The statistics are in your favor!
Come now, that’s the road to life in prison, and if you live in the US, you really should have an understanding of that by now.
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No, there is one thing at issue. You argued that the fact that no one was actually hurt meant that the officer couldn’t have actually escalated the situation. This is absurd. Just because it didn’t escalate further doesn’t mean the officer didn’t wildly escalate a routine traffic stop. You can argue that he was right to escalate it, but not that he didn’t do so.
Indeed, and they’re used to justify all kinds of overreactions and escalations. Rationalizing an officer drawing a gun any time there is a “possible” weapon gives police a blank check to bring almost any situation to the brink of deadly force. You have, in fact, done such a thing.
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Is there ever a time when it is reasonable for an officer to draw their weapon? And if so, when is that?
Of course there are times when it is reasonable and necessary for an officer to draw their weapon. The exact line for that is, of course, always going to be blurry and subject to interpretation. But wherever that line is, it is and should be far more than the mere possibility of a weapon.
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cc @Mister44
So you mean to say…if you are a police officer and the passenger begins to reach under an object grasping for something unknown to you…you would not consider that as the line?
Think about this very carefully…because there are only two outcomes here…the passenger pulls out a weapon, or they don’t. The don’t could be a piece of paper, sunglasses, a stale french fry, or nothing. BUT…if it is a weapon, then you as the officer are in a defenseless position standing at point blank range, either your face is in the window space or your abdomen is. If they pull a firearm on you, grave bodily harm is in all probability the likely outcome, death is a distinct possibility.
Where is that line for you as a police officer? What is reasonable to your sense of self-preservation and safety?
Yeah, that’s exactly the rationalization I was talking about above that justifies an officer pulling a gun in just about any situation. Every single time someone reaches into their pocket or their backpack or their glove compartment or their purse or under their seat, they are “grasping for something unknown” to the officer. That’s a blank check used to excuse jumpy officers from escalating situations to the brink of deadly force.
An officer is not justified in pulling a weapon any time there is a possibility of a weapon because that’s not how it works for anyone else. If I’m standing on the subway platform next to a 20 year old guy with a backpack, I don’t get to pull out a gun and point it at him just because he reached into his bag where he could have a weapon and I’d be in a defenseless position unless I pulled my gun first.
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You are disregarding the reality of police procedures and realistic expectations. If an officer walks to your car and asks for license and registration and you reach into a purse or pocket or the glove comparetment very few officers of any will be suspicious or react by drawing their weapon. They asked for something that garnered an expected response to the common location of the items requested.
You cannot sit here and exclaim that “yes there is a point they can draw their weapon” but Not define where you think it is. You also insist on describing “twitchy cops” to which I’d argue this officer shows no indication that he was anything except calm under the circumstances and unwavering. Notice how he never moves his finger. At all. He perceives a potential deadly threat but holds his ground. Never escalating beyond that state even in the slightest.
That is the sign of a good patrol officer.
How much experience do you have brandishing firearms in potentially life threatening situations? Do you have training for such things? Do you know many or any LEO/Military personnel to which you could present this story to and ask their commentary on?
I think you’d find they would say this officer complied with procedure well and properly. (Based on what we have seen and read from the videos available and stories released).
I have repeated said I can’t 100% be sure that the officer SHOULD have drawn. I also can not say 100% that he SHOULD NOT have drawn. It is a reasonable assumption that he had a good reason to draw (it is also reasonable to assume the opposite, but one should acknowledge the possibility of both, which I have, repeatedly.)
However, going off the assumption the draw was warranted, then I believe how he handled things was more or less by the book. He didn’t scream, yell, or abuse the passenger. He didn’t even have it drawn and thrust forward. I am not 100% sure it was actually pointed directly at him the entire time, but at the ready.
If we can agree there will be times when an officer should draw his weapon, and some of those times will be because the passengers behavior, can we also agree that if it is handled in a calm, professional manner then no one should end up getting hurt either. Isn’t that what we want? A professional police force that isn’t overly abusive.
