They where given multiple chances to put down the weapon and to surnender. They had no stun guns which is probably a thing g that should be issued to campus police.
But they can still under certain circumstances be lethal.
Crappy but I Don, t see this act was a outright murder.
Watching the video, the police did everything right. The college student was saying shoot me, had a history of suicide attempts, had a knife, and kept moving at the officers.
Very sad but the police did it right with what they had.
Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I would say "why do the cops even respond, just let them wander around alone" because that would give the kid time to think and reflect and maybe they'd just decide to go home after a walk. But the kid was clearly disturbing people badly enough that the cops were called in the first place, so it probably was more complicated than 'just a kid with a folded knife wandering around'.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Tasers don't always work and are (albeit rarely) potentially lethal. They are also short range and would have required being within distance of a possible attack.
While we don't know if the student would have escalated and actually attacked, it's also not really a risk that should be taken.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
I think the reasons campus police don't have stun guns are many and varied.
1) They've not needed them before, and they were one of those 'nice to have but not in the budget' things (until something like this happens, then it'll get another look I imagine)
2) Officers with stun-guns may be more likely to use them, and campus police tazering every drunken reveler is bad for PA. Even cops think before they shoot someone with a real gun, while stun-guns are comparatively "casual".
3) That said, stun-guns can kill. They're called 'stun guns' due to their purpose, but the anatomy and physiology of the individual largely determines their effectiveness, and they can vary widely between "kills someone" and "barely makes them react" depending on the drugs, etc. in the person's system. I imagine this unreliability became a liability when the campus was considering what to arm police with to deal with rowdy college students.
Police did OK from what I can tell. Poor cop will now have the memories of ending a life.
Suicide by cop shootings are justified because no matter how you intend to end the confrontation by non lethal means the crazy might up the ante. Yes a taser could work and is a better resort, but if the crazy really wants to die they might later reach for a gun or pull another weapon.
Suicidal crazies often wont think twice about who they drag with them.
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
The guy clearly told them: "Shoot me". That is as clear as you could possibly want. He got his wish, just a pity that there is now probably four police officers with a trauma.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Except of course, he is a disturbed individual with a knife, on campus. That's a threat to everyone. Public safety requires that be stopped before some coed gets killed. Again the police where repeatedly backing up and doing it right. The lady police officer shot only when he got within striking range.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Except of course, he is a disturbed individual with a knife, on campus. That's a threat to everyone. Public safety requires that be stopped before some coed gets killed. Again the police where repeatedly backing up and doing it right. The lady police officer shot only when he got within striking range.
And there are people who want to carry guns on campus, citing bizarre and rare scenarios like this one...let's not pretend that "public safety" is always the issue at hand here. Suicide by Cop is more likely to happen in an environment where the attacker knows they can get their wish. Deescalation is a thing and it has been shown to work in scenarios like this. The smart play would have been to get civilians away from the area and not confront the guy as directly as was being done here.
Additionally for Skink's comment: The reason campus police don't have tasers is because, quite frankly, they can't be trusted with them. Tasers have a weird history here in the US thanks to the fact that police and others generally just take the approach of "taze them till they stop moving", which can cause big issues when someone has a heart defect or things of that nature.
I don't know which genius thought it was a good idea to give the campus police(assuming we're actually talking about campus police rather than just local police who are stationed on the campus--which if that's the case, why in the world they didn't have tasers or pepper spray I'll never know) in this scenario anything more deadly than a whistle or pepper spray...hopefully, that genius will be fired though.
I don't know which genius thought it was a good idea to give the campus police(assuming we're actually talking about campus police rather than just local police who are stationed on the campus--which if that's the case, why in the world they didn't have tasers or pepper spray I'll never know) in this scenario anything more deadly than a whistle or pepper spray...hopefully, that genius will be fired though.
Because many schools in the US have actual police. They're not rent-a-cops. They are Cops. Their jurisdiction just happens to be a school's campus.
And the general rule is that if someone has a deadly weapon you need to match the lethality of their attack.
This dude was both crazy and armed. It's a good shoot.
I don't know which genius thought it was a good idea to give the campus police(assuming we're actually talking about campus police rather than just local police who are stationed on the campus--which if that's the case, why in the world they didn't have tasers or pepper spray I'll never know) in this scenario anything more deadly than a whistle or pepper spray...hopefully, that genius will be fired though.
Well, if the student actually hurt someone and the police were only armed with whistles, people would be faulting the college for not arming the police.
We all have 20/20 hindsight. Unfortunately, it's a bad predictor of what's to come.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Except of course, he is a disturbed individual with a knife, on campus. That's a threat to everyone. Public safety requires that be stopped before some coed gets killed. Again the police where repeatedly backing up and doing it right. The lady police officer shot only when he got within striking range.
And there are people who want to carry guns on campus, citing bizarre and rare scenarios like this one...let's not pretend that "public safety" is always the issue at hand here. Suicide by Cop is more likely to happen in an environment where the attacker knows they can get their wish. Deescalation is a thing and it has been shown to work in scenarios like this. The smart play would have been to get civilians away from the area and not confront the guy as directly as was being done here.
Additionally for Skink's comment: The reason campus police don't have tasers is because, quite frankly, they can't be trusted with them. Tasers have a weird history here in the US thanks to the fact that police and others generally just take the approach of "taze them till they stop moving", which can cause big issues when someone has a heart defect or things of that nature.
I don't know which genius thought it was a good idea to give the campus police(assuming we're actually talking about campus police rather than just local police who are stationed on the campus--which if that's the case, why in the world they didn't have tasers or pepper spray I'll never know) in this scenario anything more deadly than a whistle or pepper spray...hopefully, that genius will be fired though.
IN their defense (and here's me defending police) they repeatedly backed up and were attempt to de-escalate. Its terribly sad but he got too close to the female officer and she shot him when he did so, after repeated to back off. This is not a criticism but a question-what would you have done differently to de-escalate?
Again, this is not an attack. How would you de-escalate that further?
While I wont comment on the specifics of this case, its worth noting that such incidents are routinely handled by police without fatalites in other nations frequently.
Sometimes the lethal option is required, often it is resorted to because training/mindset/etc simply doesnt cover anything else however.
In this case, I havent had a chance to watch video in full, so cant comment on this incident however.
jhe90 wrote: yeah, much as police have a vest and training,
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
Perhaps police officers could accept that they have chosen a profession which may force them to risk their own lives.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Remember the "Don't taze me bro!" incident? That's why they're probably not carrying stun guns on campus
jhe90 wrote: yeah, much as police have a vest and training,
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
Perhaps police officers could accept that they have chosen a profession which may force them to risk their own lives.
You seem under the impression that means they should just allow crazies to stab them with knives.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Remember the "Don't taze me bro!" incident? That's why they're probably not carrying stun guns on campus
amusingly, the dont tase me bro guy now works for Cernovich in florida pushing dingbat Pizza-gate conspiracy theories
jhe90 wrote: yeah, much as police have a vest and training,
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
Perhaps police officers could accept that they have chosen a profession which may force them to risk their own lives.
And done what differently?
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feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
jhe90 wrote: yeah, much as police have a vest and training,
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
Perhaps police officers could accept that they have chosen a profession which may force them to risk their own lives.
You seem under the impression that means they should just allow crazies to stab them with knives.
I'm not sure that the police resignedly shrugging their shoulders whilst being stabbed between them is the right answer.
In this case the officers dealt with the situation at hand in a way in which they were trained to with the options given them. Don't think we can blame the individuals involved on this occasion.
feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
It's a nice idea, but the next step for the suicide is always to take a swing at the cops. The one after that is to actually stab a cop. Suicidal people aren't stupid, it's an escalating suicide technique designed to get what you want (death) while removing yourself from the user agency. You don't get halfway in, go 'Shucks' and sit down and wait for arrest.
feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
Different training needs a different culture, one that is willing to change and adapt. Also it needs a voice to ensure it gets funding - which means political will to change.
feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
It's a nice idea, but the next step for the suicide is always to take a swing at the cops. The one after that is to actually stab a cop. Suicidal people aren't stupid, it's an escalating suicide technique designed to get what you want (death) while removing yourself from the user agency. You don't get halfway in, go 'Shucks' and sit down and wait for arrest.
Personally waiting for tactical knife proof exo suits and net guns.
feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
It's a nice idea, but the next step for the suicide is always to take a swing at the cops. The one after that is to actually stab a cop. Suicidal people aren't stupid, it's an escalating suicide technique designed to get what you want (death) while removing yourself from the user agency. You don't get halfway in, go 'Shucks' and sit down and wait for arrest.
There is also a question of numbers. Everybody always says that European cops are better at dealing with a crazy with a knife. But every video I see shows a frankly absurd number of officers to do it. At least 5-6, and in one I counted 20+. That's a silly amount to deal with one person. And they're still putting themselves in way more danger than necessary.
And it wouldn't be possible in the US. Our cops have to patrol much larger areas, and while they usually have backup they'd never be able to muster a dozen officers to deal with every knife armed nutter.
feeder wrote: Different training could help. There's no reason to give a suicidal person their delusional wish.
It's a nice idea, but the next step for the suicide is always to take a swing at the cops. The one after that is to actually stab a cop. Suicidal people aren't stupid, it's an escalating suicide technique designed to get what you want (death) while removing yourself from the user agency. You don't get halfway in, go 'Shucks' and sit down and wait for arrest.
Personally waiting for tactical knife proof exo suits and net guns.
Net guns definitely aren't a bad idea. You'd still have an armed suspect, but they'd have their mobility limited.
Hrm, if I can get 4 cars to respond to a noise complaint in the quiet suburbs or San Diego for literally kicking a can of beans around after 10pm in an empty parking lot, with lights and everything, I'm sure sufficient officers in large cities can be brought in
There certainly doesnt appear to be any higher rate of injury amongst officers in places like London or Tokyo that deal with such incidents without resorting to lethal force.
In some places, there may be an argument about police numbers, but not in big cities and major college campuses. The officers of NYPD alone is 2/3rds of the size of the entire German army, and has more officers than the London metropolitan police do.
I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Frazzled wrote: I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Two police by themselves without that equipment?
We should just combine police with firefighters so they will always have access to at least two of those equipment.
Frazzled wrote: I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Two police by themselves without that equipment?
We should just combine police with firefighters so they will always have access to at least two of those equipment.
Frazzled wrote: I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Two police by themselves without that equipment?
We should just combine police with firefighters so they will always have access to at least two of those equipment.
Wasn't there a book about that? Fahrenbites 450 cats or something?
Frazzled wrote: I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Two police by themselves without that equipment?
We should just combine police with firefighters so they will always have access to at least two of those equipment.
Rather extreme method. Heavy on personal and numbers.
Not everyone has the ability to deploy that many people to a single incident.
Fire truck. 10-20 officers plus fire team.
That's likely more than the entire campus police force.
And response time... The officers where there. It was there incident. There was not time to call up backup. It had to be dealt with there and then.
UK had a incident with a suspect with a machete. It took some 12 police unarmed as such to tackle that one.
Yes stun gun may have changed odds but as pointed out they are not 100% reliable that they can bring down a suspect.
And that percentage can get you killed if your lucks bad.
Frazzled wrote: I have seen both SWAT and a large group of officers take down persons with knives/swords. One SWAT team used a shield, ladder, and firetruck hose. The other group repeatedly hit the suspect with bean bags and paintballs filled with pepper until he gave up.
Two police by themselves without that equipment?
We should just combine police with firefighters so they will always have access to at least two of those equipment.
Rather extreme method. Heavy on personal and numbers.
Not everyone has the ability to deploy that many people to a single incident.
Fire truck. 10-20 officers plus fire team.
That's likely more than the entire campus police force.
And response time... The officers where there. It was there incident. There was not time to call up backup. It had to be dealt with there and then.
UK had a incident with a suspect with a machete. It took some 12 police unarmed as such to tackle that one.
Yes stun gun may have changed odds but as pointed out they are not 100% reliable that they can bring down a suspect.
And that percentage can get you killed if your lucks bad.
You are also combining the entire firefighting force for more bodies, whom also often has far better deployment time than the police. (its honestly sad)
The machete scenario is such a poor example. An officer of the law should not be placed at risk in order to disarm an individual. The only reason this example works on any level is because no one was hurt. Had the individual managed to kill or maim a cop it would be lambasted immediately. Also, being mentally ill does not give you a free pass to do whatever the hell you want. After the fact, punishment for any crime/attempted crime will be less severe than for someone deemed 'sane', but anyone who is armed and dangerous will be dealt with as a threat.
This is going to become a big story because the student in question was of self proclaimed non-binary gender and on medication for mental health difficulties. This further brings into question issues of gender and mental illness in regards to transgender/non-binary gender individuals. Which is a growing problem because there is one narrative being pushed by the media that doesn't come close to matching up with my interactions with transgender/non-binary individuals. There is also the issue of mental health treatment in general and that many antidepressants/mood stabilizers can increase the likelihood of suicidal idealization.
This is a personal issue for me because I was misdiagnosed 9 years ago, prescribed medications that made the condition worse, and it was not until I quit all medications and took ownership of my shortcomings (instead of having all of my feelings validated) that I managed to improve my life. Right now I think a lot of people are being completely screwed over by the system. I've had multiple psychiatrists and counselors admit that a bipolar diagnosis is in vogue right now and over prescribed.
I also believe the transgender narrative is heavily false and part of the issue is rampant homophobia in America. We can pretend that it's not that bad, but the vast majority of males I encounter are still openly homophobic towards gay men and sexually offensive towards lesbians. It's as if you are not allowed to be an effeminate male. You must either be gay or transgender. Which makes absolutely no sense because sexual orientation has nothing to do with other interests.
trexmeyer wrote: The machete scenario is such a poor example. An officer of the law should not be placed at risk in order to disarm an individual. The only reason this example works on any level is because no one was hurt. Had the individual managed to kill or maim a cop it would be lambasted immediately. Also, being mentally ill does not give you a free pass to do whatever the hell you want. After the fact, punishment for any crime/attempted crime will be less severe than for someone deemed 'sane', but anyone who is armed and dangerous will be dealt with as a threat.
This is going to become a big story because the student in question was of self proclaimed non-binary gender and on medication for mental health difficulties. This further brings into question issues of gender and mental illness in regards to transgender/non-binary gender individuals. Which is a growing problem because there is one narrative being pushed by the media that doesn't come close to matching up with my interactions with transgender/non-binary individuals. There is also the issue of mental health treatment in general and that many antidepressants/mood stabilizers can increase the likelihood of suicidal idealization.
This is a personal issue for me because I was misdiagnosed 9 years ago, prescribed medications that made the condition worse, and it was not until I quit all medications and took ownership of my shortcomings (instead of having all of my feelings validated) that I managed to improve my life. Right now I think a lot of people are being completely screwed over by the system. I've had multiple psychiatrists and counselors admit that a bipolar diagnosis is in vogue right now and over prescribed.
I also believe the transgender narrative is heavily false and part of the issue is rampant homophobia in America. We can pretend that it's not that bad, but the vast majority of males I encounter are still openly homophobic towards gay men and sexually offensive towards lesbians. It's as if you are not allowed to be an effeminate male. You must either be gay or transgender. Which makes absolutely no sense because sexual orientation has nothing to do with other interests.
