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 Steve steveson wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Unlike most other jobs, a police officer having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can and does get people killed. The same is not true for most other professions so, yes, they are held to a much higher standard.

Not really. There are many professions where having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can get you or someone else killed. In fact police officer is quite low on the list of likelihood of that risk. It is not every day that officers are put in that situation, and even less often that their actions can put them or someone else at a huge amount more risk, unless they are grossly negligent. Unlike, say, a doctor, nurse, paramedic, fire fighter, lumber jack, deep sea fisherman, HGV driver, construction worker, fork lift operative, winer dog wrangler, miner, farmer and I am sure many more. All jobs where a small mistake, not watching what you are doing or not paying attention to safety standards can result in serious injury or death, very quickly.

Yes, but no one expects a construction worker or a paramedic to haul off and shoot someone. Sometimes a lot of someones. Or beat someone to death with a club.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Unlike most other jobs, a police officer having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can and does get people killed. The same is not true for most other professions so, yes, they are held to a much higher standard.

Not really. There are many professions where having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can get you or someone else killed. In fact police officer is quite low on the list of likelihood of that risk. It is not every day that officers are put in that situation, and even less often that their actions can put them or someone else at a huge amount more risk, unless they are grossly negligent. Unlike, say, a doctor, nurse, paramedic, fire fighter, lumber jack, deep sea fisherman, HGV driver, construction worker, fork lift operative, winer dog wrangler, miner, farmer and I am sure many more. All jobs where a small mistake, not watching what you are doing or not paying attention to safety standards can result in serious injury or death, very quickly.

Yes, but no one expects a construction worker or a paramedic to haul off and shoot someone. Sometimes a lot of someones. Or beat someone to death with a club.

True. Postal workers however...

 Psienesis wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Unlike most other jobs, a police officer having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can and does get people killed. The same is not true for most other professions so, yes, they are held to a much higher standard.

Not really. There are many professions where having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can get you or someone else killed. In fact police officer is quite low on the list of likelihood of that risk. It is not every day that officers are put in that situation, and even less often that their actions can put them or someone else at a huge amount more risk, unless they are grossly negligent. Unlike, say, a doctor, nurse, paramedic, fire fighter, lumber jack, deep sea fisherman, HGV driver, construction worker, fork lift operative, winer dog wrangler, miner, farmer and I am sure many more. All jobs where a small mistake, not watching what you are doing or not paying attention to safety standards can result in serious injury or death, very quickly.

Yes, but no one expects a construction worker or a paramedic to haul off and shoot someone. Sometimes a lot of someones. Or beat someone to death with a club.

Any heavy equipment/crane operators can cause far more damage/death/destruction then a cop can.


Anyone who commutes in a private vehicle already has the best/worst means to cause mayhem as a cop.


Although the common mind set that someone killed by a gun is somehow worse or more dead then someone killed via other means would lead to your conclusion.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Unlike most other jobs, a police officer having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can and does get people killed. The same is not true for most other professions so, yes, they are held to a much higher standard.

Not really. There are many professions where having a bad day or acting unprofessionally can get you or someone else killed. In fact police officer is quite low on the list of likelihood of that risk. It is not every day that officers are put in that situation, and even less often that their actions can put them or someone else at a huge amount more risk, unless they are grossly negligent. Unlike, say, a doctor, nurse, paramedic, fire fighter, lumber jack, deep sea fisherman, HGV driver, construction worker, fork lift operative, winer dog wrangler, miner, farmer and I am sure many more. All jobs where a small mistake, not watching what you are doing or not paying attention to safety standards can result in serious injury or death, very quickly.

Yes, but no one expects a construction worker or a paramedic to haul off and shoot someone. Sometimes a lot of someones. Or beat someone to death with a club.

How is expecting a police officer not to beat someone to death holding them to a higher standard than expecting a paramedic to undertake complex medical procedures in very difficult situations? Paramedics have to work on people who are drunk, on drugs, violent, abusive, in dangerous situations, all whilst staying calm and providing the best care possible and with no personal protection. I would say they have a far more difficult job, and are held to far higher standards, than the police.

I've not ready all the posts yet, but the report starts off with:

he hesitated to use force because he didn't want to be accused of needlessly killing an unarmed man.

Is that the only possible outcome of stopping someone?
Is lethal force the only option available to the police?

If the robbery was armed, having the weapon out when stopping the vehicle was probably justified.
Otherwise, is holding the weapon at every stop normal?

