When I lived in Columbus they had 7 Ghetto Birds as we called them. They were dispatched for everything from murder man hints to lane changes without signals.
Yes, absolutely. Aside from the events where police made the wrong choice to use deadly force in the first place, there's others where cops empty their guns at people- missing altogether or hitting bystanders. It's due to a lack of range time/training and low proficiency standards but also how in places like New York City the pistols they carry are required to have absurdly heavy trigger pulls (essentially to compensate for a lack of firearm safety training), which also makes it a lot harder to hit whatever you're aiming at. Expecting the average officer to have the ability to hit someone's arm or leg is ludicrous, I mean that's something that could challenge a really skilled shooter. All this said, better training on more than just firearms seems like a no-brainer. Thinking about the situation here in Minnesota just makes me feel depressed. It's not surprising but still disappointing to hear there's been a rise in backlash against Muslims in the state. The idiots who like to fly Confederate flags from their shitty trucks here are having a field day. St. Cloud (and frankly most of the rural country here) was already a shitty hotbed for racism and xenophobia, and I can only see it getting worse. Fuck.
From what I've read, NYC besides having the 12lb trigger, also only allows double actions with their much longer pull, further making hitting anything your aiming at near impossible. I read a figure somewhere that accuracy with the NYPD guns drops dramatically after about 10 ft.
Not that it affects my feelings that this was excessive force and unjustified deadly use of a firearm, but it appears the cop said in her statement that the man who was shot "exhibited signs that he was on PCP," and a vial of it was allegedly found in his car. That would explain the erratic behaviour and non-compliance, if true. http://heavy.com/news/2016/09/teren...ack-man-shot-unarmed-video-family-photos-car/
Is there an established force continuum that LE needs to follow these days because I am confused here: -Erratic behavior - authorized use of deadly force? -Disobeying a lawful order - authorized use of deadly force? -Resisting arrest - authorized use of deadly force? -Being under influence of illicit drugs - authorized use of deadly force? -Being in possession of illicit drugs - authorized use of deadly force? 4 of the 5 are against the law, the 5th is cause for concern and will likely lead to the other 4 but none of them appear to be punishable by deadly force without trial or sentencing. Seriously though, it seems subjective in each instance as to where the line is drawn. Do they just need to say: "I feared for my personal safety" and then it's ok or do they need to see a weapon or object that looks like a weapon? The military, who are armed and armored differently than LE have clearly established ROE that they are supposed to follow and when it is proven that they don't follow them people get in trouble. In LE it seems like a very gray area where different behaviors in different places at different times mean different things. Consider we are talking about normal people, just like the LE are supposed to be normal people, we should have a pretty high standard for normal people wearing a badge to use deadly force....they sure have a pretty rote set of standards for military people against enemy combatants. Why does it seem this doesn't exist in the civilian world?
A recent post I saw that I agree with (having only been in some indirect fire situations, but having been trained similarly).
So do you think police should have greater leniency to kill, or tighter leniency than armed soldiers in a combat theatre?
I think we can all acknowledge there is a problem with LEO's using lethal force way too often. A way to change that is to change the standards they have to meet, and change requirements for lethal force. Is the comparison to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan completely fair and literal? Hell no, but can we use it as a frame of reference for trying to understand how LEO's might behave in the future, I think absolutely.
I have a problem with the ROE in war. The people we're fighting disregard it and use it against us. In the scenario above, with the car barreling toward them, a warning shot followed by a disabling shot to the vehicle should have been all that was required. If the disabling shot to the vehicle doesn't work, then shoot to kill. They have more training than LEO, yeah, but doesn't mean soldiers should have to go through all these protocols and put their lives in danger. (Personally, I think we should get out of there completely, but since that isn't gonna happen, if they won't fight fair then neither should we... though I'm not suggesting trump-level war crimes like killing their families. But I did like the bullet in pigs blood one.)