Aye well that one is a real can of worms we probbly get closed if we open given the reaction to the last transgender thread.
It ended up abit of a gak show of quite royal proportions..
Sorry. Not saying your issue is not serious, just ends badly sometimes.
As a point on the above, the officers at the time had not mass produced out the tasers, and even now theres not a 100% rollout.
The fact certain drugs render them immune to the effects could be very very dangerous if it take down or get bad hurt, and that fails....
There a useful tool. But they also have limitations.
In thr case on the OP.
This is a tricky case. Yes there's the angle above but also cut away the terms, races, and all other things.
Man goes forward. Police fall back multiple times and keep coming. Multiple warnings and multiple attempts to descalate.
They gave multiple chances to lower the weapon. And the report at first of firearm..
They had reason to potentially suspect they had a concealed firearm, maybe they not see it but that report could not be ignored which adds another dynamic to the case.
They should just throw out bans for personal attacks and delete posts. No issues are resolved if people aren't allowed to talk about it. The general reaction transgender issues across the internet is to forbid discussion. That just makes things worse.
trexmeyer wrote: They should just throw out bans for personal attacks and delete posts. No issues are resolved if people aren't allowed to talk about it. The general reaction transgender issues across the internet is to forbid discussion. That just makes things worse.
There's a certain school of thought that, when you attempt to debate a stance, you're giving credibility to that stance by treating it as even having particular validity. Thus it is a moral imperative to silence certain speech before it can even happen though whatever means necessary, lest you give credence to bad ideas. At least that's what my fully-PC college professor friend says.
There's an opposing school of thought that says that when you can't react to an argument without anger, attempts at intimidation, confrontation, and/or ad hominem and attempting to silence the other person, you've not got a very sound platform upon which you're making your case. Some would call that the expression of cognitive dissonance.
trexmeyer wrote: They should just throw out bans for personal attacks and delete posts. No issues are resolved if people aren't allowed to talk about it. The general reaction transgender issues across the internet is to forbid discussion. That just makes things worse.
Dude you're on a board about toy soldiers and toy tanks (Who needs marines when you have TANKS! and GUNS! and ARTILLERY!), not the debate society.
There are times when a cop does absolutely everything wrong (see "Nurse Wubbles" or "Utah Nurse").
...but there are times when a cop does everything legally, even at risk to their own safety. This is one of those times. A knife can cause you to bleed to death with one unlucky stab. I would instantly shoot upon any forward or quick motion from the perpetrator, it's part of the reason I am not a cop. This cop issued a warning, backed up, and the issued another warning. This cop's shoot was justified!
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Tasers don't always work and are (albeit rarely) potentially lethal. They are also short range and would have required being within distance of a possible attack.
While we don't know if the student would have escalated and actually attacked, it's also not really a risk that should be taken.
This. One of the first things that we learned in taser qualification is that it's not some magic wand that automatically drops bad guys. It's no replacement for firearms, contrary to what armchair experts will tell you.
The issue with tasers range from the simple (electrode being deflected by buttons) to major (individuals with psychosis, involving mental issues or substance abuse). It's a useful tool. But that usefulness has it's limits.
People who have no experience or training also have no understanding why there is something called the "21 Foot Rule" in defensive shooting. Guns or not, if that nut was allowed to get within 21 feet (7 yards) of the responding officers, those cops were in the danger zone (no pun intended), where one of them could have been seriously injured or killed.
All in all, this was a clear-cut case of justifiable deadly force on the part of the police.
trexmeyer wrote: They should just throw out bans for personal attacks and delete posts. No issues are resolved if people aren't allowed to talk about it. The general reaction transgender issues across the internet is to forbid discussion. That just makes things worse.
There's a certain school of thought that, when you attempt to debate a stance, you're giving credibility to that stance by treating it as even having particular validity. Thus it is a moral imperative to silence certain speech before it can even happen though whatever means necessary, lest you give credence to bad ideas. At least that's what my fully-PC college professor friend says.
There's an opposing school of thought that says that when you can't react to an argument without anger, attempts at intimidation, confrontation, and/or ad hominem and attempting to silence the other person, you've not got a very sound platform upon which you're making your case. Some would call that the expression of cognitive dissonance.
Wait...people actually support silencing dissent? That's totalitarianism.
Frazzled wrote:
trexmeyer wrote: They should just throw out bans for personal attacks and delete posts. No issues are resolved if people aren't allowed to talk about it. The general reaction transgender issues across the internet is to forbid discussion. That just makes things worse.
Dude you're on a board about toy soldiers and toy tanks (Who needs marines when you have TANKS! and GUNS! and ARTILLERY!), not the debate society.
And you're posting in this thread. In the OT section. I don't think I've seen you post elsewhere.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Tasers don't always work and are (albeit rarely) potentially lethal. They are also short range and would have required being within distance of a possible attack.
While we don't know if the student would have escalated and actually attacked, it's also not really a risk that should be taken.
This. One of the first things that we learned in taser qualification is that it's not some magic wand that automatically drops bad guys. It's no replacement for firearms, contrary to what armchair experts will tell you.
The issue with tasers range from the simple (electrode being deflected by buttons) to major (individuals with psychosis, involving mental issues or substance abuse). It's a useful tool. But that usefulness has it's limits.
People who have no experience or training also have no understanding why there is something called the "21 Foot Rule" in defensive shooting. Guns or not, if that nut was allowed to get within 21 feet (7 yards) of the responding officers, those cops were in the danger zone (no pun intended), where one of them could have been seriously injured or killed.
All in all, this was a clear-cut case of justifiable deadly force on the part of the police.
Also a danger zone as a bullet is not a magic video game damage. Certain drugs and such. A person can survive multiple rounds and keep coming forward.
Just because someone is shot does not mean they are down more cannot attack. Even shot they could still stagger forward.
Having said that if there are a pair of officers that would be an optimum time to deploy a taser while the other one hand was normally armed to cover the other individual in these circumstances.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Tasers don't always work and are (albeit rarely) potentially lethal. They are also short range and would have required being within distance of a possible attack.
While we don't know if the student would have escalated and actually attacked, it's also not really a risk that should be taken.
This. One of the first things that we learned in taser qualification is that it's not some magic wand that automatically drops bad guys. It's no replacement for firearms, contrary to what armchair experts will tell you.
The issue with tasers range from the simple (electrode being deflected by buttons) to major (individuals with psychosis, involving mental issues or substance abuse). It's a useful tool. But that usefulness has it's limits.
People who have no experience or training also have no understanding why there is something called the "21 Foot Rule" in defensive shooting. Guns or not, if that nut was allowed to get within 21 feet (7 yards) of the responding officers, those cops were in the danger zone (no pun intended), where one of them could have been seriously injured or killed.
All in all, this was a clear-cut case of justifiable deadly force on the part of the police.
Also a danger zone as a bullet is not a magic video game damage. Certain drugs and such. A person can survive multiple rounds and keep coming forward.
Just because someone is shot does not mean they are down more cannot attack. Even shot they could still stagger forward.
That's because handgun rounds are not as good as potential fight-stoppers as shotgun and rifle ammunition. That's why crap notions like one-stop shots or aiming for non-vital areas to incapacitate are just that: Crap.
That being said, handgun rounds tend to be better at incapacitating than less-lethal methods.
Wait...people actually support silencing dissent? That's totalitarianism.
It appears to be a particular belief endemic in university environments, but people appear serious about it. For an extreme example, see Berkeley. Though my aforementioned professor teaches in the midwest, so it's clearly not unique to the vaunted bastions of tolerance.
But all of this is veering off topic. I was merely commenting on your perception of a strong narrative.
Frazzled wrote: Having said that if there are a pair of officers that would be an optimum time to deploy a taser while the other one hand was normally armed to cover the other individual in these circumstances.
In most jurisdictions that have officers qualified to use tasers, this tends to be SOP. But that only cuts it if a taser qualified officer is on the scene, and/or one of the first responders.
Wait...people actually support silencing dissent? That's totalitarianism.
It appears to be a particular belief endemic in university environments, but people appear serious about it. For an extreme example, see Berkeley. Though my aforementioned professor teaches in the midwest, so it's clearly not unique to the vaunted bastions of tolerance.
But all of this is veering off topic. I was merely commenting on your perception of a strong narrative.
This is a bit of misrepresentation, assuming your reference to Berkeley is in regards to Milo the Troll. Look a bit more into why they cancelled his most recent appearance--he was planning on "outing", on stage, DACA recipients.
In any regards, most people aren't supportive of "silencing dissent". That's a criticism that gets leveled at the academic world when it comes to things like Creationism v. Evolution, climate change, etc. The scientists/academics from institutions that actually produce research and material contrary to certain viewpoints get painted with that brush by their opposites who have doctorates and degrees from places that are religious institutions first, academic institutions second.
Frazzled wrote: Having said that if there are a pair of officers that would be an optimum time to deploy a taser while the other one hand was normally armed to cover the other individual in these circumstances.
In most jurisdictions that have officers qualified to use tasers, this tends to be SOP. But that only cuts it if a taser qualified officer is on the scene, and/or one of the first responders.
Agreed. Its also my understanding taser armed were not about when this occurred.
Wait...people actually support silencing dissent? That's totalitarianism.
It appears to be a particular belief endemic in university environments, but people appear serious about it. For an extreme example, see Berkeley. Though my aforementioned professor teaches in the midwest, so it's clearly not unique to the vaunted bastions of tolerance.
But all of this is veering off topic. I was merely commenting on your perception of a strong narrative.
I think we should leave that topic as its politics. POLITICS IST VERBOTTEN!!!!
It would have been good if at least one of cops in question had a taser. While they're not a 100% reliable solution, it might have made a difference and it should be asked why no officers responding were so equipped. Justifying an immediate default of lethal force by saying "tasers aren't 100% effective" is a frankly bizarre stance to take - sure, they're not, but neither are batons or condoms or seat belts or chemotherapy or fire extinguishers. It's an odd nirvana fallacy.
That being said, it's pretty hard to fault the police for responding appropriately to someone who does present a mortal threat. Suicide by cop is a pretty lousy way to kill yourself.
After watching the video, I don't see the issue here. The police tried to remain calm, tried to talk to the person, repeatedly ordered them to drop the knife. The officer did not fire until she had been isolated from the other officer by the building corner, and the person had started advancing on them again.
I've been in training for similar situations before. The person with the knife was within range to cause harm. You cannot guarantee you will react in time, if the person makes a sudden attempt. I know I wasn't able to when I went through a similar scenario in that training.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, this is tragic, and we can go on and on about "why didn't the police have stun guns" or "why didn't they wrestle the kid to the ground and take their knife" but generally I think it was a case of suicide by cop, and that means the person went in with intent to die.
I find it quite odd campus police wouldn't have stun guns. Surely the whole purpose of campus police is to keep students and staff safe, non-lethal forms of subduing would surely be part of that?
Just because someone went in with the intent to die doesn't mean death has to be a foregone conclusion, I'm sure there's many people still kicking in their old age who had failed suicide attempts in their youth.
Except of course, he is a disturbed individual with a knife, on campus. That's a threat to everyone. Public safety requires that be stopped before some coed gets killed. Again the police where repeatedly backing up and doing it right. The lady police officer shot only when he got within striking range.
And there are people who want to carry guns on campus, citing bizarre and rare scenarios like this one...let's not pretend that "public safety" is always the issue at hand here. Suicide by Cop is more likely to happen in an environment where the attacker knows they can get their wish. Deescalation is a thing and it has been shown to work in scenarios like this. The smart play would have been to get civilians away from the area and not confront the guy as directly as was being done here.
Additionally for Skink's comment:
The reason campus police don't have tasers is because, quite frankly, they can't be trusted with them. Tasers have a weird history here in the US thanks to the fact that police and others generally just take the approach of "taze them till they stop moving", which can cause big issues when someone has a heart defect or things of that nature.
I don't know which genius thought it was a good idea to give the campus police(assuming we're actually talking about campus police rather than just local police who are stationed on the campus--which if that's the case, why in the world they didn't have tasers or pepper spray I'll never know) in this scenario anything more deadly than a whistle or pepper spray...hopefully, that genius will be fired though.
IN their defense (and here's me defending police) they repeatedly backed up and were attempt to de-escalate. Its terribly sad but he got too close to the female officer and she shot him when he did so, after repeated to back off. This is not a criticism but a question-what would you have done differently to de-escalate?
Again, this is not an attack. How would you de-escalate that further?
Contained the man in a small area. Then I would stall until I could get pepper spray, taser, or a counselor down to talk the man down.
After watching the video, I don't see the issue here. The police tried to remain calm, tried to talk to the person, repeatedly ordered them to drop the knife.
Then you missed the whole issue. Because repeatedly ordering a person to drop a knife, an unstable person who is attempting to commit suicide by cop, is not going to work. Because they intend to get shot, dropping the knife defeats that purpose. Their whole approach to dealing with this man was flawed.
And what did you expect the officers to do? As I pointed out, shots were not fired until an officer had been isolated, and the person started advancing on that officer.
There is no "whole issue" here. This was textbook. An officer has every responsibility to use as minimal force as possible, but they also have every responsibility to keep themselves as safe as reasonably possible.
Is the situation unfortunate, certainly. It happened though, and the police were not the ones at fault here, and only an unreasonable person would put them at fault.
djones520 wrote: And what did you expect the officers to do? As I pointed out, shots were not fired until an officer had been isolated, and the person started advancing on that officer.
There is no "whole issue" here. This was textbook. An officer has every responsibility to use as minimal force as possible, but they also have every responsibility to keep themselves as safe as reasonably possible.
Is the situation unfortunate, certainly. It happened though, and the police were not the ones at fault here, and only an unreasonable person would put them at fault.
The textbook is wrong, it has been wrong for a long time. In fact, people have been complaining about this for a long long time. You remember this situation?
If you are a cop, you are going to be put in to situations where there is danger. You may have to tackle a man with a knife in order to protect his life and the life of your coworkers. You signed up for this. Deal with it.
Edit: Hold on, "only an unreasonable person would put them at fault." Don't try that crap. You and I both know that the police have almost no training when it comes to dealing with the mentally ill. Yet they are often the first ones to deal with them.
Only an unreasonable person would disregard that fact then say it is okay for the police to use deadly force on a suicidal person. They literally gave them what they wanted, they didn't want to hurt anybody. They just wanted to die.
Did the police specifically know he was mentally ill or what medication he was on? Are they supposed to make that judgment on the scene?
Dreadwinter, police don't sign up to 'tackle' knife wielding nutters with their hands, they have families to go home to as well. It's not like the movies, one good stab and you're dead. Taking on a person with a knife is a very dangerous thing to do and while police have that option open to them, their lives and those of the public take priority.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Did the police specifically know he was mentally ill or what medication he was on? Are they supposed to make that judgment on the scene?
Dreadwinter, police don't sign up to 'tackle' knife wielding nutters with their hands, they have families to go home to as well. It's not like the movies, one good stab and you're dead. Taking on a person with a knife is a very dangerous thing to do and while police have that option open to them, their lives and those of the public take priority.
