’ll go one further. If your partner is killing someone, and you won’t unload your firearm into them, you shouldn’t be a cop.
Rule #1 should be to protect the public, even if it means protecting the public from your colleagues.
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I think we need both.
We need clear rules of accountability followed. You’re right that part of the problem is they aren’t following the rules or are being let off the hook. That has had SOME change in recent years. But we need to continue to hold them accountable.
We need to not call cops for every problem that isn’t a fire or a clear medical emergency (EMT) and set up other institutions for other common issues. For large cities that could look like new city services. For small towns it might look like people with training in more than one service.
It certainly does, but it remains to be seen if it will lead to long term change. America has had riots in the past over the EXACT SAME THINGS, and little changed. Once things calmed down it went back to “normal”.
Constant pressure by the community to not let the issue die will be what forces their hands.
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With a history of little or no pushback and no penalty for the cops, yeah, it became systemic.
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while i agree, there’s also the apparatus that sends riot police into peaceful protests, allows no knock warrants, and funds swat teams for every podunk police force
not to mention “broken windows” policing, racial profiling, and “gang” task forces
and the whole idea of policing black neighborhoods with centralized funding while relying on property taxes for funding majority black schools, the drug war itself, disparities in sentencing, and on
it’s why i think defunding is more important than reforming cops to get the bad apples out
the whole justice system is broken from top to bottom. get rid of the money, and you’re forced to create something different to deal with the actual needs of communities
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[Citation Needed] Derek Chauvin would never have been charged with George Floyd’s murder without the massive protests, including property damage. The cop who shot Jacob Blake hasn’t been charged. Wanna take bets on whether he will be? Republicans in Wisconsin are already criticizing the Governor for not supporting the police officer.
Same thing in Ferguson, NYC, Louisville. The only change is that protesters are taking more extreme action to force TPTB to hold police accountable. It’s definitely not voluntary.
We’re not going to get different results with the same people. We need different people in those jobs, with new training and new ground rules. That’s the only way we’re going to see change.
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