Serious question ...Do y'all honestly believe that we as a species have evolved into a collective of dim-witted idiots? 90% of police shootings wouldn't happen if the person simply complied with an officer's commands. That means no running away, keep your hands where the officer can see them, don't attack the officer. Is that concept really so difficult that as a society we cannot grasp it? If you don't like the commands, you still comply and you come out alive to file charges against the officer, go to the news, whatever you feel you have to do. I get that there are bad cops, bad shootings and uncalled for violence do happen and that needs to be addressed. But the problem does not lie completely with the cops. There are about 800K LEOs in this country and 38 of them have been shot and killed in the line of duty this year. That comes out to a rate of about 4.5 shot and killed per 100K. People are screaming that they're afraid of the cops and cops are killing people at epidemic proportions. If police shot and killed the general population at the rate that they themselves are we would have over 14,000 dead civilians at the hands of the police so far this year. if we had even 1/10 of that number we'd have a HUGE problem, but we're not even close to that figure. Police are jumpy because we live in an extremely violent society and it is part of their job to protect us from that violence. So once again, is the problem that society is just simply unable to grasp that you do what the officer says and usually everyone goes home safe? Or is that concept just to complicated for the modern human brain?
First of all, that 90% number in your first paragraph? If that's true, that's completely unacceptable. I hope the actual statistic is more like 98%. If 10% of officer shootings were of people complying with instructions, that's WAY too many. Second, I agree that if they did comply, they wouldn't be shot. But, it's not a matter of "too complicated," but different contributing factors. The person might be under the influence and not thinking rationally, which shouldn't be a death sentence. They may be incredibly distraught or in other emotional distress that also causes lack of judgment. Or, they may have been brought up in an experience that teaches them to absolutely not trust the cops. They aren't thinking, if I do what the cop says, I won't get shot; they're thinking, if I do what the cop says, I'm going to be unfairly arrested. They aren't thinking, well, after this, I can totally sue the cops for harassment. They're thinking, I'm about to have a permanent record, or my third strike, or I'll lose my job for sure, or whatever. Simple human nature is involved, too. Haven't you ever seen a kid, whose mother JUST said, if you hit your brother again, no TV for a week? And, they hit their brother anyway? It's impulsive, it's reactive.
It may be higher, I just pulled a likely number out of my ass. I've only seen video of one police shooting (Not fatal) where the person was completely complying. Also did anyone see the news? Riot in Charlotte NC. Black man shot and killed. Police said he had a weapon. Family says he was in his car reading a book minding his own business. A gun was recovered, a book was not. Between 12-16 officers injured, several semis looted and burned, several police units destroyed. Here we go again.
Police officers have shot and killed 702 people in 2016. Given that number, the numbers you give and the US Population police officers have a .00475% chance of being shot and a citizens has a .00021 chance of being shot. A police officer is 20 times more likely to be killed by someone than to kill someone themselves. I don't find any of these numbers to be particularly high given their profession. If some one finds these numbers too risky then they probably shouldn't go in to law enforcement. I don't think that people, citizens or police officers, should be that worried about being killed by each other. People aren't protesting all police shootings, but it seems that unwarranted police shootings follow a pattern and there never seems to be any repercussions for the officers. Whether that be a conviction, or just being fired from the police force. The problem I have with your statements is that it seems to imply that the police officers are doing nothing wrong. Someone who did not have a weapon was shot and killed by a police officer. That is a problem worth addressing. I think addressing that problem involves a couple of steps. 1. Hold police officers accountable. No more blue shield bull shit. If you're good at your or corrupt you get fired or face legal repercussions. 2. Better training. A police officer shouldn't be so skittish that someone reaching into their car becomes a death sentence. 3. Community outreach. This doesn't seem to get mentioned enough and it has had success in a lot of communities. Basically if you get the officers out of their cars and onto the streets to interact with the people in the neighborhoods they patrol it leads to better police engagement. Less complaints about police officers, etc. On a more personal note I have had a few interactions with police officers in my life, and I certainly didn't comply with all their orders for all of those interactions. I police officer has never even pulled a gun on me in those instances. I choose to believe people when they tell me that their experiences with police officers are different than mine. What pisses me off the most about this issues is that people so readily dismiss other peoples experiences. We had people on this board that were well liked that basically got told that their experiences weren't valid because it didn't match with others world view. That's fucked up, and what I was talking about when I said that you don't seem to care about minorities. Frankly I don't think this issue is going away, because to many people are unwilling to even have an open mind about it. This is the way you see things, and nothing is going to change that.
