Just seems like it would be nice if you could keep the dude farther than a baton-length away, training or no.
I disagree. If someone is trying to kill me, their life is worth less than mine. Same if they’re trying to kill someone else.
Once you decide to kill or injure someone, you’ve broken the social contract. no one should be required to go to extreme lengths to avoid injuring you in the process of apprehending you. Of course that doesn’t mean deadly force is the first and only option.
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When I took baton training they called me a big sissy so I pissed on their Pom-Pom’s and quit cheer leading
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Whether the social contract has, indeed, been broken is established, as per social contract, in a court of law, not by declaring “I disagree”.
In Germany, a SWAT team was fired upon through the door of an apartment several weeks ago. One officer, unluckily hit at the edge of his vest, unfortunately later succumbed to his injuries. Guess what? The perp will still get his day in court, because the SWAT team, rather than pumping him full of lead for having the audacity to injure one of their own, apprenhended him alive.
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How did the subdue him? Did he give up? Get driven out from tear gas? What would have happened if he continued to fire at the SWAT team and none of their less than lethal means subdued him?
While cops in the do kill more people than they should, not every violent encounter with police ends with a dead suspect either. There are many examples of both scenarios playing out. It would be nice if we worked on procedure to increase the number of non-lethal encounters.
German police in most states are prohibited by law to fire shots that are likely to kill unless it is the only remaining way to prevent immediate mortal danger or danger of significant injury. Which is why what Americans love to pander as “Hollywood legend” happens quite frequently in Germany - shots to the legs Even a GI had to learn that when he rioted with a fire extinguisher in a Munich hospital after not taking his Oktoberfest beer very well. In another incident, a guy with a machete in one hand and a katana in the other approached an officer threateningly. After repeated warnings to stop and drop the weapons did, in fact, not stop him, a shot through the thighs did.
The issue is quite a lot bigger than procedures, though. Police in other countries are trained and vetted over the course of 18-24 months, much more time to ensure formation of proper habits, vet out people on a power trip or quick to break under pressure and train proper deescalation methods. It’s a matter of being able to react in a calm and professional manner even under high pressure and in dangerous situations.
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And I, in turn, disagree with that.
A person’s actions do not change the value of their life. However, if someone attacks me (or someone else), my own prerogative to defend myself (and others) allows me to act to neutralize the threat. Worth has nothing to do with it. If a dozen people are trying to kill me, or I am one of a dozen people that one person is trying to kill, it’s no different. My right to self-defense is no more and no less than the right to end the threat. The relative “worth” of the lives involved is irrelevant.
Extreme lengths? No. But they should be required to use the minimum amount of force necessary to safely end the threat. Sometimes, that is going to require lethal force. However, with more training, and better tools at hand, the amount of force necessary to end the threat safely goes down. The number of times that lethal force is required goes down.
If you have an active shooter, and you have a clear shot, then, by all means. End the threat before anyone else gets injured. But if a person is brandishing a knife, and you can remove it from them without permanent injury, then you are obligated to. I commend the UK police, in this instance, for doing so.
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Being struck anywhere on your body with a baton is a debilitating experience. Striking the wrist or forearm with a glancing blow is pretty much guaranteed to eliminate your ability to use a knife or other item with that hand. A hard, direct strike will break the underlying bones and probably put the recipient in shock. A blow to a person’s head with a baton can easily be fatal because of the small contact area and high kinetic energy. The additional reach the baton provides over a typical knife is a huge advantage.
Most North American police carry billy clubs or extendable batons but aren’t sufficiently trained in their effective use. Better training would reduce the use of firearms in these situations, especially in the US.
BTW, I have experience in teaching self defence and practical experience in applying the use of force continuum with and without weapons.
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And if they are mentally ill? (genuinely, I mean, not the hypothetical mental illness that is talked about by Fox News whenever there is a mass shooting by a white person)
I ask because I have PTSD and have been in situations where I though people were trying to hurt me when they were trying to help. I tend to run away in situations like that, but other people with PTSD (like people from the armed forces) may have been trained to stand their ground and fight unless given orders not to.
Are you saying the police should have an automatic shoot to kill policy for all situations? Because I disagree and I am glad to live in a country where the police (usually) try to not kill people.
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I only disagree with the fact that the baton was the right tool for the job here. I’m glad that neither party was hurt but the cops were kind of lucky (brave). Knives are at least as dangerous as a gun in close quarters. These police could have gotten off a lot worse. In one of my martial arts classes we role played guy with gun in holster, guy with knife in belt. You stand on opposite sides of the dojo and the gun person has to get their stick (representing a firearm) out of their belt, point it and go bang before the other person pulled their stick (knife), ran across the room and stabbed the other. It was eye opening. We’re talking 30 feet. Even if the gun holder got the gun out, they had that attacker right in their face. I am going to run this demo again but with Nerf guns. There are 2 types of people you never mess with: people with guns and people with knives.