I even conceded that the original stop and original reason to draw COULD be bullshit. I don’t know for sure. It could be due to racial bias. Hand tattoos don’t help things either (right or wrong, it will carry a bias in most people). At the same time, if every racist cop acted like this cop, can we agree that probably there would be less police shootings?
Seems like the reasonable thing for the police officer to do, rather than keep a gun pointed at someone who has done nothing wrong, would be to tell them to wait with the engine off while backup arrives, then go back to his bike. De-escalate, instead of risking blowing someone’s head off with a combination of fatigue and error.
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And that’s the road to disenfranchisement. If all it takes for people to abandon their values and way of life is threats of death or imprisonment, then they have already lost. It can’t be too hard to demonstrate more strength of character than police, FFS. Personally, my duty to society is stronger than my concern for comfort or self-preservation. So I do what I need to to help.
These two statements are mutually exclusive.
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And the public is shown actual body cam footage of unarmed, compliant, innocent people being shot by police. How about we all calm down a bit? Police need to start that effort, since they initiate the interaction.
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Not really. SOME abuse can mean there is still LESS abuse. We should be striving for LESS and LESS until there is NONE - though until we get robot cops, I don’t think we will ever get none.
And in this case, I acknowledge race may well play a factor, it may not as well. I am making a baseless assumption there.
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As another person of color, I fully concur. Although I’m a decent law abiding citizen who goes to work and pays my taxes like a good little cog is supposed to, I still am horribly aware of the fact that any encounter with the police has the potential to become a deadly one, just based solely on the color of my skin and the mentality of the officers in question, regardless to how politely I may behave.
That’s a terrible reality, but it’s the one I live in daily.
Again I concur; it’s like his personal blind spot, all too often unfortunately.
That said, here are my personal rules in such a situation;
Don’t move.
Don’t speak unless spoken to first.
When you do speak, keep it civil, calm and slow.
If given a direction, such as “show me your license/registration,” repeat the command as you perform the action: “Yes sir, my registration is under the seat; I’m going to slowly reach for it now, is that okay?”
Someone upthread chided someone else for their “advice” on engaging the police, saying that it’s better suited to how you’d deal with running into a wild bear… which is highly ironic; because that’s exactly how I deal with LEO’s whenever I have to interact with them - as if contending with a violent, deadly animal that could attack me at any second without any provocation.
The only difference is I that think my odds of survival are marginally higher with the bears.
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There are more effective solutions to police overreach than “kill” or “be killed.”
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Simple. After the passenger explained that he was not reaching for a weapon but rather the requested documents, let him. If there is a weapon and he thinks he can beat a trained officer on the draw when the officer already has a gun pointed at him, he’s an idiot. If, as it turned out, there was only paperwork under the seat, the whole situation de-escalates in moments in that scenario.
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Stop, you’re making far too much sense.
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Im not sticking up for the fucking police. I want a solution for everyone, and I dont see calling this cop names as being helpful.
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To be sure, but I am not clear how that is a reply to anything I said. I did not put forth either of those as “solutions” to anything. What I was getting at is that if you let the threat of death dissuade you, you are giving oppressors control. Knowing that people fear imprisonment and death is a strategy for maintaining social control. And it works the same way whether it’s: “I can’t possibly survive if I don’t get money somehow”, or “I need to comply with whatever this cop says, regardless of whether or not it is justified”.
How and when you die ultimately has to be secondary (at best) to how you actually live, and whether or not you are able to live in a way that is acceptable to your conscience, and allows you to fulfil your duties to society. Otherwise, you have been neutralized as a social agent, whether you keep breathing for another sixty years or sixty seconds.
Not a lot of name-calling going on. The title of the article used the adjective “inept.” I would have to agree with that assessment, when he had a lot of options to de-escalate the situation, and didn’t use them. He actually does seem fairly calm after the initial minute or so, so it’s probably not this individual but rather the training that isn’t working out so well.
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