So, cops are not required to de-escalate a situation? It was very clear what was happening here. They are supposed to make that judgement on the scene. If a person is screaming and swinging a knife at people but intentionally not making contact, it is a clear sign. If they had wanted to hurt a person, they would have kept the knife concealed until they were close enough to land an easy blow. They wouldn't be walking around with it out.
I've seen the video, this is another senseless murder committed by american cops.
It was not a matter of split second decision, the cop could have shot the student in a leg or use the taser.
Mental ill knife wielding dudes are common everywhere but only in the usa they usually end up with bullets. Just a few weeks ago in Italy a crazy african start stabbing people with a knife on a bus and he got stopped with a bullet in his leg.
But with the current laws american cops are justified to kill whoever they want. Even some slayings of children have been justified in that country, people who where at the phone, etc....
Just quickly chiming in on that "tackle the knife guy" line of thought - while I'm not with the police, I've been training with policemen and the local close-combat/self-defense trainer for our federal police for quite some time. Attempting to grapple or incapacitate a determined knife-wielder is extremely dangerous and bordering on being suicidal yourself. Even if you bring a tonfa or baton of your own, even if you're wearing a stab-protection vest of some kind.
A good, try-at-home experiment is getting old white t-shirts and give your friend a marker, then tell him it's a knife and he really wants to kill you. You try to stop and incapacitate him. See how many nice, long marker lines or fat black dots you'll have over vital arteries and organs in seconds. Next level, smear your hands with a bit of lotion or baby oil, because that's how slippery your hands will become after your first accidental parry of the knife with your own palms. Suddendly you can't even control the bastard's arms, even if you're theoretically stronger AND manage to get a hold of him. It's ridiculously dangerous, knives should not be underestimated.
While I also would've hoped for the officers at the scene to either have a tazer OR some more in-depth negotiation training (the one officer had some good attempts with his "Nodbody wants to hurt you", but some follow up, trying to engage him in conversation while they wait for more backup to arrive, would have been nice), I think the officers did what they could with the training and equipment and information they had at this point in time. While they're there to serve and protect, it's also not their job to play hero and do anything stupid.
@Blackie: You seem to have missed a few posts in this thread. They did not have a tazer at the scence, and a few people have already made good arguments while the "shoot them in nonvital body parts" tactic is really reserved for a very narrow spectrum of situation - healthy, armed man less than 20ft away from you, being irrational, is one of those situations where I can't fault the officer for going for a safe, secure hit instead of some sharpshooter trickshot.
Witzkatz wrote: Just quickly chiming in on that "tackle the knife guy" line of thought - while I'm not with the police, I've been training with policemen and the local close-combat/self-defense trainer for our federal police for quite some time. Attempting to grapple or incapacitate a determined knife-wielder is extremely dangerous and bordering on being suicidal yourself. Even if you bring a tonfa or baton of your own, even if you're wearing a stab-protection vest of some kind.
Horsegak. You are telling me a tackle from behind, landing the man on his chest and knocking the wind out of him would not disable him? You are also going to tell me that he would immediately be able to swing backwards at a really bad angle behind him, before he could be rushed by other officers or his hands could be secured by the tackling officer?
Also, the marker thing only works if the person is trying to harm you. He was not trying to harm anybody here. He was looking to get shot. So, no.
I love the "shoot them in the leg" crap. Anyone who has ever said that has obviously never fired a handgun before, let alone in a high stress situation.
My last mention of experience seems to have been ignored, but I will again point towards it. I have fired thousands of rounds through an M9 Berreta, and Springfield XD9. In the US Army's eyes, I am an expert shooter with a handgun.
I would not bet my life on making a shot to injure-incapacitate someone.
Witzkatz wrote: Just quickly chiming in on that "tackle the knife guy" line of thought - while I'm not with the police, I've been training with policemen and the local close-combat/self-defense trainer for our federal police for quite some time. Attempting to grapple or incapacitate a determined knife-wielder is extremely dangerous and bordering on being suicidal yourself. Even if you bring a tonfa or baton of your own, even if you're wearing a stab-protection vest of some kind.
Horsegak. You are telling me a tackle from behind, landing the man on his chest and knocking the wind out of him would not disable him? You are also going to tell me that he would immediately be able to swing backwards at a really bad angle behind him, before he could be rushed by other officers or his hands could be secured by the tackling officer?
Also, the marker thing only works if the person is trying to harm you. He was not trying to harm anybody here. He was looking to get shot. So, no.
Lol
Police did not know a 100% sure this was suicide-by-cop. That is hindsight, with all the guy's history. They were not sure he would not lash out. And yes, if your tackle WORKS, good job, problem probably solved. But police boots on asphalt don't make you a ninja, if he hears you coming and you impale yourself on the knife he's instinctively thrusting into your direction, you suddendly have a much worse situation.
It's not impossible to bring him down non-lethally, it's just that a one-man tackle seems one of the worst ways to pull it off.
djones520 wrote: I love the "shoot them in the leg" crap. Anyone who has ever said that has obviously never fired a handgun before, let alone in a high stress situation.
My last mention of experience seems to have been ignored, but I will again point towards it. I have fired thousands of rounds through an M9 Berreta, and Springfield XD9. In the US Army's eyes, I am an expert shooter with a handgun.
I would not bet my life on making a shot to injure-incapacitate someone.
Find another job then, a cop is not a vigilante with a licence to kill. You accept to put your life in danger if you want to be a policeman, to protect and to serve the community. In this specific case the knife wielder stared in front of the cop for a significan amount of time, he could have been neutralized without being killed.
Witzkatz wrote: Just quickly chiming in on that "tackle the knife guy" line of thought - while I'm not with the police, I've been training with policemen and the local close-combat/self-defense trainer for our federal police for quite some time. Attempting to grapple or incapacitate a determined knife-wielder is extremely dangerous and bordering on being suicidal yourself. Even if you bring a tonfa or baton of your own, even if you're wearing a stab-protection vest of some kind.
Horsegak. You are telling me a tackle from behind, landing the man on his chest and knocking the wind out of him would not disable him? You are also going to tell me that he would immediately be able to swing backwards at a really bad angle behind him, before he could be rushed by other officers or his hands could be secured by the tackling officer?
Also, the marker thing only works if the person is trying to harm you. He was not trying to harm anybody here. He was looking to get shot. So, no.
Lol
Police did not know a 100% sure this was suicide-by-cop.
I stopped reading right here. Because if they did not know this was 100% suicide by cop, they should be removed from their positions because they clearly do not have the ability to make a reasonable judgement call. Regardless of if it was not 100% known, there is overwhelming evidence that this is what is happening in this situation just based on what is seen in the video.
Furthermore, who the feth taught them that screaming at a person is how you de-escalate a situation?
Howard A Treesong wrote: Did the police specifically know he was mentally ill or what medication he was on? Are they supposed to make that judgment on the scene?
Dreadwinter, police don't sign up to 'tackle' knife wielding nutters with their hands, they have families to go home to as well. It's not like the movies, one good stab and you're dead. Taking on a person with a knife is a very dangerous thing to do and while police have that option open to them, their lives and those of the public take priority.
Funny it seems to be issue only in America in western countries. Elsewhere cops shooting is far from the norm unless there's serious reason to expect bullets are starting to fly to their way or some 3rd party person is in immediate danger.
I'm soooo glad I wasn't born in country where cops shooting isn't business as usual like in America.
Somebody mentioned "an officer tackling from behind", that is what I responded to. If they manage to pull off a synchronized attempt with multiple officers, stuff becomes more viable, sure. Just like those videos from UK, it can work.
Witzkatz wrote: Just quickly chiming in on that "tackle the knife guy" line of thought - while I'm not with the police, I've been training with policemen and the local close-combat/self-defense trainer for our federal police for quite some time. Attempting to grapple or incapacitate a determined knife-wielder is extremely dangerous and bordering on being suicidal yourself. Even if you bring a tonfa or baton of your own, even if you're wearing a stab-protection vest of some kind.
Horsegak. You are telling me a tackle from behind, landing the man on his chest and knocking the wind out of him would not disable him? You are also going to tell me that he would immediately be able to swing backwards at a really bad angle behind him, before he could be rushed by other officers or his hands could be secured by the tackling officer?
Also, the marker thing only works if the person is trying to harm you. He was not trying to harm anybody here. He was looking to get shot. So, no.
Lol
Police did not know a 100% sure this was suicide-by-cop.
I stopped reading right here. Because if they did not know this was 100% suicide by cop, they should be removed from their positions because they clearly do not have the ability to make a reasonable judgement call. Regardless of if it was not 100% known, there is overwhelming evidence that this is what is happening in this situation just based on what is seen in the video.
Furthermore, who the feth taught them that screaming at a person is how you de-escalate a situation?
Can you point to where I said one man tackle?
There was two cops reacting.
One to cover suspect. Second to tackle... Umm tad dangerous. The UK one took some 20 officers and even then risky. A machete can take off limbs.
B. The first report that came in was a gun and a knife, so theres also the unconfirmed nature to add.
C, they did not know how far someone would go to make them kill them. Take a hostage. Stab someone. They did not know.
Given the number of high profile incidents involving American police these days (the Utah nurse, the cop being acquitted in Missouri)
I don't blame people for not giving the American police the benefit of the doubt in situations like this.
In the past, I've had to encounter American authority myself in the form of customs officials at US airports, and they were the most rude and obnoxious people I've ever had the misfortune of encountering.
djones520 wrote: I love the "shoot them in the leg" crap. Anyone who has ever said that has obviously never fired a handgun before, let alone in a high stress situation.
My last mention of experience seems to have been ignored, but I will again point towards it. I have fired thousands of rounds through an M9 Berreta, and Springfield XD9. In the US Army's eyes, I am an expert shooter with a handgun.
I would not bet my life on making a shot to injure-incapacitate someone.
And of course, the average police officer has not had even a fraction of the range time or training. US police officers (as you know, but overseas people may not) are notoriously bad shots.
The idea that police should try for a leg shot is the stuff of fantasy. Again, a taser would have been ideal, and it should be explored why among there wasn't a responder so equipped - not to assign blame but because we always try to improve.
I just read part of a headline that said he was holding a "closed multi-tool". Can anyone from the US confirm that? Because that sounds like an at least slightly different threat scenario than an unsheathed proper blade.
Witzkatz wrote: I just read part of a headline that said he was holding a "closed multi-tool". Can anyone from the US confirm that? Because that sounds like an at least slightly different threat scenario than an unsheathed proper blade.
What has been reported:
Spoiler:
It's hard to know definitively since in highly publicized cases like this there is a lot of media wheel-spinning, essentially, for 2 or 3 days. The 24 hour cycle beast has to be fed, and the first few days it gets fed a lot of bs and speculation.
Ah, thanks. In the end I guess it at least partially depends on whether that thing was actually open or closed at the time he was walking in front of those officers...we'll see if there's a definitive answer to that.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Did the police specifically know he was mentally ill or what medication he was on? Are they supposed to make that judgment on the scene?
Dreadwinter, police don't sign up to 'tackle' knife wielding nutters with their hands, they have families to go home to as well. It's not like the movies, one good stab and you're dead. Taking on a person with a knife is a very dangerous thing to do and while police have that option open to them, their lives and those of the public take priority.
No,( only guy with knife). Turns out he was the one that called it in, and had been on serious meds for 3 months. This is a mental health industry issue, not a police one.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Did the police specifically know he was mentally ill or what medication he was on? Are they supposed to make that judgment on the scene?
Dreadwinter, police don't sign up to 'tackle' knife wielding nutters with their hands, they have families to go home to as well. It's not like the movies, one good stab and you're dead. Taking on a person with a knife is a very dangerous thing to do and while police have that option open to them, their lives and those of the public take priority.
Funny it seems to be issue only in America in western countries. Elsewhere cops shooting is far from the norm unless there's serious reason to expect bullets are starting to fly to their way or some 3rd party person is in immediate danger.
I'm soooo glad I wasn't born in country where cops shooting isn't business as usual like in America.
we are glad you are there and not here too. We hope every day you don't come here among as barbarians.
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Witzkatz wrote: I just read part of a headline that said he was holding a "closed multi-tool". Can anyone from the US confirm that? Because that sounds like an at least slightly different threat scenario than an unsheathed proper blade.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
I'm as much in favour of more extensive deescalation training and nonlethal methods wherever possible. That's something that should be police culture everywhere, and something that's lacking in many departments, I think, and I don't want to single out the US here, although they do produce some of the more noteworthy cases the last years. - In this case, though, the officers in that situation, with the (probably limited) training they received and the (limited) equipment they had available and no surefire way to distinguish between somebody who is suicidal and someone who is drugged out of their mind and possibly hallucinating (just to give one possible situation)....they did what they could, and I don't fault them to improvise some nonlethal maneuver in that situation with what they had.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
Newsflash: the real purpose of the police is not to protect and serve. Thats been affirmed by SCOTUS.
Also, we should note the 911 that the person made himself alleged person with a knife AND gun.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
Newsflash: the real purpose of the police is not to protect and serve. Thats been affirmed by SCOTUS.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Something everyone should have tattooed on the backs of their eyelids. Police are not there to protect and serve, for them, their own safety is paramount and they're under no special requirements or obligations to put themselves at risk or to help anyone else that you or I are not.
"Protect and Serve" is a logo, nothing more. It's unfortunate, as are most of the legal realities around policing in the US today, but that's the simple reality.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
Newsflash: the real purpose of the police is not to protect and serve. Thats been affirmed by SCOTUS.
Also, we should note the 911 that the person made himself alleged person with a knife AND gun.
Are you telling me misinformation is bad? thats unpossible.
Witzkatz wrote: I'm as much in favour of more extensive deescalation training and nonlethal methods wherever possible. In this case, though, the officers in that situation, with the (probably limited) training they received and the (limited) equipment they had available and no surefire way to distinguish between somebody who is suicidal and someone who is drugged out of their mind and possibly hallucinating (just to give one possible situation)....they did what they could, and I don't fault them to improvise some nonlethal maneuver in that situation with what they had.
Agreed, even if I know our police probably would have tried a leg shot first - but any shot is a chance to kill. Officers with little training and experience shouldn't even try such a thing.
Spethulu how many instances do you know of where your police tried a leg shot and were successful? Is your average officer armed? This is a question not a criticism.
Telling police they need to tackle someone with a knife is just jnsipidly stupid. You do it.
I'm not the one who signed up for public service ostensibly to be the one to handle difficult and dangerous situations. Unless, of course, the real purpose of the police corps is not in fact to protect and serve...
Newsflash: the real purpose of the police is not to protect and serve. Thats been affirmed by SCOTUS.
The most notable cases that "affirm" this(Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzalez where a woman and her kids were murdered by her ex-husband who she had a restraining order against and Warren v. District of Columbia) had some pretty scathing dissenting opinions in there and a couple of very particular Justices making a mockery of what should have been open and shut cases.
The whole premise of the affirmation is based upon the "Duty to Rescue" doctrine, which is really intended for private citizens not police.
Also, we should note the 911 that the person made himself alleged person with a knife AND gun.