So what happened to the all the non lethal weapons like tasers we keep hearing about Rob. And if being in the police is so dangerous, how come the job rarely makes it into those “most dangerous professions” lists?
Well then I am assuming the German laws are vastly different. That is they must have extra legal protection given to the police.
The reason shooting to wound is best left to Hollywood, is that the US cops are also not supposed to shoot unless someone is in mortal danger. Shooting to wound would lead to lawsuits claiming such actions were not warranted in the first place, and would be particularly damning if shooting a leg or other location and the suspect bled out.
Now personally I’d agree that shooting someone who has a knife in the leg is preferable to killing them. But at the same time if we added that to the list of options, would that result in less deaths, or just more winged suspects? Usually if there is time enough to make a decision to wound, one could first employ other less than lethal options. Though I agree it may be worth looking into wounding as a rung on the use of force ladder.
While the average German officer may or may not have more training than the average American officer (I don’t know either way), most American cops go through a fairly rigorous vetting and training process, including psychological exams, stress training, and use of less lethal methods. They also go through a probationary period where they are paired with a veteran who further shows them the ropes.
Furthermore, there isn’t one solution to the problem. The problems of say a large metro area with issues of corruption may require completely different solutions to a town of say 10,000 who hasn’t had any complaints of police actions. These two forces probably had similar training, but their environments are dissimilar.
And I still think the biggest thing is simply real accountability, probably through a 3rd party division that oversees such things. Simply put, if a cop does something that I would go to jail for, that isn’t right.
I think it’d be fair to say that isn’t an overwhelmingly well-enforced rule.
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It is on paper how it is supposed to work. And while we probably aren’t prosecuting cops for bad shoots as often as we should, there are still examples of them being found guilty for bad shoots.
Though some cases people will disagree if a shooting was valid or not. Not every scenario is cut and dry. While I acknowledge that some shoots are both wrong and/or unnecessary, some are necessary and that fact should be acknowledged as well. Like I said about the recent post where they are tracking the numbers better. We really, really need to analyze each shooting to see how many of these fall into good/bad/grey in order to best figure out how to reduce the bad and grey ones.
And like I said, I think for things to change, the way we handle the accountability needs to change. Currently it is handled internally too much.
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Ah thats the difference. American cars don’t have boots.
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That is known a Mace, not to be confused with a baton (but maybe pepper spray ; )
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The problem with that is that the job then attracts people who love a fight, and go looking for a fight. All jobs should be reasonably safe, including policing.
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[quote=“Mister44, post:32, topic:91950, full:true”]
Well then I am assuming the German laws are vastly different. That is they must have extra legal protection given to the police.[/quote]
That’s neither here nore there since the entire legal system in Germany is different. Germany has an inquisitorial rather than an adversarial judicial system and doesn’t know the concept of punitive damages. Damages are damages and fines are fines
[quote=“Mister44, post:32, topic:91950, full:true”]
While the average German officer may or may not have more training than the average American officer (I don’t know either way), most American cops go through a fairly rigorous vetting and training process, including psychological exams, stress training, and use of less lethal methods. They also go through a probationary period where they are paired with a veteran who further shows them the ropes.[/quote]
The probationary period in Germany includes service in the “Bereitschaftspolizei” - readiness and riot control forces. Essentially, most cops have stood in the face of tens of thousands of soccer fans, stared down hooligans or even subdued them without use of firearms. The problem with the vetting and training process in the US is not the least that given the short period, it is easier to fake yourself through. You can fool some people some of the time, but duping pros over the course of two years whose task it is to find the bad apples is substantially more difficult. Which is not to say that there aren’t problematic individuals in German forces. But there, too, the problems are often structural. In States that have a tradition of being “blind on the right eye”, i.e. they have a tendency to be far more lenient towards right wing extremism, it’s much easier for people with right wing ideas, be they racist or politically extremist, to get on the force - since evidently, those doing the vetting more or less share the ideas.
The more extensive the training, the more scenarios can be trained.
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Well, you can tell who failed marching band try outs…
Well, but it is extremely relevant. What works fine under German law simply would not work the same under current US law. I know the systems are different, but that means direct comparisons is going to be harder to make.
I support more training, assuming it is the right kind of training. I am not 100% sure if training is the issue as much as the cultures in specific departments. Or both.
