Law Enforcement and its abuse of power

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Ok, but I'm genuinely confused now. Is this a possible argument in favor of them using lethal force?

No, just a rejection that a taser can be just as effective and/or more accurate. It's really not.

Quote

Seriously though, some of you are way too comfortable with the idea of the police routinely killing people. I mean, I watched all the Dirty Harry movies as a kid, and already at the time there was a nagging voice at the back of my head wondering whether Harry was supposed to be the good guy...
"Fun" fact: when I was a kid (5 or 6), an adult (my mom I assume, but the memories are fuzzy) sat down with me and told me never ever to run away from a US cop, as that could give them an excuse to shoot me.
And I'm freaking white.

I actually don't think the people here taking that side are too comfortable with the police taking life. Everyone has said they don't like it and wish it was extremely rare while also acknowledging that there are some circumstances in which it's the only option to prevent someone seriously hurting another person, and that the Bryant example meets that standard for them. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, Leap said:

I linked it 3 pages ago  The only thing worse than a bad cop is a credit fraudster. 

My bad.  I missed it.  I suck.

But y’all already knew that.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

The whole accepted wisdom of "shooting a leg is more likely to miss, therefore you should aim for centre of mass and make sure you kill the person" has been around and standard policy for decades now, but I'm also not at all convinced it's actually right.

I honestly used to believe this as well, but I come from a family with a lot of people in the military and law enforcement and they will all swear that it's just not realistic. Even with all that training they still miss a ton and they are human, i.e. they will panic and make mistakes. Aiming for the torso is the easiest target to hit and the most likely to immediately stop a person absent shooting them in the head. 

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

But surely in the case of a teen running at someone else with a knife and police only a few metres away, shooting them in the leg is going to cause them to stumble at least if not fall over and buy time to close the distance and restrain them with non lethal force? 

The problem here is the amount of uncertainty. You may miss or graze someone and we don't know how each individual will react to getting shot or how much their adrenaline is pumping. 

51 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

To your second point yes, our firearms officers are far better trained I'd imagine than your average American officer with a gun. And 

They almost certainly are. A while back I posted a link showing the amount of training police receive in various Western countries and the U.S. was a joke compared to basically every European country. Furthermore, our hiring standards were significantly lower than most European countries. So it's really the worst situation where we have undertrained and over armed police treating urban areas like de facto war zones. And what makes it better you might ask? Police recruit heavily from the military, and what could go wrong with taking combat vets and turning them into officers policing the streets?

[Kalbear]

There's another odd aspect, which is that in the US we focus a lot on job satisfaction and pairing what people think would be a good fit for them to the job. And this has increased over time. 

Which means a whole lot of the kinds of people who would be worst at actually policing are police because that's what they have desire to be. 

[Mudguard]

54 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

Let's see: there's the guy who saw someone else's house being robbed, went out of his house and shot them both  with a shotgun:

Here's one where a guy opened fire into the car while it was driving away because as far as he knew they could have jumped out and opened fire:

So @Ran, as nonthreatening as that dog was, here's one that's even less threatening - a dog leash. Oops!

And then there's this exact one: a guy chased a person for over a block and stabbed him to death:

All from here: https://www.propublica.org/article/five-stand-your-ground-cases-you-should-know-about

The first two cases didn't get pass a grand jury.  The defense doesn't participate in that phase so the case failed before the SYG defense was even raised.

3rd case resulted in a conviction as Ran states.

4th case is pretty close but can be distinguished because the chase was to recover stolen property and the gunshot was in self defense of being attacked by a bag of radios.  That said, SYG seems really weak to me here.

If these are worst uses of SYG then I think the generalization still holds.  There are always exceptions to the general rule when you go to trial.  

[Rippounet]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, just a rejection that a taser can be just as effective and/or more accurate.

Sorry, that can't be right. I can buy that a stun gun is less accurate, but there has to be situations where it is at least as effective, or there is no sense in equiping police officers with them at all.
Also, I'll repeat that non-lethal weapons are continuously being improved, so the situations in which lethal force is the best option are mechanically becoming fewer as that happens.

At it's core, this is also what it's about: refusing to accept that the death of a 16-year-old girl wielding a kitchen knife was inevitable is how you think about what it takes to change things. One can acknowledge that the police officer did the best he could (given his equipement and training) and still see room for improvement.
Isn't defending things as they are (vs how they should be) a conservative trait?

[Kalbear]

@Mudguard, those were in the first article I found. I'm sure there are plenty more. There was another one where a guy killed the mother of his kids and then claimed it. Some are successful, some not, but it isnt particularly outlandish - especially if there were no cameras to dispute things. 

Heck, Ahmaud Arberys case was considered this because the two men claimed he was running from a theft and the ga attorney didn't bother to think about opening the case. 

Now I will grant that Bryant probably wouldn't be successful with this because she's black, but that's not exactly a glowing reason for it to be a failure. 

[Alarich II]

Big in our local news: Police were called to an alleged murder scene at night, an guy wielding a knife and a hand broom, inebriated refuses to put down the broom which allegedly the officer mistook for a gun in the darkness. Gets shot in the leg as he walks toward the officer to show him that he's really just wielding a knife and a broom. So I guess it is possible to aim for the leg.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

Big in our local news: Police were called to an alleged murder scene at night, an guy wielding a knife and a hand broom, inebriated refuses to put down the broom which allegedly the officer mistook for a gun in the darkness. Gets shot in the leg as he walks toward the officer to show him that he's really just wielding a knife and a broom. So I guess it is possible to aim for the leg.