Have there been reports of that? There was one incident in the video above, but he had already shot at the police. Otherwise, neither the police nor a citizen can shoot a fleeing person. If they're fleeing, they do not present an immediate danger.
I agree completely with this sentiment; however, it is flawed. I posted earlier that combat veterans will tell you that under life-threatening stress, people do crazy shit. Not because they're malicious or dangerous; just because their brains aren't working off logic in the heat of the moment. Alternatively, someone could be high on drugs. Or suffering from a psychotic break. Unfortunately, the police act as first responders, meaning they will disproportionately be exposed to crazy people who act abnormally and are at times non-compliant. Being: - Scared, to the point of irrational behaviour - High on drugs - Mentally ill Should not EVER be justifications for execution. Police should have the training and the resources to deal with the public, who in some cases may not be capable of following orders or acting sensibly. Their training should train them to de-escalate. Failing that, the tactics should focus on non-injurious physical restraint. There should never, ever be a situation where they shoot first to protect themselves, because they've signed up for a profession where they serve the public. The threshold for their deadly response should be much higher than a civilian's.
It should also be noted that other western developed countries with solid judicial systems do not see nearly the level of death inflicted by police or toward police. Aren't there some parts of the UK where cops aren't even armed? If other countries have figured out ways that significantly reduces the level of violent interaction, they should be studied and emulated, rather than trying to justify why killing civilian citizens in their own country without trial is justified.
I was a Humvee gunner in Baghdad. My ROE required that, when I saw a potential threat (let's just say a potential car bomb trying to get into our convoy), to start with hand signals and/or verbal instructions, then fire a warning shot, then shoot their bumper/hood, then use deadly force. This shit happened a lot. Many times it took a hole in someone's front bumper to get them to stop. 90% of the time it was some idiot that ignored the "Stay Back Or You Will Be Shot" sign on the back of the rear vehicle, and thought that having a rifle pointed at them was merely a suggestion. When it came to anyone on foot, they had to be shooting at me or at least pointing a gun/RPG at me in order for me to engage them. If I would've just skipped these steps and killed an innocent Iraqi civilian simply because I was nervous, I would've been in deep, deep shit. And this was in a war zone where there is always a very real and imminent threat. When I see most of these videos, I see officers who obviously haven't been properly trained to deal with these situations, and who aren't thinking of the repercussions of dealing with them poorly. Shit, a lot of them barely have repercussions for fucking it all up. Following a non-compliant guy around with your guns drawn on him and then killing him after he walks back to his vehicle is not a proactive way to deal with a situation. These guys have tasers for a reason.
It would be nice to improve the police in America, but we all know that's not going to happen, and it would because of the source of the problem to begin with: the police. You are never, EVER going to get a police department and/union that they do anything wrong, ever. We've seen this in the form of shitstains like Pat Lynch, Steve Loomis and Jeff Roorda. They are convinced a police officer's life is more valuable than others and therefore are incapable of doing wrong. Police only apologize when they're forced to, the taxpayers foot the lawsuit bill whenever they kill an innocent person, and they continue to kill people while bullying the dead man. The police ARE the problem. They created this towering distrust in society by militarizing themselves like paranoid faux-soldiers and crying like sissy little babies at any criticism sent their way. Since they won't change, nothing will. This will not only continue but it will get worse. Until society starts to treat them as humans and punish them for their crimes accordingly no good change will come. Recently, an NYPD idiot kills a completely innocent man and gets fucking HOUSE ARREST for it. Why should taxpayers respect a system that corrupt when that's what their money gets them?