And the officer should have been able to tell that he only had a knife.
Putting it bluntly, when someone is trying to commit suicide by cop it's because they know that it's ridiculously easy to do.
This is how two months ago the Spanish Police reduced a Islamist "terrorist" that in the border with Melilla tried to harm them with a knive.
It sparked a good amounth of memes
Spoiler:
But, if I'm sharing this here is basically to say that... theres more ways to reduce a guy with a knive than going into a meele with him. Thats suicidal, as others have pointed out. But I suppose that those police man didn't had anything at hand to reduce the guy, only their guns. And when you are trained to resolve all your problems in service with your gun...
While I lament any loss of life, blaming the police is just stupid. The guy was mentally unstable and was suicidal - he KNEW saying he had a 'gun and knife' would add gravitas to the situation.
I like how some people in this thread are 'armchair tactician' types, or simply dismiss the police as nothing more than murderers. Disgraceful. If YOU think you could do better, be my guest and sign up to the police academy. You'll think twice when your the one having to deal with this situation without getting hurt.
But what has happened, happened. The victim (which he was of the mental health service side of things) got what he wanted by essentially 'abusing' police protocols and his surroundings. However, instead of his family quietly mourning his passing, it becomes a massive media scrum and full of people pushing agendas etc.
Yeah, I think this is regrettable, but I think the cops did fine as individuals.
Like I said earlier, maybe a culture change is needed, or a training change, or a budgeting change, but as it stands, I would hold the individual cops acting in the moment rather blameless.
The police in Georgia Tech could have asked for similar backup, and due tocomparative policing numbers it is easier to get the support in a US urban region than in the UK. Many Uk police stations are closing down, you wont even get three police without a long wait.
The police in Georgia Tech could have asked for similar backup, and due tocomparative policing numbers it is easier to get the support in a US urban region than in the UK. Many Uk police stations are closing down, you wont even get three police without a long wait.
They could have, but that would have wasted time. And hey, maybe they had but things escalated before it arrived.
Either way, crazy got shot. And rightfully so given the situation.
Yeah, I mean saying the cops "could have" yadda yadda... I mean it's possible that they did. Backup could literally be approaching yards away without being in-frame of the camera. Maybe that's what spooked the victim into advancing so abruptly? Who knows.
When i post the video of the machete wielding nutter in the UK who was subdued without loss of life, I was not criticizing the officer in this case. The officer was following their training and tools given. I am demonstrating that there are other ways to deal with desperate individuals that don't involve fulfilling their death wish. There is a systemic problem with the way we deal with mental illness here in North America. (Both Hat and Pants)
I had a whole spiel lined up about how jumping on a guy with a knife from behind is a stupid idea and why you can't do "Disabling" shots (hint: anything enough to stop someone is very likely to be fatal, anything else is pretty much useless) and police protocol (which the officers in this case did follow, almost to a tee).
But honestly I'm kinda disappointed that all the hullabaloo over the police's conduct glossed over Scout's mental illness. I don't wanna put it on a pedestal but mental health issues, when they're not ignored, is often put in a negative light and stigmatizes those who have it, when it's an illiness that have medications and coping methods that can help mitigate or cure it. And in most cases you just need to speak with someone who knows how to help. I don't know if the US is like us, but here in Canada trying to get help for mental health is a joke; I tried to just get a counselor for my depression and I was put on a month-long waiting list (when I was having suicidal thoughts every other day). And that is not when I'm told to conceal it for fear of shame when it turns out that some medication and sharing my experiences is all I needed to get over it.
I don't see "sides" in this incident, I just see three victims; two cops forced to end the life of a promising student and someone who was consumed by their affliction that didn't get the help they could. (The cops are probably going to suffer some kind of stress too, even triggerhappy cops are still human and it's very hard for someone to end the life of another. You never walk out of it unscathed. And that's not to mention the stigma that they're "murderers" that's going to haunt them, as many people on this thread already proved).
It was not a matter of split second decision, the cop could have shot the student in a leg or use the taser.
Yay another shoot them in the leg internat commando.
1. The leg is a difficult target as it is thin compared to centre chest.
2.. You have to aim down which means it is hard to place your eye behind the sight of the gun when going for a short range legshot.
3. when you take the shot and likely miss you have ricochet, there is another cop behind trying to close the crazy in, its also an urban environment with student dorms people with cameras etc.
4. A legshot from a sidearm will not put someone on the ground unless you fire more than once unless you hit an artery or something.
5. So ironically an effective wound may be a quickly fatal one.
6. Someone with a leg wound might go into a form of shock which dulls senses and what remains of good judgement but leaving the target fully able at least in the short term. This is not deescalation.
7. If you do hit and shatter bone and put the target down, your light warning hit will likely cripple them for life.
Aim centre mass, it can kill but usually wont do so quickly but it will take down and if it doent kill the chances are good with medical attention. A small arm shot will also likely hit and not leave an exit wound.
Better not to shoot if you can avoid it, but there are a number of reasons why if people do shoot they aim centre mass.
The police in Georgia Tech could have asked for similar backup, and due tocomparative policing numbers it is easier to get the support in a US urban region than in the UK. Many Uk police stations are closing down, you wont even get three police without a long wait.
They could have, but that would have wasted time. And hey, maybe they had but things escalated before it arrived.
Either way, crazy got shot. And rightfully so given the situation.
I agree that they might not have had the time. 'Suicide by cop' is not a thing in the UK, as the responding officers don't nominally have guns. So the machete guy could be contained until reinforcements arrived. The police in Georgia Tech didnt have that luxury.
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: I had a whole spiel lined up about how jumping on a guy with a knife from behind is a stupid idea and why you can't do "Disabling" shots (hint: anything enough to stop someone is very likely to be fatal, anything else is pretty much useless) and police protocol (which the officers in this case did follow, almost to a tee).
But honestly I'm kinda disappointed that all the hullabaloo over the police's conduct glossed over Scout's mental illness. I don't wanna put it on a pedestal but mental health issues, when they're not ignored, is often put in a negative light and stigmatizes those who have it, when it's an illiness that have medications and coping methods that can help mitigate or cure it. And in most cases you just need to speak with someone who knows how to help. I don't know if the US is like us, but here in Canada trying to get help for mental health is a joke; I tried to just get a counselor for my depression and I was put on a month-long waiting list (when I was having suicidal thoughts every other day). And that is not when I'm told to conceal it for fear of shame when it turns out that some medication and sharing my experiences is all I needed to get over it.
I don't see "sides" in this incident, I just see three victims; two cops forced to end the life of a promising student and someone who was consumed by their affliction that didn't get the help they could. (The cops are probably going to suffer some kind of stress too, even triggerhappy cops are still human and it's very hard for someone to end the life of another. You never walk out of it unscathed. And that's not to mention the stigma that they're "murderers" that's going to haunt them, as many people on this thread already proved).
This is a good post. Being transgender/nonbinary/<insert sexual identity here> in America is very difficult right now. People in the media are essentially fighting over your soul, over whether or not you're a valid person, over whether or not your junk identifies who you are. It's certainly a struggle.
feeder wrote: When i post the video of the machete wielding nutter in the UK who was subdued without loss of life, I was not criticizing the officer in this case. The officer was following their training and tools given. I am demonstrating that there are other ways to deal with desperate individuals that don't involve fulfilling their death wish. There is a systemic problem with the way we deal with mental illness here in North America. (Both Hat and Pants)
Yeah, forgive me if I think using 20 officers to subdue someone is a total waste of resources. It just makes it take even longer to resolve a situation, which means it's more likely for something to go sideways.
As for mental illness, I agree. Though its a tough situation all around, because you want it to be easy to institutionalize someone. Because then you'd really leave it open for abuse.
Unit1126PLL wrote: This is a good post. Being transgender/nonbinary/<insert sexual identity here> in America is very difficult right now. People in the media are essentially fighting over your soul, over whether or not you're a valid person, over whether or not your junk identifies who you are. It's certainly a struggle.
Indeed. I just had depression from having to live up to the legacy of my dad (who is rather an impressive individual, and kinda insane to think about at times). I can't imagine what it would be like for someone to have to fight over their own identity over societal norms (Really I can't. I'm here trying to simply conform to normal societal norms and there are people fighting for their very identities. If I had to be faced with that I might actually break).
I gotta say that this is one case I've seen in a while where I felt like the police didn't fail. I don't like people getting shot by police, but if someone is screaming and coming at you with a knife, ultimately, sometimes you have to use deadly force to stop them. And that's not even considering the possibility of drugs. It's suggested that some can make a person borderline unrestrainable. Hindsight knows for sure, but those officers at the time didn't, and I'll happily agree that police officers need to be prepared to accept that they might lose their lives in duty, but they shouldn't have to accept that they'll need to throw their lives away in duty. That would only create a more dangerous police force than we already have now.
No, here, society failed, because we don't have a better means of identifying and treating mental health issues. To everyone saying "well, if the cops just did X it would be fine", I'd counter with that if we had a better way of screening for mental health issues than what basically amounts to personal responsibility*, the police never would have been in that position to begin with. This person was beyond saving the moment he stepped outside, and it's tragic, I really think so, but the prevention for this should have been years ago, not that night.
* Regardless of your general attitude toward life and what exactly "personal responsibility" is, it's basically impossible to expect someone who's unstable enough to deliberately get themselves killed to act reasonably.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, I think this is regrettable, but I think the cops did fine as individuals.
Like I said earlier, maybe a culture change is needed, or a training change, or a budgeting change, but as it stands, I would hold the individual cops acting in the moment rather blameless.
I should note that I've been careful not to blame the officer in question--just the decisions of whatever entity is above the officers.
I personally believe that firearms are not something that should be standard issue for "campus police"(and I would like to point out, again, that I felt I made a pretty clear distinction between actual police officers who are assigned to work on a college campus and those who are effectively security officers and who have no business being called "police" as it blurs the distinction between law enforcement officials and private security forces) and that there is a real reason why we see individuals like the one in this situation targeting schools or other soft targets like this.
That reason is they know they can have their wish fulfilled when it comes to ending their lives as here in the US, there really is(whether we want to recognize it or not) a tendency for officers to pull the trigger first and ask "why" later. In many instances of "suicide by cop", there were screaming warning signs that the individual is suicidal but won't actively commit suicide and needs some kind of mental health treatment but either cannot afford treatment or will not seek it for whatever reason. The research into the phenomenon of "suicide by cop" is still relatively recent, with it really only being recognized as a thing since the mid/late 1980s.
Where things get even more messy is the weirdness of the person having suicidal tendencies but not actively attempting to commit suicide. Some of the individuals in question have left notes or stated their intentions very publicly. The 2015 incident with Matthew Hoffman is a notable case where he left a message on his cell phone for the officer who would kill him, saying that they "did nothing wrong" and that he was "too much of a coward to do it himself".
I realize this might be kinda ranty/wandering statements but there's a lot of factors at play here when I call something like this a failure in all regards. I don't expect police to go out of their way to try to prevent incidents like this from escalating into full blown body counts or to just stand there while they take a knife to the face, but I am exceedingly tired of the played out response of "they have no duty to protect" that gets parroted by the gun rights advocates.
I'm tired of the played out response of "they have to think of their own safety first" that gets parroted any time we have an incident like this where someone knowingly tries to get the police to end their life here in the US, because they know that they can get their wish fulfilled by officers who joined the police force not out of a desire to protect or to serve but because it's a job with a little bit of power that appeals to individuals who have no business being hired by law enforcement agencies but will get hired anyways because some departments need warm bodies, not warm personalities.
What I expect from police is them to live up to the lipservice that gets paid both by departments and certain political parties. I get that it's a hard job and that their safety isn't guaranteed and that more and more they are being forced into a role that they are not really prepared or trained for(rightly or wrongly) when it comes to dealing with mental health issues, but that's a reason for officers to start insisting that they be given the preparation and training for these situations. Not to just blindly follow procedure.
For a little bit more background:
I'm someone who actively went to try to get into law enforcement out of a desire to make a difference in my community and ended up getting disqualified thanks to a medical condition that would make me a liability and disqualified me from being hireable.
I think that's enough preachiness from me for the day.
I personally believe that firearms are not something that should be standard issue for "campus police"(and I would like to point out, again, that I felt I made a pretty clear distinction between actual police officers who are assigned to work on a college campus and those who are effectively security officers and who have no business being called "police" as it blurs the distinction between law enforcement officials and private security forces) and that there is a real reason why we see individuals like the one in this situation targeting schools or other soft targets like this.
Again. Campus Police often ARE actual Police.
Many universities and schools have actual police forces. There is no difference between them an your run of the mill city police force. There is no distinction. These guys were actual Police. Not Rent-a-cops with guns.
Galas wrote: Yeah, why use 20 cops officers to subdue someone without victims when you can put two cops in a car with guns and make then do it Texas Walker style!
That is amazingly incorrect Spaniard. Walker was a Ranger. One riot, one Ranger. Thats the rule.
Freddy Kruger wrote: I like how some people in this thread are 'armchair tactician' types, or simply dismiss the police as nothing more than murderers. Disgraceful. If YOU think you could do better, be my guest and sign up to the police academy. .
As a casual aside, this is a bad fallacy and you should feel bad for using it:
If you see a stockist at the supermarket throwing eggs onto a shelf, you don't need to be a stockist to know it's poor technique, if you see your internet is out and the tech advises you to pack the modem full of butter, you don't need to be a tech to know this isn't a good idea, and so on and so forth. Some things are self-evident to a layman and do not require specialized knowledge to determine. I've never been a police officer, but I feel wholly and comfortably secure in saying that the police should properly secure people in the back of transport vans when in custody, for example.
Just to reiterate, I don't think the police used excessive force or were wrong in shooting in this instance; they did the best they could with the tools at hand as it's been currently reported. My concern is that I wish they had better tools at hand going forward.
I personally believe that firearms are not something that should be standard issue for "campus police"(and I would like to point out, again, that I felt I made a pretty clear distinction between actual police officers who are assigned to work on a college campus and those who are effectively security officers and who have no business being called "police" as it blurs the distinction between law enforcement officials and private security forces) and that there is a real reason why we see individuals like the one in this situation targeting schools or other soft targets like this.
Again. Campus Police often ARE actual Police.
Many universities and schools have actual police forces. There is no difference between them an your run of the mill city police force. There is no distinction. These guys were actual Police. Not Rent-a-cops with guns.
Once again, you're choosing to ignore the point I've made a pretty clear point of distinction about.
"Many universities and schools" does not equal "all universities and schools", and there actually is a difference as many of them are considered to be beholden to the school before anything else. It's why we keep having issues when it comes to sexual assaults and things of that nature on college campuses as while the officers might be certified to work as a sworn peace officer, their job is dependent upon the school and it creates a conflict of interest.
But keep trying to find a way of picking and choosing the argument.
Frazzled wrote: Spethulu how many instances do you know of where your police tried a leg shot and were successful? Is your average officer armed? This is a question not a criticism.