No its not the only option. He's covering for getting his ass kicked.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I've not ready all the posts yet, but the report starts off with:

he hesitated to use force because he didn't want to be accused of needlessly killing an unarmed man.

Is that the only possible outcome of stopping someone?
Is lethal force the only option available to the police?

If the robbery was armed, having the weapon out when stopping the vehicle was probably justified.
Otherwise, is holding the weapon at every stop normal?

We don't know much of the details, but no, having the weapon out is not standard, although given that there was an active APB on the guy, discretion would indicate that you use force.

As for the actual violence... if a person tries to go for a cops gun, that's pretty much grounds for lethal force in any US jurisdiction. In my limited experience, most police departments actually have use of lethal force in those circumstances as standard policy. The reason is actually pretty straight forward: one of the duties of any first responder is to not become a further victim.

What people need to understand is that only a fairly small percentage of police shootings really attract much investigation, and even fewer cause outrage. Active suspect, out of his car, bullet wounds in the front, cop reports that he was attacked: outside of any evidence to the contrary, that's a pretty clear cut example of a justified shooting under current law and policy.

This leads to my real point: there's almost no way the cop here didn't screw up. That's not grounds for the beating he received, and we all make mistakes, but I'd bet anybody lunch that the story about media coverage is a post hoc rationalization. Keep in mind, most cops never fire their weapons in anger. It's not uncommon for a person to freeze up, or to simply decide they will try to resolve a situation with less than lethal force.

To really go off on a tangent, , I'd contend that this sort of behavior after the fact, with the union whining about the media coverage, shows just how removed cops are from the actual concerns. What if, instead of blaming the current climate for his beating, the cop had claimed that he chose not to use lethal force, in an effort to save lives? The answer is that, odds are, the cop in question will be investigated, not for shooting for the suspect, but for failure to shoot the suspect.

Link all the facts, especially how all this information has come from the union, and I think you can see that the officer in question is looking to save his ass from his next review board.

 Polonius wrote:


This leads to my real point: there's almost no way the cop here didn't screw up.

I agree with nearly all of your post but struggle with this.

We know he was plainclothes. As such, he most likely had minimal kit on him.

We know he was older and the subject was younger and in good shape.

Why "must he have screwed up?" Is it not plausible that he was unable to de-escalate the situation with a subject that had active warrants and was simply attacked and overpowered?

Very plausible because that is likely what happened. He should have stopped there but then went "its media's fault! I intentionally let myself get beat up!"
Nonsense.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:


This leads to my real point: there's almost no way the cop here didn't screw up.

I agree with nearly all of your post but struggle with this.

We know he was plainclothes. As such, he most likely had minimal kit on him.

We know he was older and the subject was younger and in good shape.

Why "must he have screwed up?" Is it not plausible that he was unable to de-escalate the situation with a subject that had active warrants and was simply attacked and overpowered?

Maybe screw up is a harsh word, because that implies that he is a failure as a cop, but he could have done a better job there.

Like I said, one of the keys in a conflict is to keep control of your weapon. Whether it was lack of training or an error in execution, an armed police officer was overpowered by an unarmed suspect. That's a screw up, right?

 Polonius wrote:
, an armed police officer was overpowered by an unarmed suspect. That's a screw up, right?

Is it?

Dude didn't want to shoot the guy. Media applause.

But are we to expect that every cop should able to fend off every attacker with their bare hands and protect their firearm while doing so?

I struggle with that notion.

Always someone bigger, tougher, meaner, and with nothing to lose....

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
, an armed police officer was overpowered by an unarmed suspect. That's a screw up, right?

Is it?

Dude didn't want to shoot the guy. Media applause.

But are we to expect that every cop should able to fend off every attacker with their bare hands and protect their firearm while doing so?

I struggle with that notion.

Always someone bigger, tougher, meaner, and with nothing to lose....

Except the cop didn't have to use his bare hands. He was justified to use his firearm. He didn't, which is probably for the best in the long run because everybody survived.

But... my understanding of police procedure generally has officers trained to use lethal force in that circumstances. That he didn't is actually going to be an issue between him and his supervisor.

 Polonius wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
, an armed police officer was overpowered by an unarmed suspect. That's a screw up, right?

Is it?

Dude didn't want to shoot the guy. Media applause.

But are we to expect that every cop should able to fend off every attacker with their bare hands and protect their firearm while doing so?

I struggle with that notion.

Always someone bigger, tougher, meaner, and with nothing to lose....

