The cost of incorrectly using weapons doesn’t outweigh the benefits. There is nearly no downside to incorrectly using weapons in the vast majority of cases I’m aware of in the US/UK/Canada. Usually they get taxpayer funded vacations, counselling, court appearances, and victim settlements. Society bears both the cost of their behavior and the impact that behavior has on society.
Simple fix is to give cops the time they need to recover from these traumatic events. Perhaps some time doing desk/traffic/community outreach work unarmed.
Shoot and kill someone | 1 year
Shoot someone | 6 months
Taze someone | 1 month
Posted by PISCMARINE on Friday, April 11, 2014 09:40 AM
Well, I would be more inclined to say ‘these things happen’…because they do; however, these were veteran Deputies and not rookies, so they should have known three things very well…
We cannot fully rely on a suspect description provided by dispatch
More than one person on scene can match that description
We must remain calm and rely on our own observations when making decisions…and always watch the HANDS…victims will run towards us at the first opportunity, especially those with injuries…
These scenes are going to be chaotic…we must be prepared to multi-task, assess and reassess in nano-seconds…we must correctly sort the evil from the innocent…this is our responsibility…we sometimes falter…we must regroup an drive on…
I pray for all involved…for the wounded to recover, the deceased to find everlasting peace and the Deputies to find the strength and resolve to carry on!
Tazers, sure, but shooting for the legs or a ‘nonlethal’ shot is a TV fiction and doesn’t have anything to do with real life. At best it will cripple the person, but there’s nothing nonlethal about the arteries in your legs.
Every time I see one of these cases I am reminded of how any repressive regime is able to organize death squads and vigilantes. No persuasion needed, there will always be some shockingly larger percentage of the population (say 15%) who are just waiting for permission.
No, and no. Tazers are compliance tools. They aren’t guaranteed to be effective at outright stopping threats and I’ve personally witnessed people shrug them off at protest events. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from clothing too thick for the darts to penetrate, to the target being a bad mofo who’s hopped up on adrenaline and/or drugs. When you’re trying to prevent a supposed bad guy from doing any more harm are you really going to reach for the tool that has a lower probability of successfully stopping the threat?
The whole “aim for the legs” thing… I don’t know where people even get that. There’s so many more problems inherent with that bit of fantasy. Legs/limbs in general are small targets, which are often moving quickly. This makes them extremely difficult to hit. Even for somebody who trains with a firearm more often than the minimum police marksmanship requirements (which is the standard that most officers go by) will have a very hard time hitting a small, fast-moving target like a leg. Then you have to consider the bullet. Even if it hits it will most likely pass through the limb, but since it’s far more likely that the bullet (or bulletS, since we’re talking about cops here) will not hit the limb and will therefore be traveling toward an unknown stopping point that may or may not contain people. When you advocate “shooting to wound” you are advocating a scenario in which nearly every possible outcome involves a bullet hitting something other than the intended target. Yes, in an ideal world the good guys could just shoot the bad guy’s weapons out of their hands, but unfortunately we don’t actually live in a world where physics conscribe to the rules of Gene Autry movies.
I’d say, I hate to tell them, but they are not soldiers - they are society’s janitors. They exist to clean up our messes. Whenever they forget this and try to prevent crime, they end up stomping all over people’s civil rights.
I don’t blame them. For a long time society has been pressuring them to do something about crime. But it’s another case of a problem being approached from the wrong end. You don’t solve crime by arresting people. You solve it much, much earlier, by addressing economic and educational inequality.
Until that actually happens, we’re stuck with violent situations and violent solutions. But there’s no benefit in thinking there’s a war on, when the potential enemy are the people you’re supposedly serving.
I read that comment also, and while it is far better than the “fog of war” response, there are two points that make me not want to have PISCMARINE responding to my 911 call.
[quote]… we must correctly sort the evil from the innocent … {emphasis added}[/quote]
Really? Who died and made him God? If he thinks the police are tasked with sorting innocent from evil then he’s already approaching his job with a religious zeal that worries the hell out of me.
The only carrying on I want those deputies to do is find another line of work, one that doesn’t involve ever having even the option of applying lethal force to resolve a situation.