Finding that info from some database would be a chore, but it really is the most usual police shooting to make the news. The 2003-2013 stats have them shooting 22 people in total, out of which two died. There's been shotings since and a few more deaths, but the deadly ones are usually when the suspect has a gun. Our police receive three years of training before they're let out on their own though, and one year of that is as a "younger constable" serving alongside a regular officer. Yes, police officers are armed with 9mm Glocks, pepper spray and usually a taser. They also have an MP5 SMG in the car and would ofc prefer to use that for a longer-range shot.
They used a leg shot on the knife guy in Turku too, then subdued him. And that was a man who actually killed people.
"Police shot the suspect in a leg and detained him Friday"
edit: I still think the officers in the OP did exactly as much as they could do with the resources and training they had. They tried words first and backed away, and had only guns.
Frazzled wrote: Spethulu how many instances do you know of where your police tried a leg shot and were successful? Is your average officer armed? This is a question not a criticism.
Finding that info from some database would be a chore, but it really is the most usual police shooting to make the news. The 2003-2013 stats have them shooting 22 people in total, out of which two died. There's been shotings since and a few more deaths, but the deadly ones are usually when the suspect has a gun. Our police receive three years of training before they're let out on their own though, and one year of that is as a "younger constable" serving alongside a regular officer. Yes, police officers are armed with 9mm Glocks, pepper spray and usually a taser. They also have an MP5 SMG in the car and would ofc prefer to use that for a longer-range shot.
They used a leg shot on the knife guy in Turku too, then subdued him. And that was a man who actually killed people.
"Police shot the suspect in a leg and detained him Friday"
So 22 shot, out of how many instances? Shooting but not killing doesn't mean they attempted to wound.
Further it not uncommon for us in the states to see one or more articles weekly now about knife or other attacks in Europe by terrorists, usually followed with "killed by police/soldiers."
I personally believe that firearms are not something that should be standard issue for "campus police"(and I would like to point out, again, that I felt I made a pretty clear distinction between actual police officers who are assigned to work on a college campus and those who are effectively security officers and who have no business being called "police" as it blurs the distinction between law enforcement officials and private security forces) and that there is a real reason why we see individuals like the one in this situation targeting schools or other soft targets like this.
Again. Campus Police often ARE actual Police.
Many universities and schools have actual police forces. There is no difference between them an your run of the mill city police force. There is no distinction. These guys were actual Police. Not Rent-a-cops with guns.
Once again, you're choosing to ignore the point I've made a pretty clear point of distinction about.
"Many universities and schools" does not equal "all universities and schools", and there actually is a difference as many of them are considered to be beholden to the school before anything else. It's why we keep having issues when it comes to sexual assaults and things of that nature on college campuses as while the officers might be certified to work as a sworn peace officer, their job is dependent upon the school and it creates a conflict of interest.
But keep trying to find a way of picking and choosing the argument.
Except none of that is relevant to this situation. Far as I can determine, these were actual police. So nothing you keep harping about is relevant here.
Even when pulled they don't usually shoot, only threaten to reinforce the command to surrender. You have years like 2013 where a gun was "used" 27 times and "threatened" 19 times, but only 6 shots were fired. 2 warning shots and 4 wounded people.
I remember an incident in my own home town where a mental patient with a shotgun took hostages at a gas station (he wanted to get put in closed care instead of trying to cope alone with only pills). The police took him out with a dog instead of a sniper.
jhe90 wrote: yeah, much as police have a vest and training,
a blade can still gi over and into the neck, leathal, or into leg, which can do alot of damage....
the vest only protects the chest area and no the neck or head area,
Police sadly did what they had to. they did not know mental state and could not let a person who a potential danger to others roam campus with a knife.
I'd also like to point our that the most common vest worn by police is level 2-A. That is NOT knife resistant. You can punch right through them. May as well be wearing a couple layers of corrugated cardboard.
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Blackie wrote: I've seen the video, this is another senseless murder committed by american cops.
It was not a matter of split second decision, the cop could have shot the student in a leg .
Quick note here..... Shooting someone with only the intent to wound is actually MUCH more illegal than shooting to kill someone. Any use of a firearm in the US is considered use of deadly force, regardless of your intent. If you shoot someone you are trying to kill them, at least as the law sees it. So, if you shoot someone because you feel killing is necessary, it's considered self defense. If you shoot someone to wound them, you are admitting that lethal force was not necessary, but you used it anyway. That's attempted murder.
America's pride was gravely wounded by the "that's not a knife... this is a knife" scene in Crocodile Dundee. Since then Top Men (tm) have been working around the clock to ensure American Knives are the deadliest in the world, making it literally impossible for American police to subdue distraught persons without applying deadly force.
Even when pulled they don't usually shoot, only threaten to reinforce the command to surrender. You have years like 2013 where a gun was "used" 27 times and "threatened" 19 times, but only 6 shots were fired. 2 warning shots and 4 wounded people.
I remember an incident in my own home town where a mental patient with a shotgun took hostages at a gas station (he wanted to get put in closed care instead of trying to cope alone with only pills). The police took him out with a dog instead of a sniper.
46 times? That's it? How many people live in your country?
Its not fair to compare USA with a single European country. Use is much bigger than all of Europe. Probably to compare data, we should compare something like USA vs Germany+France+UK+Spain. To reach similar population.
Oddly enough all of Europe is more populated than the US. Europe is nearly 450 million and, the US is nearly 340 million (IIRC). This while the US is twice the land area of all of Europe.
Again this person was known to suffer from mental illness (at least depression) and was on some kind of prescribed medication. There have been numerous cases of medications increasing suicidal idealization. I've even experienced on a couple different drugs. I think medications are over prescribed and therapy (again, in my experience) is often poor.
There is also the issue of people refusing to get better. I met a girl (attractive, BA in Psychology) that argued up and down that cutting was a perfectly acceptable form of behavior. Two years later she is still depressed, lives at home, and is unemployed. Despite still doing therapy and taking medications. That's just one example. I know entirely too many people who have spent years in therapy and made no progress.
Something is clearly wrong here. Someone is failing. I believe American society is so afraid of 'blaming the victim' that we have reached the point where personal responsibilities are neglected and unless you actually abuse someone manipulative behavior is tolerated.
Something is clearly wrong here. Someone is failing. I believe American society is so afraid of 'blaming the victim' that we have reached the point where personal responsibilities are neglected and unless you actually abuse someone manipulative behavior is tolerated.
LOL, what?
it's American society's go to strategy, they always blame the victim.
If you get shot by a cop, it's your fault, even if you were fully complying with the cops instructions, you probably stole a candy bar as a kid, and thus deserved it.
If you get raped, clearly your fault, you were probably wearing something revealing.
A Nazi runs you over, well you shouldn't have been protesting Nazis.
the one thing American society is really afraid of, is assigning blame where it is due. They'll even defend Nazi's just so they can blame the victim.
What the police need is training, from professionsals to teach them how to deescalate problems like these. The only thing the cop knew to do was step back, and that's their idea of deescalating, but in the end, it's always go for the gun and shoot to kill. it's all they're trained to do.
daedalus wrote: Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?
Theres no such thing as healthy persons anymore. Medicine has make all kind of genetic problems endure in our society (And with this I'm not saying that medicine is bad for that reason, myself wouldn't be there if my mother wasn't operated when she was younger ). So, everyone has his problems, someones bigger others smaller, but in general nobody is gonna share with the rest of the world "Ey look how healthy I'm. Yeah, I'm happy and active". The bad news have much widder coverage and social expansion.
Frazzled wrote: 46 times? That's it? How many people live in your country?
It should be 5,5 million today. It is a very different society from the US, but still quite violent compared to many other European countries. But the drunken fights resulting in deaths usually end in a cleared police investigation pretty soon, often the next day when the perpetrator sobers up, realizes what he's done and turns himself in.
I just want to mention that the mentally ill are much more likely to be victims of violent crime, than perpetrators of it. And the vast majority of suicidal and depressed people don't attempt to harm another person.
I'm all for radically reforming law enforcement in the US, and I'd be the first to say they should be held to a higher standard than the average citizen. That cowards and tyrants should be screened out from hiring. That the supreme court ruling allowing police forces to screen out people of above average intelligence is bad, and helping to make the US a kakistocracy. And so on. But everyone should have a basic right to physical safety and self defense.
Most people aren't capable of wanton violence, and those that are weeding themselves out of the gene pool over time is a good thing. If that is indeed what happened here.
daedalus wrote: Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?
The real irony of the quote is the man who said it was basically an insane vigilante serial killer (and yet still the only one with a real and unshakable moral center and identity)
According to Germany's Der Spiegel, German police shot only 85 bullets in all of 2011, a stark reminder that not every country is as gun-crazy as the U.S. of A. As Boing Boing translates, most of those shots weren't even aimed anyone: "49 warning shots, 36 shots on suspects. 15 persons were injured, 6 were killed."
Technically, about 9,000 more shots were fired at sick and dangerous animals. (Germany, why do you kill your animals?) But since we couldn't watch the end of Old Yeller, we'll look the other way on those humanitarian shootings.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., where the population is little less than four times the size of Germany's, well, we can get to 85 in just one sitting, thank you very much. 84 shots fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, another 90 shot at one fleeing unarmed man in Los Angeles. And that was just April.
Even when pulled they don't usually shoot, only threaten to reinforce the command to surrender. You have years like 2013 where a gun was "used" 27 times and "threatened" 19 times, but only 6 shots were fired. 2 warning shots and 4 wounded people.
I remember an incident in my own home town where a mental patient with a shotgun took hostages at a gas station (he wanted to get put in closed care instead of trying to cope alone with only pills). The police took him out with a dog instead of a sniper.
Of course, because who cares if that dog is killed, don't tell animal rights activists thoug.
Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
redleger wrote: Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
You do know that suicidal people are not attempting to hurt people, just provoke an attack, right?
That's the failing in the logic here though. It's not some dichotomy where one must die, they weren't in the thunderdome, there are thousands of ways for that to play out and both of them live.
Unfortunately the cops are trained to kill or be killed, and they are allowed no other thoughts. And worse, if they find a better solution, they risk being fired.
“My intentions was to have y’all kill me. I ran out of bullets,” Willie Cory Godbolt told a reporter from the Clarion-Ledger in an exchange captured on video. “Suicide by cop was my intention.”
Godbolt, 35, allegedly killed the eight victims, including a sheriff’s deputy and several relatives, at three separate homes in rural Lincoln County on Saturday night.
redleger wrote: Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
You do know that suicidal people are not attempting to hurt people, just provoke an attack, right?
Much different than suicide bombers.
The danger is how unstable they are and how far they willing to go to cause the suicide by cop. They may not hurt anyone, they might kill to make it happen.
redleger wrote: Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
You do know that suicidal people are not attempting to hurt people, just provoke an attack, right?
Much different than suicide bombers.
The danger is how unstable they are and how far they willing to go to cause the suicide by cop. They may not hurt anyone, they might kill to make it happen.
Also when someone is coming for the c op at the scene with a knife, who doesnt have time or necessarily the skills for the exploratory counseling session to determine their mental health.
Perhaps if there was an expendable Dreadwinter on the scene to intercede and either get slashed up for Allah, or slashed up for crazy, or perhaps not slashed up if the meds somehow kick in then cops will not be at risk. You volunteering?
Orlanth wrote: Also when someone is coming for the c op at the scene with a knife, who doesnt have time or necessarily the skills for the exploratory counseling session to determine their mental health.
Perhaps if there was an expendable Dreadwinter on the scene to intercede and either get slashed up for Allah, or slashed up for crazy, or perhaps not slashed up if the meds somehow kick in then cops will not be at risk. You volunteering?
Police have already volunteered freely to take a job that by definition might not always be safe. I'm not going to go as far as some of these guys with the wacky ideas like trick shooting, but lets not go too far in the other direction, either - taking down someone with a pen knife shouldn't always be a case where lethal force is the only option, ever.
The idea that police are warrior cops/an occupying force in hostile territory who have to be ready at all times to use lethal force to protect themselves is a really, really new one in our culture, and it might not be an appropriate one. Our cultural reflexive defense of nearly all police uses of force have led in some cases to what are functionally paramilitary forces with an ROE much looser than what actual troops in a war zone are allowed. That's not a great thing.
People too too free with expecting cops take heavy risks and delays in dangerous circumstances.
Even if the risks were taken it is still not necessarily possible to be entirely sure.
You can only be possibly more sure, and life must be risked to gain that potential sliver of information.
Those who demand those sacrifices of police should be asked the question, could you do that yourself?
Orlanth wrote: Also when someone is coming for the c op at the scene with a knife, who doesnt have time or necessarily the skills for the exploratory counseling session to determine their mental health.
Perhaps if there was an expendable Dreadwinter on the scene to intercede and either get slashed up for Allah, or slashed up for crazy, or perhaps not slashed up if the meds somehow kick in then cops will not be at risk. You volunteering?
Police have already volunteered freely to take a job that by definition might not always be safe. I'm not going to go as far as some of these guys with the wacky ideas like trick shooting, but lets not go too far in the other direction, either - taking down someone with a pen knife shouldn't always be a case where lethal force is the only option, ever.
The idea that police are warrior cops/an occupying force in hostile territory who have to be ready at all times to use lethal force to protect themselves is a really, really new one in our culture, and it might not be an appropriate one. Our cultural reflexive defense of nearly all police uses of force have led in some cases to what are functionally paramilitary forces with an ROE much looser than what actual troops in a war zone are allowed. That's not a great thing.
Police volunteered to take a dangerous job, they didn't volunteer to make the job unnecessarily more dangerous.
You can expect a policeman to try take a risk to save someone from a frozen lake or a burning car, and even then they might not be able to.
You cant expect a policeman to delay and observe a person at close range who is appearing to be immediately dangerous, nor can they be expected to physically tackle them if armed.
Orlanth wrote: Those who demand those sacrifices of police should be asked the question, could you do that yourself?
I've already mentioned earlier in the thread why that's a pretty poor way of thinking. I'm not willing to be a farmer, but I feel comfortable saying someone working in a henhouse shouldn't toss the eggs into a basket 15 feet away.
Police officer are public servants. Their role is to serve the public trust, and they are fully funded via the citizens of the country, so the idea said (non-police) citizens have the right to determine how they are policed probably shouldn't be controversial, and yet, here we are.
Desubot wrote: also is that whole education cap for new hires still a thing?
What are you referring to?
I think he might be referring to a practice some police departments have that caps out how much education/extra training the department will foot the bill for when it is someone that is a new hire.
More cops available with better training and tools would result in less loss of life.
The thing I've noticed from people bringing up other country's dealings.. Is that they are much smaller, police are easily more available, and they don't have to patrol area's much larger with more people due to the size of the nation and area's they need to deal with.
Unless people are enlisting enmass to join the police, there's never going to be a situation where you can suddenly spare 20 cops to deal with one person.
More cops available with better training and tools would result in less loss of life.
The thing I've noticed from people bringing up other country's dealings.. Is that they are much smaller, police are easily more available, and they don't have to patrol area's much larger with more people due to the size of the nation and area's they need to deal with.
Unless people are enlisting enmass to join the police, there's never going to be a situation where you can suddenly spare 20 cops to deal with one person.
North American cities have similar population density as other countries where 'causing a scene' isn't likely to get you shot.