Of course it’s possible.  The question is whether aiming for an extremity may or may not put more people in danger.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Sorry, that can't be right. I can buy that a stun gun is less accurate, but there has to be situations where it is at least as effective, or there is no sense in equiping police officers with them at all.
Also, I'll repeat that non-lethal weapons are continuously being improved, so the situations in which lethal force is the best option are mechanically becoming fewer as that happens.

Tasers certainly can be effective, but the key is they're not as effective as a lot of people think. As has been mentioned before, their range isn't great and certain clothes null their effects. On top of that sometimes they don't give off a charge and some people aren't impacted that strongly by them. They have a lot of use in many situations, but with the one we're specifically discussing it's not a safe bet using a taser would have prevented the girl in pink from getting stabbed.

Quote

At it's core, this is also what it's about: refusing to accept that the death of a 16-year-old girl wielding a kitchen knife was inevitable is how you think about what it takes to change things. One can acknowledge that the police officer did the best he could (given his equipement and training) and still see room for improvement.

It's not inevitable, and there's certainly scenarios in which Bryant got shot and survived. On the separate issue of improving, I think a lot of forces are trying to do just that, but the technology might not be there yet and again, the U.S. is unique considering the sheer volume of guns in our society. At this point in time it's hard to see how we could shift to a model more common in Europe, though that shouldn't prevent us from trying over time.

Quote

Isn't defending things as they are (vs how they should be) a conservative trait?

Sure, but again, I don't see people here shrugging their shoulders and saying it is what it is. 

[Zorral]

One might want to compare and contrast this with most of the cop depts. here in the USA and their murder rates -- which goes to show that shooting a black kid, no matter what, baked into the system. Whereas shooting an armed and threatening white guy like Bundy is most definitely not baked into the system.  

It isn't necessary.

https://www.fox6now.com/news/nj-police-department-didnt-fire-single-shot-in-2020-thanks-to-de-esclation-program

Quote

 

NEWARK, N.J. - Not a single shot was fired by officers in Newark, New Jersey in 2020, and city officials credit the department’s ongoing de-escalation training for the statistic in a year filled with challenges.

"This is proof-positive that our de-escalation training is highly effective. Our officers have embraced de-escalation training and are actively employing this resource when engaging with the community," said Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose in a statement . . . .

 

https://newjersey.news12.com/newark-police-no-officer-fired-a-single-shot-in-2020-thanks-to-de-escalation-program

Quote

 

"Newark police: No officer fired a single shot in 2020, thanks to de-escalation program"

Newark police and city officials say a de-escalation training program is working, especially in a year faced with challenges. Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose says 2020 was the roughest year in his 34-year career in law enforcement. Six of their 1,100 officers lost their lives to COVID-19 with dozens more officers sick after being exposed on the job. They also faced major challenges during the summer's anti-police brutality protests. Through it all, Ambrose says not one officer in the city fired his or her weapon while on duty in 2020....

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Zorral

[Zorral]

I will also give credit to NJ's Governor Murphy, whom takes the time to communicate person-to-person, and all the communities of color, with his regular spot in the evening on the WBGO, the Jazz radio station out of Newark, "Ask Governor Murphy."  Not are the questions and commentary soft ball.  He's impressive.  He really is.

[BigFatCoward]

8 hours ago, Alarich II said:

Big in our local news: Police were called to an alleged murder scene at night, an guy wielding a knife and a hand broom, inebriated refuses to put down the broom which allegedly the officer mistook for a gun in the darkness. Gets shot in the leg as he walks toward the officer to show him that he's really just wielding a knife and a broom. So I guess it is possible to aim for the leg.

Did the officer mean to shoot him in the leg? That's not clear from your post. 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by BigFatCoward

[Alarich II]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Of course it’s possible.  The question is whether aiming for an extremity may or may not put more people in danger.

I would say that getting shot at always puts people in danger. But so far the German police are not known for their reckless shooting.

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Did the officer mean to shoot him in the leg? That's not clear from your post. 

 

TBH I don't know. I kind of assumed that the officer already had his gun out and trained on the guy, so it's not out of the question that he aimed for the leg. More importantly, he fired a shot, observed the impact, ceased fireing and called the ambulance. Of course there will be an investigation because a shot was fired.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

I would say that getting shot at always puts people in danger. But so far the German police are not known for their reckless shooting.

You left out the key qualifier “more” in front of “people”.  I’m glad the officer stopped after hitting the suspect in the leg.  It is absolutely proper for the shooting to be carefully investigated.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You left out the key qualifier “more” in front of “people”.

No, I don't think he did.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

No, I don't think he did.

He absolutely did:

I would say that getting shot at always puts people in danger. But so far the German police are not known for their reckless shooting.

[Rippounet]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

He absolutely did

I don't see why the sentence requires that "more" in it, would you care to explain?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Rippounet said:

I don't see why the sentence requires that "more" in it, would you care to explain?

Because he brushed over the point that choosing to aim at extremities rather than center mass puts more people at risk because misses and ricochets are more likely when a smaller part of the body that is more likely to be in motion is targeted.

Yes, “people” are at risk when someone is shot.  But, “more people” are at risk when the sharpshooter goes for “trick shots” rather than aiming at the largest target possible.

[Rippounet]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

“more people” are at risk when the sharpshooter goes for “trick shots” rather than aiming at the largest target possible.

The entire point of the story reported by Alarich is, I would say, that this was definitely not the case here. What you call a "trick shot" saved a life. Or are you arguing that this guy with a broom and knife actually deserved to die?