Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The people who actually operate under that belief represent a vocal minority.

 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.

sirlynchmob wrote:

If you get shot by a cop, it's your fault, even if you were fully complying with the cops instructions

Well it clearly wasn't the case this time.

 daedalus wrote:
Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?

Now that is how you get an exalt. Noice.

Ok, now I feel stupid for not catching that reference. In my defense, is harder when english isn't your original lenguage!

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)

Frazzled wrote:46 times? That's it? How many people live in your country?

This comparisons here has numbers that are adjusted to "per 100 million" on the right so that it's easier to compare (you can click on the up/down arrow in the table to sort according to your curiosity): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country#Comparison_of_countries

Here's an article with comparisons to multiple European countries, although you'll need to multiply number often or add multiple counties together as the US has a bigger population (the data isn't normalised): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries

It seems that police officers in the USA tend to just keep going once they have started shooting:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-against-people-2011/328297/

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.

Of course. We're Americans. Overkill is what we do.

Well, if something's worth doing it's worth doing right.......Where my gun at?

Spetulhu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
So 22 shot, out of how many instances? Shooting but not killing doesn't mean they attempted to wound.

Well, police here generally don't even pull a gun unless someone is armed and making threats. Here's those 2003-2013 stats:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country

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?

Much different than suicide bombers.

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.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fired-not-shooting-suicidal-man-unloaded-gun-article-1.2790243

Person smashes officer in head with a baseball bat, later determined he was attempting suicide by cop.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/04/16/fresno-student-shot-killed-by-police-officer-after-bat-attack.html

Man opened fire at police, provoking a suicide by cop incident.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3491941/Three-brothers-arrested-unprovoked-murder-police-officer-28-shot-dead-outside-suburban-DC-police-station.html

Shot 8 people, including an officer, admitted wanting the police to kill him.

http://nypost.com/2017/05/28/mississippi-shooting-suspect-wanted-suicide-by-cop/

So all of you harping that suicide by cops can't be a threat to the police, or the public as a whole, get over yourselves.

 djones520 wrote:
Shot 8 people, including an officer, admitted wanting the police to kill him.

http://nypost.com/2017/05/28/mississippi-shooting-suspect-wanted-suicide-by-cop/

“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.

What an donkey-cave.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 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.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 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?

Thats unnecessary Orlanth.

Why? That is what is being advocated.d

 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.

 djones520 wrote:
Thats unnecessary Orlanth.

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?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:

 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.

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.

 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.

A psychotic break that could or is causing harm or death to others... probably


but no arguments about better training and tools for sure. also is that whole education cap for new hires still a thing?

 Desubot wrote:
also is that whole education cap for new hires still a thing?

What are you referring to?

 Ouze wrote:

 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.

 Ouze wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
also is that whole education cap for new hires still a thing?

What are you referring to?

I assume he's referring to this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

I can't imagine that all police departments across the country work that way. At least, I really, really, don't want to be that cynical.

 daedalus wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
also is that whole education cap for new hires still a thing?

What are you referring to?

I assume he's referring to this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

I can't imagine that all police departments across the country work that way. At least, I really, really, don't want to be that cynical.

Yep that

thanks i remember hearing about it somewhere at some time. and i remember thinking... why.