It's a matter of will. Willing to spend 700 billion to blow up some farmers and their families on the other side of the world. There must be some wiggle room in the budget there to properly fund the domestic police force.
Desubot wrote: thanks i remember hearing about it somewhere at some time. and i remember thinking... why.
I think the rationale was anyone who scores that high is likely to eat up a bunch of training and then get bored and move on. I definitely can't say whether it's an accurate rationale or not.
redleger wrote: Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
You do know that suicidal people are not attempting to hurt people, just provoke an attack, right?
Much different than suicide bombers.
The danger is how unstable they are and how far they willing to go to cause the suicide by cop. They may not hurt anyone, they might kill to make it happen.
Also when someone is coming for the c op at the scene with a knife, who doesnt have time or necessarily the skills for the exploratory counseling session to determine their mental health.
Perhaps if there was an expendable Dreadwinter on the scene to intercede and either get slashed up for Allah, or slashed up for crazy, or perhaps not slashed up if the meds somehow kick in then cops will not be at risk. You volunteering?
What the feth does Allah have to do with this? I'm not sure I can explain this any more plainly. Suicide Bombers and Suicide by Cop are two completely different scenarios. If you can't understand that, well, maybe you should leave.
Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
More cops available with better training and tools would result in less loss of life.
The thing I've noticed from people bringing up other country's dealings.. Is that they are much smaller, police are easily more available, and they don't have to patrol area's much larger with more people due to the size of the nation and area's they need to deal with.
Unless people are enlisting enmass to join the police, there's never going to be a situation where you can suddenly spare 20 cops to deal with one person.
North American cities have similar population density as other countries where 'causing a scene' isn't likely to get you shot.
It's a matter of will. Willing to spend 700 billion to blow up some farmers and their families on the other side of the world. There must be some wiggle room in the budget there to properly fund the domestic police force.
The irony with that is that the federal govt will gladly give local police forces surplus military gear and vehicles, billions of dollars worth, but the DoJ doesn't fund police training anywhere close to the same degree. Police departments are primarily funded by the state/county/municipality they operate in so training budgets and size of the departments can vary wildly.
redleger wrote: Seems like there is no situation, per some peoples opinion where killing a violent suspect is going to be justified in their eyes. Just because you choose service to community, state, or country with an understanding it can be dangerous does not mean you run around trying to get yourself killed so someone with a knife trying to kill you doesn't have to accept the consequences of said actions. I know for a fact there are bad police out there, but once again the number of bad to good is not what the media would have you believe.
example: As a Soldier we had escalation of force lines at checkpoints. way far out we would attempt to signal them to stop, at a point there would be road spikes, we would use very bright lazer to attempt to blind the driver and make him pull over, etc. Once the distance was closed in where a VBIED would be catastrophic to check point personnel that vehicle became riddled with .50 cal bullets. Occasionally it was just a dude being stupid. It's friggin tragic that the person would not follow directions knowing that a checkpoint of US Soldiers was directly in front of him.
Now how does that apply to this scenario you ask. the person with the knife had the ability to catastrophically cause damage. By catastrophic I mean kill a LEO or a student. By what I'm seeing from the perspective of some is that you should let that figurative VBIED get in the kill radius because maybe you could jump in and stop the guy from hitting the button before he explodes over everyone just to not have to defend yourself with lethal force? Because asking a cop to run up to a knife weilding unstable person could be seen in the same light. The point of the police is to help enforce the law. No where in the oath of a LEO is die trying to enforce said law. So yes we need to crack down on bad cops. Whether it be that imigrant cop who shot the Australian woman, or the one who shot the social worker trying to protect the autistic patient. But in this case, this specific case I can not in any way, from the POV of someone who has had people attempt to stab them and worse, fault this LEO for pulling the trigger.
You do know that suicidal people are not attempting to hurt people, just provoke an attack, right?
Much different than suicide bombers.
The danger is how unstable they are and how far they willing to go to cause the suicide by cop. They may not hurt anyone, they might kill to make it happen.
Also when someone is coming for the c op at the scene with a knife, who doesnt have time or necessarily the skills for the exploratory counseling session to determine their mental health.
Perhaps if there was an expendable Dreadwinter on the scene to intercede and either get slashed up for Allah, or slashed up for crazy, or perhaps not slashed up if the meds somehow kick in then cops will not be at risk. You volunteering?
What the feth does Allah have to do with this? I'm not sure I can explain this any more plainly. Suicide Bombers and Suicide by Cop are two completely different scenarios. If you can't understand that, well, maybe you should leave.
Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
If one of your patients became agitated and had a knife or other lethal weapon and you tried to subdue that patient you would be in a life or death situation in which you may have to use lethal force to save yourself and if you did have to use lethal force the law would be on your side to justify your actions. Same thing here, agitated person who was armed with a lethal weapon and when the situation reached a point wherein the officer felt a reasonable fear of imminent harm lethal force was used to end the threat. The use of lethal force isn't the only possible outcome for the incident in the OP but it is a justifiable one.
Dreadwinter wrote: Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
whembly wrote: Well... I know is anecdotal but I have fam all over the st. louis region working for city/county/sheriff police dept.
Training isn't the problem... in fact, they have loads of options. It's the overtime hours... not enough to go around.
Hence why when weird gak happens, like Ferguson riots and the recent St. Louis riots, these department ask for emergency fundings from the state.
Having lots of options for additional training but not having authorization to expend overtime to send officers to attend training creates a training deficit which is a problem. Regardless of why additional training isn't undertaken the lack of it poses a problem.
Dreadwinter wrote: Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
Man, Black Friday gets worse and worse!
Seriously, what profession?
Nursing.
Prestor Jon wrote:If one of your patients became agitated and had a knife or other lethal weapon and you tried to subdue that patient you would be in a life or death situation in which you may have to use lethal force to save yourself and if you did have to use lethal force the law would be on your side to justify your actions. Same thing here, agitated person who was armed with a lethal weapon and when the situation reached a point wherein the officer felt a reasonable fear of imminent harm lethal force was used to end the threat. The use of lethal force isn't the only possible outcome for the incident in the OP but it is a justifiable one.
Uhhh, no the law would not be on my side if I used lethal force to stop a person. I would be immediately arrested because they are under my care. I would be required to disarm the person and do my best not to harm them while I waited for help to come. If they are under my care, I can not harm them legally. Throwing a punch would cause loss of license and jail time.
feeder wrote: It really comes down to whether one thinks a psychotic break is reason enough for that person to lose their life.
More cops available with better training and tools would result in less loss of life.
Better training is always good. But keep in mind there have been more and more school (and university) shootings in the last decade, where someone just guns down the place for the lulz and gets put down themselves. Any situation like this (particularly if they were indeed reported as having a gun) has to be treated like the potential start for something similar. The Virginia Tech shooting probably would have wandered through the minds of these cops at least once.
But cops aren't mind readers. 'Psychotic break' isn't something they can be reasonably expected to assess. Visibly armed and non-compliant is, and the possibility of additional weapons is always a factor.
It's a bad situation, but the cops involved were definitely following their training, and doing so correctly. Too many of the other police shootings the last few years aren't as clear cut (or are, unfortunately, clear in the other direction).
Dreadwinter wrote: Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
Man, Black Friday gets worse and worse!
Seriously, what profession?
Nursing.
Prestor Jon wrote:If one of your patients became agitated and had a knife or other lethal weapon and you tried to subdue that patient you would be in a life or death situation in which you may have to use lethal force to save yourself and if you did have to use lethal force the law would be on your side to justify your actions. Same thing here, agitated person who was armed with a lethal weapon and when the situation reached a point wherein the officer felt a reasonable fear of imminent harm lethal force was used to end the threat. The use of lethal force isn't the only possible outcome for the incident in the OP but it is a justifiable one.
Uhhh, no the law would not be on my side if I used lethal force to stop a person. I would be immediately arrested because they are under my care. I would be required to disarm the person and do my best not to harm them while I waited for help to come. If they are under my care, I can not harm them legally. Throwing a punch would cause loss of license and jail time.
I don't think the law says you have to allow somebody to harm you without defending yourself. If your patient is trying to stab you with a needle and you have to forcibly stop them you won't lose your license because the violent patient trying to hurt you got bruised during the altercation. I have family that are nurses and special ed teachers and they don't have to passively endure abuse and harm from the people in their care.
Dreadwinter wrote: Also, I already work in a job that is more dangerous than that of a cop. I am regularly punched, I have had to restrain a person attempting to stab me with a needle, I have been sexually assaulted, I have had a patient threaten to throw me out of a third story window, and I have been kicked in the face by a patient. Guess what, didn't shoot them.
Man, Black Friday gets worse and worse!
Seriously, what profession?
Nursing.
Prestor Jon wrote:If one of your patients became agitated and had a knife or other lethal weapon and you tried to subdue that patient you would be in a life or death situation in which you may have to use lethal force to save yourself and if you did have to use lethal force the law would be on your side to justify your actions. Same thing here, agitated person who was armed with a lethal weapon and when the situation reached a point wherein the officer felt a reasonable fear of imminent harm lethal force was used to end the threat. The use of lethal force isn't the only possible outcome for the incident in the OP but it is a justifiable one.
Uhhh, no the law would not be on my side if I used lethal force to stop a person. I would be immediately arrested because they are under my care. I would be required to disarm the person and do my best not to harm them while I waited for help to come. If they are under my care, I can not harm them legally. Throwing a punch would cause loss of license and jail time.
I don't think the law says you have to allow somebody to harm you without defending yourself. If your patient is trying to stab you with a needle and you have to forcibly stop them you won't lose your license because the violent patient trying to hurt you got bruised during the altercation. I have family that are nurses and special ed teachers and they don't have to passively endure abuse and harm from the people in their care.
That is, of course, not what I have said. I can defend myself, I can block what they are doing and disarm them. I cannot, however, strike them or do anything more than is needed to restrain them.
Yeah people are going a little ham on the "shoot them if you feel threatened thing."
You could use that to justify 9/11 - the Taliban and Al Quaeda felt threatened by America, so they "shot them".
It is a very dangerous line of thinking from the right that you can shoot when you "feel threatened" just like it's a very dangerous line of thinking from the left that you can silence someone when you "feel offended".
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah people are going a little ham on the "shoot them if you feel threatened thing."
You could use that to justify 9/11 - the Taliban and Al Quaeda felt threatened by America, so they "shot them".
It is a very dangerous line of thinking from the right that you can shoot when you "feel threatened" just like it's a very dangerous line of thinking from the left that you can silence someone when you "feel offended".
To be fair a person wielding a knife advancing on you aggressively isnt a "feeling" it just is threatening and can easily be life threatening.
different to say feeling threatened when some one reaches slowly into a back pocket and then blasting them
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah people are going a little ham on the "shoot them if you feel threatened thing."
You could use that to justify 9/11 - the Taliban and Al Quaeda felt threatened by America, so they "shot them".
It is a very dangerous line of thinking from the right that you can shoot when you "feel threatened" just like it's a very dangerous line of thinking from the left that you can silence someone when you "feel offended".
To be fair a person wielding a knife advancing on you aggressively isnt a "feeling" it just is threatening and can easily be life threatening.
different to say feeling threatened when some one reaches slowly into a back pocket and then blasting them
Yes, I agree with this. That's why I don't hold the officer at fault at all in this specific case (as hopefully you can tell from my other posts).
NenkotaMoon wrote: They should have sent a dog, no one cares if the dog gets stabbed.
I care, as do many if the dog gets stabbed. Are you in the habit of unnecessarily sacrificing animals? Im no PETA fan, but I damn sure wouldn't voluntarily send my German Shepard towards someone with a knife.
NenkotaMoon wrote: They should have sent a dog, no one cares if the dog gets stabbed.
I care, as do many if the dog gets stabbed.
Police dogs with attack training usually go for your weapon arm. They also react much faster than a human and when you're hit by a large dog moving at dog speed you will often get dragged off your feet. Perfect spot for the handler to move in and disarm you. Yes, it's sad if the dog gets hurt but you send it when you want to try taking someone alive - stopping a knife man without risking a cop, or stopping a running perp you don't want to shoot, for example. So the dog is actually a tool to save a life.
But wishing campus cops had dogs is just more 20-20 hindsight in this case, ofc. They used the tools they had in a very restrained manner IMO.
NenkotaMoon wrote: They should have sent a dog, no one cares if the dog gets stabbed.
I care, as do many if the dog gets stabbed.
Police dogs with attack training usually go for your weapon arm. They also react much faster than a human and when you're hit by a large dog moving at dog speed you will often get dragged off your feet. Perfect spot for the handler to move in and disarm you. Yes, it's sad if the dog gets hurt but you send it when you want to try taking someone alive - stopping a knife man without risking a cop, or stopping a running perp you don't want to shoot, for example. So the dog is actually a tool to save a life.
But wishing campus cops had dogs is just more 20-20 hindsight in this case, ofc. They used the tools they had in a very restrained manner IMO.
Aren't the dogs also cops?
you could also make the case if there were no cops on campus, the kid would still be alive as there would have been no cop to assist him in his suicide.
Police dogs require a great deal of special training and handling - we might want to restrict our monday morning quarterbacking to the resources it's fair to expect small departments to field and maintain.
Spetulhu wrote: But wishing campus cops had dogs is just more 20-20 hindsight in this case, ofc.
NenkotaMoon wrote: They should have sent a dog, no one cares if the dog gets stabbed.
I care, as do many if the dog gets stabbed.
Police dogs with attack training usually go for your weapon arm. They also react much faster than a human and when you're hit by a large dog moving at dog speed you will often get dragged off your feet. Perfect spot for the handler to move in and disarm you. Yes, it's sad if the dog gets hurt but you send it when you want to try taking someone alive - stopping a knife man without risking a cop, or stopping a running perp you don't want to shoot, for example. So the dog is actually a tool to save a life.
But wishing campus cops had dogs is just more 20-20 hindsight in this case, ofc. They used the tools they had in a very restrained manner IMO.
now you want college cops to have attack dogs? Mussolini would be proud.
Frazzled wrote: now you want college cops to have attack dogs?
I will be honest, as a dirty stink'n foreigner I wonder what is the purpose of campus police in the first place. We don't have them over here.
It's a solution to a weird problem we have over here. Campuses are often massive sprawling things that require at least some security, for vandals if nothing else. The problem is that since the campuses are 'public' (ie: run by the government), anyone they employ in the role is technically a federal or state police officer. This creates a weird situation that campus security officers have police powers, by the law.
Interestingly the New York Metro has the same problem. Metro officers have an array of powers that are reserved for state police officers.
A college is basically one big ass town or section of a city. They aren't impervious to crimes. Hell when I was in College Park taking ROTC, there seemed to be a robbery every other week and had cops on standby.
NenkotaMoon wrote: A college is basically one big ass town or section of a city. They aren't impervious to crimes. Hell when I was in College Park taking ROTC, there seemed to be a robbery every other week and had cops on standby.
Yeah. There is a reason the term "College Town" exists. Quite literally.
There are many full blown cities which grew up around College campuses, which often take up more than half the town's space and population. And if you have 10k+ people in their early to mid twenties packed into one area, there's gonna be trouble. Hence the need for a police force.