I absolutely understand that he can empathize with the deputies who fired the lethal shots, and at some level, I can too. I imagine they feel awful about the situation. I can imagine if I had somehow caused a wrongful death in similar circumstances; I might be tempted to take my own life rather than endure the horror of what I had done. I don’t want the deputies to do that.
But if they find the “strength and resolve” to go back to work on the police force, to once again carry a gun on patrol, then they clearly don’t have the level of humanity they need to do the job with which they are entrusted.
PISCMARINE does a good job of laying out the mistakes that were made, but then wraps those lessons in words that have the ring of a preacher rallying the faithful to continue their divinely appointed duties.
I’m in the safe position of living in an Western European country that still sees police as a civil - even if armed - institution, even though there are hardliners who are in love with their toys. And this is reflected in our media, which have their share of hard cops - the but vast majority is still of the Father Brown/Columbo cut.
I do not find this very assuring. The hyperbole phrases of “sorting the evil from the innocent” and “assess and reassess in nano-seconds” - that’s already down the road of assuming a special role, a calling, to be more than the flock, even if it’s a shepard dog instead of a wolf. (Aside: Shepard dogs do not protect sheep from death and harm.)
On Killing by Lt. Col David Grossman. High percentages of soldiers not actually shooting at the enemy was identified as a major ‘problem’ right up to WWII and Korea. A large percentage of soldiers would not fire, or fire over the heads of the enemy, even in circumstances where they had a strong chance of being killed themselves. A small percentage would do a large proportion of the killing, aided by the rest.
They they re-designed the training to make killing reflexive, and sent those reprogrammed kids to Vietnam - where the percentage of killers increased dramatically. I have no data, but I wonder if PTSD and other psych traumas increased alongside the killing.
At least so far, most police training does not try to reprogram the brain to kill reflexively when there is a threat, so it is likely down to the few percent who could kill (possibly only one cop in the case of the 98% miss rate).
Edited for grammar and to get past the stupid bot telling me my edit was too similar.
In other words, they’re for torturing people who either won’t or can’t comply with police orders, in hopes that enough pain and enough seizures will make them comply with police orders. Sick.
I think the terms “pain compliance” and “compliance tools” say something terrible about policing in this country.
I don’t think this disaster says much about policing in this country. The police didn’t create this situation, and they didn’t have much time to figure out what was going on. I do think some other shooting cases do, though, and the frequency does.
It depends on the jurisdiction. New Zealand has a ‘no fault’ compensation scheme for medical mis-adventure (‘no fault’ as in you don’t need to prove someone did you wrong to obtain recompense; merely to demonstrate that harm has befallen for compensation to be paid). Lawyers here recommend full disclosure and whatever apology is appropriate. Being sued in court is very rare here.
I’m not saying that I agree with the use of tazers, frankly I find them abhorrent and grossly overused as an alternative to more effective de-escalation techniques. My point is that it’s a hugely misinformed mistake to think that these are some sort of magical wonder-weapon that will drop an adversary in their tracks.
THREE deputies fired shots.And he was only hit ONCE. (and what they PRESUMED was the victim ONCE). Taking into account ‘regular’ training, they would likely have shot 2 or 3 times EACH… so 6 - 9 bullets fired (I didn’t see anywhere where the number was listed, so I’m ONLY basing this on how shootings ‘normally’ occur).
IF WE CAN’T CHARGE THESE GUN HAPPY IDIOTS WITH MURDER… can we AT LEAST look at illegal discharge of a firearm, or assault with a deadly weapon (in this case…THE VICTIM they CALLED a VICTIM)… AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET THEM FIREARMS TRAINING. IF THEY CAN’T HIT A CLOSE TARGET, THEY SHOULD NOT BE CARRYING A GUN!
(Actually…I take that back…GIVE THEM THE GUN… just don’t give them bullets… )
Yes but my point is that the UK should not be held as an example, because the UK’s record on how the armed police act is not a good one and doubtless would be more akin to the US than Germany if they were all armed. I can’t truly speak for other countries’ experiences but UK was a poor example to use and as I said the ONLY reason for lack of police shootings in UK is down to lack of weapons and not because of a better attitude.
