Honestly, I agree with the cop in this instance. I just hate how easily cops deploy tasers and pretend there's no risk. I've seen video of a cop tasering a 60 year old woman who didn't want to sign her speeding ticket.
my first instinct was to say the cop absolutely should not have shot the guy, full stop. Then I remembered that tasers are not always "less than lethal" and what I put on here, about how if the guy running did shoot the cop, then he'd potentially have access to a firearm, since if he was of the mindset to take a taser from a cop what's to say he wouldn't also take the gun? Like you, I also agree that cops should not be so damn quick to deploy tasers. It's a training issue, I think. They aren't trained in de-escalation -- again, from what I've seen and known to be true from people I know who are cops -- but what they do have are tools. Like if the pepper spray or baton doesn't work, use a taser. If that doesn't work, use the gun. I agree with how in England, and I think a few other European countries, not all cops have guns. If you have a hammer on your side, you're gonna think everything is a nail. Again, tasers have the potential to be deadly. Reuters did a pretty good in-depth study of it. One of the many good things to come from this, I believe, will be a re-evaluation of police use, police training, and a referendum on how they use force and under what circumstances. I think we will end up seeing a completely different ROE for cops, as well as a completely different way they are trained. Having the Chief of Police in Atlanta step down over the Wendys thing is just nonsense. It was an over-reaction, and only serves to give more fuel to the "defund the police" crowd. What the cop did was a "good shoot." It wasn't pretty, no one should ever have to die, but it was justified under the circumstances.
I agree whole heartedly, there are some cops that should not ever wear a badge. They are a scourge on society. I just get rankled sometimes because I have a lot of friends in law enforcement and I'm privy to some of the crap they have to put up with. People say and do things to officers that they'd never say or do to a normal person, just because they're law enforcement. In my opinion that's just as wrong as officers abusing their position. There are people on this board that paint anyone in law enforcement with a broad brush. If they applied that same broad brush to any other demographic they would be labeled racist, xenophobic, transphobic, or any other horrible thing that people label others as. But as long as they keep it to just all cops, there's no push back.
now they're looting the wendy's and set fire to it. Fresh never frozen right? A fire truck just showed up and they started throwing shit at it, mobbed it. The cop car escorting it got the fuck outta dodge. This is absolutely horrible. *edit here's another feed: some kind of explosion just went off near the wendy's and now there's a big fire next to it. I just saw one person holding a sign that simply read "BURN"
I'm one of those people, and I've been really quiet on this thread. Cops deserve A SHIT-TON of oversight for the power that they wield. They can fuck your life with the stroke of a pen, much less a bullet. That's all I'm going to say right now; I've been drinking.
It always gets ugly when you add blubbering racist homeschooled trash into the mix. Rural Ohio is just..... I like parts. I liked Cincinatti, like Columbus, Cleveland kinda sucks but has the RRHOF and is near Cedar Point but outside the cities it’s Cold Florida. Dayton. Dayton is also not good.
I'm seeing a bunch of laws being proposed about this, and I'm genuinely curious...isn't it already illegal to kill unarmed civilians? Like, per the Geneva convention? Also, for some of my parent's (white, rural, conservative) friends on facebook....when this happened to white people, it was the plot of Rambo: First Blood. I am kind of astounded at how the whole premise of "hey, maybe stop killing unarmed civilians, please...or if you do, maybe you should go to jail" is controversial. Haven't we "liberated" some other countries for doing this kind of shit?
On the flip side BLM has claimed for years tasers are a deadly weapon except I guess when a black guy wields one.
This is my problem with BLM. I want to see major police reforms, but you have to be realistic. If someone is such a dumbass they want to fight the cops and fire tasers at them, well, I wouldn't say they deserve to die, but you're kind of bringing it on yourself at that point. If we start locking up cops for using their weapons in situations like that pretty soon we aren't going to have any cops. In short, stupid assholes don't make good martyrs.
The Dallas PD is floating eliminating weapon discharge if the suspect has a knife, among other half baked ideas. Anyone familiar with the 21 foot rule knows this is asking for more police to get stabbed. At some point you won't have to defund the police, they'll just see mass walk outs and plummeting recruiting.
The legal document you're looking for is the Constitution, not the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions apply to military forces engaged in an international conflict. They are not applicable to police use of force against an internal population. GC rules apply only in times of armed conflict and seek to protect people who are not or are no longer taking part in hostilities. They can apply to nation states engaging internal rebel forces, but those typically are only applicable if the nation state uses its military to engage internal rebel forces. Additionally, there are two criteria to distinguish non-international armed conflicts. The level of violence has to be of certain intensity, for example when the state cannot contain the situation with regular police forces. Also, involved non-state groups need to have a certain level of organization, like a military command structure. Despite how well anyone may think the current protests & riots are organized, they do not meet any of the above criteria.
The GC doesn't really apply anywhere because no one at war actually gives a shit, including the handful of nations that pretend they do.
Thanks for the clarification. KT & Clutch: Christ you guys must be fun at parties. I must have missed something. Where in all of Christendom is someone saying it's ok to shoot tasers at or fight cops? Wouldn't you file that one under "don't bring a taser to a gun fight"? I thought we were upset about cops killing unarmed civilians with zero consequences. I was under the impression that the debate is around what consequences are acceptable for a homicide perpetrated by a police officer and how to improve accountability for cops nationwide when members of the police forces are acting like Judge Dredd at a traffic stop. Put another way: exactly where were George Floyd, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, etc. hiding their weapons? Or in shorter words: the fuck you talking about?
And the 21 foot rule is more of a minimum than anything. For a good idea of what cops are facing like that, "holster" a nerf gun or something and have a buddy run at you with a marker. See how many times he's able to put ink on you before you get one shot off. See if that shot hits him. And see how many marks he has on him too. Sounds counter-intuitive, but I'd absolutely rather be facing someone with a gun than a knife in closer range. At least with guns, you have a hope, however slim, of making them jam, them malfunctioning by themselves, hell just the bad guy forgetting to take it off safety will buy you enough time to get the fuck out of his way. Knives don't have a safety, and they don't run out of ammo either.
Knife attacks have a such a malicious, personal factor to them. A gun has the power to clear a room, an entire street just by pulling it. That’s death, staring you right in the face if the owner so chooses. I am fucking gone. If you or somebody you care about is getting jumped, you get attacked in your vehicle... a gun’s mere presence could save you. I totally get owning one for a purpose such as that. When somebody pulls a blade, they are not trying to “clear the room”. That person is trying to kill, and if they’re anywhere close you should assume they could kill you. Getting stabbed is not fun. I took a small knife to my abdomen and once had a blade sink between my ring and pinky finger which froze my hand into a claw for a month. If you can’t get away from a blade, and it’s coming at you.... fight for your LIFE. Use any tactic you can to put that person down, grab whatever you can. The next time I see a knife I promise to seal the deal by dropping a concrete parking abutment on their face.
yet people aren’t as scared of knives as they should be. Any idiot who can see can kill someone with a knife. Or at least make their life fucking miserable. Yet it’s insanely hard to hit a moving (especially if unpredictably moving) target with a gun, especially at a distance, even for a trained shooter. Add in adrenaline and an untrained person behind that trigger and it’s basically spray and pray beyond 15 yards with a pistol. juxtapose that with a knife, in one movement you can get charged and your guts sliced open. Fuck. That. Nothing scares me more than a crazy person with a blade.