The place where I went to college, the College population was full half the population of the city. Christmas and summer breaks really reflected that. You went downtown during the school year, it was hustle and bustle. During the summer and any other breaks? Basically deserted.
In my humble experience, the worst cops I have ever encountered have been Campus Cops. I think it is a combination of dealing with thousands of punk kids between the ages of 19 and 21, and the fact that they see many of those kids as "out of towners" that they can do anything they want to.
For instance, at my college, the day before the semester ended, they decided to hand out parking tickets to everyone at my dorm parking, regardless of whether or not the car had the proper permit. Few had time to fight the ticket and just paid. Those of us that did fight, were required to have an in-person meeting, which most couldn't attend because we would have been out of town.
My roommate drove a restored 1960's pickup. The same officer ticketed him 4 times in 3 months for "no seatbelt" because he only had a lap belt (no shoulder restraint). He said lap-only belts don't meet the standard for obeying the law.
I personally got pulled over multiple times by the same officer for "driving a suspicious vehicle". Apparently a 12-year old Pontiac driving the speed limit is suspicious.
Then there were officers that liked to do "Stop and Frisk" on just random people going to class, despite that actually being illegal.
NenkotaMoon wrote: A college is basically one big ass town or section of a city.
Grey Templar wrote: And if you have 10k+ people in their early to mid twenties packed into one area, there's gonna be trouble. Hence the need for a police force.
The university I work at in Australia is 3 times larger than the one work at in the US and the Australian one doesn't have armed cops. We have several university campuses over here with 20k+ students. Campus police just aren't a thing though.
We have security of course, they're unarmed and just wander around to make sure stuff doesn't get vandalised, make sure buildings are locked at night, make sure there's not people in buildings that they shouldn't be in, escort people to their cars late at night and so on.
No armed coppers though.
ChargerIIC wrote: The problem is that since the campuses are 'public' (ie: run by the government), anyone they employ in the role is technically a federal or state police officer. This creates a weird situation that campus security officers have police powers, by the law.
I guess that kind of makes sense in a weird way, lol.
Illegal by state or fed.... also XD on the tickets.
Nearby is Frostburg and that place is a near definition of party college. Big thing out there that you shouldn't go out to parties in the woods. Bad stuff happens out there.
Plus that town gets money from the college but there isn't really many actual people that live in the town left. Place is nothing but beer bottles everywhere.
Per a poster who no loner posts that I can tell, campus police are there to keep the students from interacting with real police. I think there is a lot of merit to his statement.
I know at the Cali and Houston universities I attended, they were there to keep the VERY nefarious local elements off the campus from raping and murdering the students.
The police in Berkely were highly respected by the vast majority of students when I went there. They were patient, understanding and engaged with the community, and it was pretty clear they were helping make the campus safer. The Oakland police, on the other hand...
Obviously I know universities are big places with lots of kids, but my point was "campus police" are almost exclusively an american phenomenon. The rest of the world tends to get by with unarmed security.
I wonder if it's partly to do with alcohol. In the rest of the world university age kids are typically drinking age except maybe a few first year kids.
i never had any problems with my interactions with the campus police at the university I worked at in the US, they seemed like a decent bunch of people. On the flip side I've literally never interacted with police at the university I work at in Australia because campus police aren't a thing here in spite of the university here being much much larger than the one I worked at in the US.
I lived in Carbondale IL for a long time. It is a pretty infamous college party campus. The movie Animal House is based on the town. While I was there, my roommate got pulled over while trying to get some tacos. I had to go pick him up. I drove around looking for their "jail" for thirty minutes until one of them started tailing me then pulled me over. Got the only warning I have ever gotten in my life, but he did tell me where the station was. It was one half of a student housing building.
I hated those guys, but they really need them there. While I was living there, I think about 6 students were murdered at least, and I cannot tell you how much vandalism and straight up fethery happened. This is also the town that banned Halloween for many years because the students like to flip cars and torch them. College is very stressful over here. It's not just the classes, a lot of it is the impending debt. Some students snap.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The university I work at in Australia is 3 times larger than the one work at in the US and the Australian one doesn't have armed cops. We have several university campuses over here with 20k+ students. Campus police just aren't a thing though.
We have security of course, they're unarmed and just wander around to make sure stuff doesn't get vandalised, make sure buildings are locked at night, make sure there's not people in buildings that they shouldn't be in, escort people to their cars late at night and so on.
No armed coppers though.
Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million. When every cop has to assume there is a strong chance the person they are about to interact with is armed, it changes policing.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The university I work at in Australia is 3 times larger than the one work at in the US and the Australian one doesn't have armed cops. We have several university campuses over here with 20k+ students. Campus police just aren't a thing though.
We have security of course, they're unarmed and just wander around to make sure stuff doesn't get vandalised, make sure buildings are locked at night, make sure there's not people in buildings that they shouldn't be in, escort people to their cars late at night and so on.
No armed coppers though.
Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million. When every cop has to assume there is a strong chance the person they are about to interact with is armed, it changes policing.
THe odds on facing a armed threat in US are many times higher. this requires law enforcement to armed in response.
Ouze wrote: Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million.
You're using a purposely inflated number here. Gun ownership in Australia is is roughly 1 gun per 4 people, in the US it's a touch over 1 gun per person (but obviously not everyone owns a gun and others own multiple). Yeah the US has more guns but it's no where near 100 times more like your number suggests, more like 4 times more.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The university I work at in Australia is 3 times larger than the one work at in the US and the Australian one doesn't have armed cops. We have several university campuses over here with 20k+ students. Campus police just aren't a thing though.
We have security of course, they're unarmed and just wander around to make sure stuff doesn't get vandalised, make sure buildings are locked at night, make sure there's not people in buildings that they shouldn't be in, escort people to their cars late at night and so on.
No armed coppers though.
Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million. When every cop has to assume there is a strong chance the person they are about to interact with is armed, it changes policing.
THe odds on facing a armed threat in US are many times higher. this requires law enforcement to armed in response.
Though I do wonder if at the end of the day does it actually make students any much safer.
Ouze wrote: Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million.
You're using a purposely inflated number here. Gun ownership in Australia is is roughly 1 gun per 4 people, in the US it's a touch over 1 gun per person (but obviously not everyone owns a gun and others own multiple). Yeah the US has more guns but it's no where near 100 times more like your number suggests, more like 4 times more.
If Australia has a population of 25 million people and has 1 gun per 4 people that's 6.25 million guns. If the US has 325 million inhabitants and has one gun per inhabitant that's 325 million guns. 325 isn't 100 times 6.25 (it's 52 times), but it's closer to 100 times than your 4 times.
The big factor for cops being concerned about people being armed isn't primarily the number of guns around, but the number of pistols and other easily concealed weapons around.
Scandinavian countries for example have loads of hunting rifles among the population (especially in the northern parts) and I believe more or less every Swiss male keep an assault-rifle in their homes after their military service?
But these kind of guns are bulky and easily spotted, so a police officer will easily be able to spot if a knife wielding look has one of those on them or not.
Gun crime is low in these countries compared to the USA, and a lot of the gun crime that does occur is committed with illegally obtained pistols.
Ouze wrote: Australia has 3 million guns. The United States has 300 million.
You're using a purposely inflated number here. Gun ownership in Australia is is roughly 1 gun per 4 people, in the US it's a touch over 1 gun per person (but obviously not everyone owns a gun and others own multiple). Yeah the US has more guns but it's no where near 100 times more like your number suggests, more like 4 times more.
If Australia has a population of 25 million people and has 1 gun per 4 people that's 6.25 million guns. If the US has 325 million inhabitants and has one gun per inhabitant that's 325 million guns. 325 isn't 100 times 6.25 (it's 52 times), but it's closer to 100 times than your 4 times.
My research seems to show that Australia has about 3 million civilian guns. If that's accurate, the US reliably sells more pistols alone than that yearly. You can't massage that data.
The US is awash in guns, and so the police have to assume that guns are likely present and police accordingly. I'm really not sure why this is a controversial idea.
Zywus wrote: The big factor for cops being concerned about people being armed isn't primarily the number of guns around, but the number of pistols and other easily concealed weapons around.
Scandinavian countries for example have loads of hunting rifles among the population (especially in the northern parts) and I believe more or less every Swiss male keep an assault-rifle in their homes after their military service?
But these kind of guns are bulky and easily spotted, so a police officer will easily be able to spot if a knife wielding look has one of those on them or not.
Gun crime is low in these countries compared to the USA, and a lot of the gun crime that does occur is committed with illegally obtained pistols.
This is a point. A dude I know is a hunter that tracks down game that has been hit in road accidents for the police. He routinely gets called out to put down injured wildlife and thus travels around with rifles a lot. As far as I know the police hasn't ever granted him permission to use his pistols though; they really, REALLY don't want people going around with easily-concealed guns.
Zywus wrote: The big factor for cops being concerned about people being armed isn't primarily the number of guns around, but the number of pistols and other easily concealed weapons around.
Scandinavian countries for example have loads of hunting rifles among the population (especially in the northern parts) and I believe more or less every Swiss male keep an assault-rifle in their homes after their military service?
But these kind of guns are bulky and easily spotted, so a police officer will easily be able to spot if a knife wielding look has one of those on them or not.
Gun crime is low in these countries compared to the USA, and a lot of the gun crime that does occur is committed with illegally obtained pistols.
That's the same with the US. Most firearm crimes involve illegally acquired weapons. Legally owned weapons are rarely involved in crimes.
Zywus wrote: The big factor for cops being concerned about people being armed isn't primarily the number of guns around, but the number of pistols and other easily concealed weapons around.
Scandinavian countries for example have loads of hunting rifles among the population (especially in the northern parts) and I believe more or less every Swiss male keep an assault-rifle in their homes after their military service?
But these kind of guns are bulky and easily spotted, so a police officer will easily be able to spot if a knife wielding look has one of those on them or not.
Gun crime is low in these countries compared to the USA, and a lot of the gun crime that does occur is committed with illegally obtained pistols.
That's the same with the US. Most firearm crimes involve illegally acquired weapons. Legally owned weapons are rarely involved in crimes.
That's a valid point.
I guess a difference is that there barely exist any pistols in scandinavia among the populace outside of illegally imported ones, since it's nearly impossible to get legal permission to even own pistols. I presume the situation is similar in the rest of Europe.
In the US there's a whole lot of legally acquired pistols among the population, which makes it a lot more plausible that a loon on a campus is armed with a pistol, since he doesn't need any connection to illegal arms dealers to get hold of one.
I guess a difference is that there barely exist any pistols in scandinavia among the populace outside of illegally imported ones, since it's nearly impossible to get legal permission to even own pistols. I presume the situation is similar in the rest of Europe.
In the US there's a whole lot of legally acquired pistols among the population, which makes it a lot more plausible that a loon on a campus is armed with a pistol, since he doesn't need any connection to illegal arms dealers to get hold of one.
Not quite. Less than 1% of legally owned firearms in the US are ever used in any sort of crime. Legal gun owners, and concealed carry permit holders in particular, are statistically one of the safest groups of people to be around. You are several times more likely to be murdered by a cop. A vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to illegally owned firearms in places where guns are tightly restricted, such as Chicago. Study after study has shown that while guns can make the resuls more lethal, their existence has no discernable impact on violent crime rates (and in fact violent crime happens with much more frequency in many other Western nations that have restrictive gun laws). Issues like poverty and income inequality are much, much better predictors of violent crime.
I guess a difference is that there barely exist any pistols in scandinavia among the populace outside of illegally imported ones, since it's nearly impossible to get legal permission to even own pistols. I presume the situation is similar in the rest of Europe.
In the US there's a whole lot of legally acquired pistols among the population, which makes it a lot more plausible that a loon on a campus is armed with a pistol, since he doesn't need any connection to illegal arms dealers to get hold of one.
Not quite. Less than 1% of legally owned firearms in the US are ever used in any sort of crime. Legal gun owners, and concealed carry permit holders in particular, are statistically one of the safest groups of people to be around. You are several times more likely to be murdered by a cop. A vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to illegally owned firearms in places where guns are tightly restricted, such as Chicago. Study after study has shown that while guns can make the resuls more lethal, their existence has no discernable impact on violent crime rates (and in fact violent crime happens with much more frequency in many other Western nations that have restrictive gun laws). Issues like poverty and income inequality are much, much better predictors of violent crime.
This all day long. I still don't know why people ignore societal reasons for the high crime rates and the fact that most major shootings happen in areas with the strictist gun laws. Its almost as if guns are really not the problem people make them out to be. If you got a wish from a Genie and wished all guns in the USA away, being run over and stabbed in the eye by pencils would be all over the news. Its gonna happen. Research on homemade explosives would go up, and these things would still happen.
I guess a difference is that there barely exist any pistols in scandinavia among the populace outside of illegally imported ones, since it's nearly impossible to get legal permission to even own pistols. I presume the situation is similar in the rest of Europe.
In the US there's a whole lot of legally acquired pistols among the population, which makes it a lot more plausible that a loon on a campus is armed with a pistol, since he doesn't need any connection to illegal arms dealers to get hold of one.
Not quite. Less than 1% of legally owned firearms in the US are ever used in any sort of crime. Legal gun owners, and concealed carry permit holders in particular, are statistically one of the safest groups of people to be around. You are several times more likely to be murdered by a cop. A vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to illegally owned firearms in places where guns are tightly restricted, such as Chicago. Study after study has shown that while guns can make the resuls more lethal, their existence has no discernable impact on violent crime rates (and in fact violent crime happens with much more frequency in many other Western nations that have restrictive gun laws). Issues like poverty and income inequality are much, much better predictors of violent crime.
Fair enough.
My original point was merely that the number of guns spread through the population doesn't directly correlate to the amount of gun-related crime. It's especially true for rifles, but as you point out, the number of handguns isn't particularly relevant either, without additional qualifiers.
redleger wrote: This all day long. I still don't know why people ignore societal reasons for the high crime rates and the fact that most major shootings happen in areas with the strictist gun laws. Its almost as if guns are really not the problem people make them out to be. If you got a wish from a Genie and wished all guns in the USA away, being run over and stabbed in the eye by pencils would be all over the news. Its gonna happen. Research on homemade explosives would go up, and these things would still happen.
The difference between strict gun laws and loose gun laws in the US isn't that big compared to actually strict gun laws in other developed countries and if you compare those numbers then the US also has many more gun deaths. In Australia they reduced the number of gun deaths by restricting access to guns. It can work if you implement it. So maybe the "too many guns" bit is also important.
redleger wrote: This all day long. I still don't know why people ignore societal reasons for the high crime rates and the fact that most major shootings happen in areas with the strictest gun laws. Its almost as if guns are really not the problem people make them out to be. If you got a wish from a Genie and wished all guns in the USA away, being run over and stabbed in the eye by pencils would be all over the news. Its gonna happen. Research on homemade explosives would go up, and these things would still happen.
The difference between strict gun laws and loose gun laws in the US isn't that big compared to actually strict gun laws in other developed countries and if you compare those numbers then the US also has many more gun deaths. In Australia they reduced the number of gun deaths by restricting access to guns. It can work if you implement it. So maybe the "too many guns" bit is also important.
that has absolutely no contextual relation to what I was talking about. You can not hand waive away the founding of the US and gun cultural. So comparing us to other countries is meaningless. So understanding where, and why gun violence happens as it correlates to legal and illegal possession of a weapon in committing a crime is what the take away was.
I guess a difference is that there barely exist any pistols in scandinavia among the populace outside of illegally imported ones, since it's nearly impossible to get legal permission to even own pistols. I presume the situation is similar in the rest of Europe.
In the US there's a whole lot of legally acquired pistols among the population, which makes it a lot more plausible that a loon on a campus is armed with a pistol, since he doesn't need any connection to illegal arms dealers to get hold of one.
Not quite. Less than 1% of legally owned firearms in the US are ever used in any sort of crime. Legal gun owners, and concealed carry permit holders in particular, are statistically one of the safest groups of people to be around. You are several times more likely to be murdered by a cop. A vast majority of gun violence in this country is tied to illegally owned firearms in places where guns are tightly restricted, such as Chicago. Study after study has shown that while guns can make the resuls more lethal, their existence has no discernable impact on violent crime rates (and in fact violent crime happens with much more frequency in many other Western nations that have restrictive gun laws). Issues like poverty and income inequality are much, much better predictors of violent crime.
Illegally owned firearms potentially purchased by someone else, legally, to make a profit or sold privately to someone who shouldn't own one.
One thing that I feel gets glossed over is that some things that should be considered as parts of these studies(such as suicides and domestic violence) are not, allowing people to cite them in situations like this. Another thing is that people tend to forget that many people on the "legal gun owners side" own multiple guns, making these numbers a bit fallacious to begin with.
If you average out a gun owner owning 3-4 guns legally while illegal gun owners own 1 gun illegally, it makes these numbers wildly skewed.
Illegally owned firearms potentially purchased by someone else, legally, to make a profit or sold privately to someone who shouldn't own one.
One thing that I feel gets glossed over is that some things that should be considered as parts of these studies(such as suicides and domestic violence) are not, allowing people to cite them in situations like this.
Another thing is that people tend to forget that many people on the "legal gun owners side" own multiple guns, making these numbers a bit fallacious to begin with.
If you average out a gun owner owning 3-4 guns legally while illegal gun owners own 1 gun illegally, it makes these numbers wildly skewed.
Why would you want to include suicides in violent crime statistics? Especially in the special case of gun deaths, but nothing else? Rest assured that domestic violence is counted. Also, a straw purchase made on behalf of someone with no right to own a gun is not an example of legal gun ownership.
Any way you slice it, if you look at it from a purely statistical perspective, legal gun ownership does not increase violent crime rates. I could argue this even based solely on the studies which are least generous toward gun ownership. What you're talking about amounts to the difference between 0.003% and 0.012%. Although, as I said before, the availability of guns can make violent crime more lethal, even if it has no effect (or a negative effect) on the rate at which it happens.
Anyway, this is kind of loosely connected to the topic. There are a lot of reasons our police are so militarized compared to those of other nations. One of those reasons is the availability of guns, but I think a bigger reason is the style of "law and order" policing we've adopted. Especially since the beginning of the war on drugs around the time of the LBJ administration. Much like in war, no other country can match our expenditures in these areas, and it's created a vicious cycle of poverty, violence and escalation that is very much a problem to this day.
In any case, there are only so many things one can do in this particular situation. A man with a knife can very probably injure or kill anyone within about 7 yards of him in an instant. That includes an armed police officer. By the time someone like that picks up a knife or a gun, society has already failed them. We need more intervening factors BEFORE violence becomes a probable outcome, not when it already has.
redleger wrote: This all day long. I still don't know why people ignore societal reasons for the high crime rates and the fact that most major shootings happen in areas with the strictist gun laws. Its almost as if guns are really not the problem people make them out to be. If you got a wish from a Genie and wished all guns in the USA away, being run over and stabbed in the eye by pencils would be all over the news. Its gonna happen. Research on homemade explosives would go up, and these things would still happen.
The difference between strict gun laws and loose gun laws in the US isn't that big compared to actually strict gun laws in other developed countries and if you compare those numbers then the US also has many more gun deaths. In Australia they reduced the number of gun deaths by restricting access to guns. It can work if you implement it. So maybe the "too many guns" bit is also important.
The US is awash in guns, and so the police have to assume that guns are likely present and police accordingly. I'm really not sure why this is a controversial idea.
I think the basic idea really isn't controversial. The problem, IMO, is that a lot of police training is focused on "every encounter could involve bad guys who are going to kill you, so be ready to kill them first" and that side of the training gets more emphasis than the "because every situation could be dangerous, here is how to de-escalate situations rather than escalate them".
There are also many cases where police officers place themselves in harms way when it's really not needed rather than putting themselves into tactical positions where situations may be more likely to be resolved without the exchange of gunfire.
The US is awash in guns, and so the police have to assume that guns are likely present and police accordingly. I'm really not sure why this is a controversial idea.
I think the basic idea really isn't controversial. The problem, IMO, is that a lot of police training is focused on "every encounter could involve bad guys who are going to kill you, so be ready to kill them first" and that side of the training gets more emphasis than the "because every situation could be dangerous, here is how to de-escalate situations rather than escalate them".
There are also many cases where police officers place themselves in harms way when it's really not needed rather than putting themselves into tactical positions where situations may be more likely to be resolved without the exchange of gunfire.
If we would give police proper training, get tips and information from other counties, require continued education about new problems as well as old ones, and stop giving police military hardware, we would be better off. Proper de-escalation training would be great. This is not the wild west, cops shouldn't be leaving the precinct expecting a showdown every day. But as we have seen with recent events, specifically the St. Louis riots right now, that is all they are looking for. I cannot support police who jump to violence before putting forth any attempt at diplomacy.
d-usa wrote: Just by looking at police training standards between the US and other countries should tell us a lot.
It's worth noting that police training isn't lower in the US overall, but like a lot of things it is wildly inconsistent from location to location. Police in a large, prosperous cities tend to have much better resourced training than police in poorer cities and rural areas. This can compound the issues these poorer cities have with shortages of police and equipment.
It isn't all of the story, of course - it's worth noting a lot of the shootings there still seems to be a lot of police shootings in areas that are well funded, but it is likely playing a part in what is happening.
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: Obviously I know universities are big places with lots of kids, but my point was "campus police" are almost exclusively an american phenomenon. The rest of the world tends to get by with unarmed security.
And even unarmed security is minimal. At the university I used to work at, and it was one of the biggest in the country, thousands of staff and many thousands of students, there was a grand total of 3 security on the payroll (although there was a contract for security to patrol the grounds at night). And it was a very cruisy job, these guys had almost nothing to do. Most of the work they did came when they got grabbed by the infrastructure guys to help them move furniture and stuff like that.
Part of it might be to do with the US having more of a dorm culture, where many students live on or near campus. That wasn't really a thing here for a long time. Campuses are located in major cities, so you either stay with your parents or get your own place, which isn't necessarily that close to the uni.
It is changing as international student numbers are growing, they prefer to cluster in groups around the university. A couple of years after I left work at that uni there was a couple of attacks on or just outside of campus grounds late at night, with Asian international students being attacked as they walked home. Something similar happened to some Indian students in Melbourne some years before. I wonder if those 3 campus security were engaged in by the police at all? I wonder if there's now more police as a response to the increase in students living on or near campus?
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: You're using a purposely inflated number here. Gun ownership in Australia is is roughly 1 gun per 4 people, in the US it's a touch over 1 gun per person (but obviously not everyone owns a gun and others own multiple). Yeah the US has more guns but it's no where near 100 times more like your number suggests, more like 4 times more.
But that's misleading too, as the overwhelming share of guns in Australia are held by a small number of farmers, for work on their farms. Just 6% of households own a gun, and those guns are almost all rifles and shotguns. In contrast the US is closer to 40%, with a much larger share of pistols.
In a place where pistols are common an officer can never be sure when approaching a person if they are carrying, and that will affect how he deals with the situation.
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Grey Templar wrote: That's the same with the US. Most firearm crimes involve illegally acquired weapons. Legally owned weapons are rarely involved in crimes.
There's a lot of varying research on this, and it depends on how you define 'legal'. Certainly only a small percentage of guns used in crimes are bought legally through gun stores, but a much larger share get their guns from friends and family and through private sales, which may or may not be illegal.
It is good evidence that just cracking down on gun stores won't necessarily restrict gun use in crime, but it also shows that a society with a lot of guns in it will naturally see more guns getting to people who will to use them for crime.
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redleger wrote: This all day long. I still don't know why people ignore societal reasons for the high crime rates and the fact that most major shootings happen in areas with the strictist gun laws. Its almost as if guns are really not the problem people make them out to be. If you got a wish from a Genie and wished all guns in the USA away, being run over and stabbed in the eye by pencils would be all over the news. Its gonna happen. Research on homemade explosives would go up, and these things would still happen.
I think Luciferian's point was valid and correct, but in replying and agreeing you have way overstated the case. Poverty and other social issues are major drivers of crime and homicide, much stronger than guns. That's true. But you take that to the next step, claiming that guns are not also a driver and that's just plain wrong. This can observed quite easily by noting that the US is far from unique in having social issues like poverty, but it has a much greater murder rate. The reason is that when take those social issues and tip in a pile of handguns it doesn't help.
This doesn't mean that increasing controls on guns would help, or even if it did help that you should do it, but it is an important thing to acknowledge that gun proliferation increases illegal gun use.
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Luciferian wrote: Why would you want to include suicides in violent crime statistics?
You wouldn't be including suicides in stats of violent deaths, but in fatality stats. Just like you would track workplace deaths in measuring the impact of safety regs, it only makes sense to track gun suicides when measuring the impact of gun proliferation.
This isn't a thing that most gun owners need to consider, but if a person is having mental health issues and suicidal thoughts, then for God's sake do not keep a gun in the house. Unfortunately in places where guns are more common then there's just more houses where a person with suicidal thoughts is more likely to have a gun in the house.
It's a loose example, but here in Australia most of the guns are in the country, and that's where most of the suicides are as well. The guns aren't the only reason, anyone who's been to an Australian country town would understand there's a lot of reasons people there might be killing themselves, but it is a factor.
Also, a straw purchase made on behalf of someone with no right to own a gun is not an example of legal gun ownership.
Sure, but it is an activity made much easier when there is a large amount of legal gun ownership.
Anyway, this is kind of loosely connected to the topic. There are a lot of reasons our police are so militarized compared to those of other nations. One of those reasons is the availability of guns, but I think a bigger reason is the style of "law and order" policing we've adopted. Especially since the beginning of the war on drugs around the time of the LBJ administration. Much like in war, no other country can match our expenditures in these areas, and it's created a vicious cycle of poverty, violence and escalation that is very much a problem to this day.
The militarisation is generally seen as starting for real in the 70s, as a response to a genuinely horrible spike in policemen being killed on the job. A whole range of responses, from more defensive police, to greater sentences, to greater police resources and so on, managed to reduce both the crime rates and the number of police deaths, particularly in major cities. But while the threat declined, the more militant policing remained.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Obviously I know universities are big places with lots of kids, but my point was "campus police" are almost exclusively an american phenomenon. The rest of the world tends to get by with unarmed security.
And even unarmed security is minimal. At the university I used to work at, and it was one of the biggest in the country, thousands of staff and many thousands of students, there was a grand total of 3 security on the payroll (although there was a contract for security to patrol the grounds at night). And it was a very cruisy job, these guys had almost nothing to do. Most of the work they did came when they got grabbed by the infrastructure guys to help them move furniture and stuff like that.
You've got me wondering what University and how long ago you worked there, at the University I work at there's at least 4 security people wandering around my faculty alone at any given time, and that's only 1 of half a dozen or so faculties on the campus. I often work late and have met most of them when they come round wondering what I'm still doing there when the university is empty, lol. Occasionally we have secured work in my department in which case another 2 or 3 get put on to keep watch over the entrances to the secured area.
But yeah, it's still a pretty cruisy job.
Part of it might be to do with the US having more of a dorm culture, where many students live on or near campus. That wasn't really a thing here for a long time. Campuses are located in major cities, so you either stay with your parents or get your own place, which isn't necessarily that close to the uni.
Yeah, that's gradually (or quite quickly) changing. The Australian universities I've worked at have really swelled with on campus students, even if you ignore the internationals there's seems to be a lot more students who come from the country, different cities or the other side of the city and end up living on campus.
It is changing as international student numbers are growing, they prefer to cluster in groups around the university. A couple of years after I left work at that uni there was a couple of attacks on or just outside of campus grounds late at night, with Asian international students being attacked as they walked home. Something similar happened to some Indian students in Melbourne some years before. I wonder if those 3 campus security were engaged in by the police at all? I wonder if there's now more police as a response to the increase in students living on or near campus?
The same thing happens in the US. The university I worked at in the US had it's own police, but they only patrolled the university and maybe 1 street outside the university. Most students lived 2 to 3 streets away from the university and you'd constantly hear about students being mugged just outside the area the cops patrolled. The university would send out a notice every time something happened so you got a pretty good idea the rate at which students were being mugged or assaulted.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: You're using a purposely inflated number here. Gun ownership in Australia is is roughly 1 gun per 4 people, in the US it's a touch over 1 gun per person (but obviously not everyone owns a gun and others own multiple). Yeah the US has more guns but it's no where near 100 times more like your number suggests, more like 4 times more.
But that's misleading too
Yeah I know, but at least it was honest, the 1 vs 300 number is nowhere near true, people do occasionally get shot over here too
In a place where pistols are common an officer can never be sure when approaching a person if they are carrying, and that will affect how he deals with the situation.
Yeah I've often said the same thing in defence of US police officers when people talk about them being worse than other countries. I guess my query is what the net benefit for armed security/police actually is in the end. How many lives do they save vs how many students/staff get killed in unfortunate situations, and maybe coppers who do work on campuses need different training to deal with the different burdens.
I recall 1 shooting at an Australian university some years back where a couple of people died. I'm trying to remember if there was any call for more armament in campuses after that event.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Obviously I know universities are big places with lots of kids, but my point was "campus police" are almost exclusively an american phenomenon. The rest of the world tends to get by with unarmed security.
And even unarmed security is minimal. At the university I used to work at, and it was one of the biggest in the country, thousands of staff and many thousands of students, there was a grand total of 3 security on the payroll (although there was a contract for security to patrol the grounds at night). And it was a very cruisy job, these guys had almost nothing to do. Most of the work they did came when they got grabbed by the infrastructure guys to help them move furniture and stuff like that.
You've got me wondering what University and how long ago you worked there, at the University I work at there's at least 4 security people wandering around my faculty alone at any given time, and that's only 1 of half a dozen or so faculties on the campus.
I've never seen a security guard at my university. Not one. I don't actually recall any security at any university I've visited for conferences or anything either (except Hebrew U and Tel Aviv, but they're obvious outliers).
In the end I guess it at least partially depends on whether that thing was actually open or closed at the time he was walking in front of those officers...we'll see if there's a definitive answer to that.