Except the cop didn't have to use his bare hands. He was justified to use his firearm. He didn't, which is probably for the best in the long run because everybody survived.

But... my understanding of police procedure generally has officers trained to use lethal force in that circumstances. That he didn't is actually going to be an issue between him and his supervisor.

And if he had, we'd have had another "Unarmed black man killed by evil cop" story on our hands.

I don't envy him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In other news, a State Trooper was killed in Louisiana two days ago. Wasn't mentioned here at all so I figured bring it up.

 cincydooley wrote:

And if he had, we'd have had another "Unarmed black man killed by evil cop" story on our hands.

I don't envy him.

Probably not. This happens a lot, actually, with both white and black suspects. The outrage in the biggest stories has generally stemmed from three factors:
1) The specific circumstances which cast a lot of suspicion on the police's report that they had to use lethal force. In the past few years, you had a young man shot in the back, a 12 year old killed in the park, a man choked to death after selling loosies, and a suspect die in police custody due to neglect. This was a legit stop of a violent suspect, who clearly assaulted a cop.
2) Most of the protest have taken place in cities with pretty serious histories of racial inequity in policing. Which means that the trust for cops is very low.
3) the callous response by the police, both personally and as a group, toward the victims.

Is an unarmed suspect acting like he is going to get into a physical fight with a police officer automatic justification for lethal force? I don't think so, and there is a lot of evidence that seems to support the notion that gunning down anyone that is unarmed and acting like he will fight you is not standard police procedure. We don't even routinely shoot unarmed suspects AFTER they have been in a physical fight with police officers.

He was 100% right in thinking that if he would have shot him then it could have been another news story about a white cop shooting an unarmed black man that has not physically assaulted anybody. He might have been justified to use lethal force after the fight started, he absolutely would have been justified to use lethal force after the guy started to go for his gun. But shooting down an unarmed suspect as a response to "come at me bro" should never be an appropriate escalation of force.

Who was the young man shot in the back?

Also, we know he assaulted the cop using hindsight. That doesn't help the cop at all in that situation....

 Polonius wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

And if he had, we'd have had another "Unarmed black man killed by evil cop" story on our hands.

I don't envy him.

Probably not. This happens a lot, actually, with both white and black suspects. The outrage in the biggest stories has generally stemmed from three factors:
1) The specific circumstances which cast a lot of suspicion on the police's report that they had to use lethal force. In the past few years, you had a young man shot in the back, a 12 year old killed in the park, a man choked to death after selling loosies, and a suspect die in police custody due to neglect. This was a legit stop of a violent suspect, who clearly assaulted a cop.
2) Most of the protest have taken place in cities with pretty serious histories of racial inequity in policing. Which means that the trust for cops is very low.
3) the callous response by the police, both personally and as a group, toward the victims.

In hindsight, with people watching and taking pictures and probably videos, a shooting would of gone viral pretty quickly. outage spawns and the media goes nuts. and the wheels keep on turning. It really doesn't matter if the shooting was justified. it will get unfairly hyped. the department will get angry mail and possible threats and blablabla. but in this case it would of died out quickly i think compared to other caseds.

 cincydooley wrote:
Who was the young man shot in the back?
.

I might be wrong, but supposedly mike brown was shot in the back, or that is the story atleast.
But the media is SO pervasive that people still believe it despite evidence to the contrary.

I doubt there would be pictures and videos of the shooting, as there weren't any of the assault, just the aftermath.

People seem confused as to what goes viral. Horrible things that everybody agrees are horrible things don't cause outrage. While those that many see as horrible, while others see as no big deal, get a lot of airtime and ink.

People aren't as stupid as you might think, and they tend to see when people killings are appropriate. For example, while there was rioting over a death in police custody in Baltimore, there were also 12 other people killed by police in Maryland in 2015 alone, without a lot of complaint.

This is a really interesting website to see the demographics of police killings:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database#

Alabama has also seen 13 police killings this year.

I think Oklahoma leads the nation in officer involved shootings per capita.

 Polonius wrote:


People aren't as stupid as you might think, and they tend to see when people killings are appropriate.

Ahh, I've discovered where we disagree. I'll let someone far more intelligent than me phrase it:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:


People aren't as stupid as you might think, and they tend to see when people killings are appropriate.

Ahh, I've discovered where we disagree. I'll let someone far more intelligent than me phrase it:

That's cute, but we're not exactly in a time of civil upheaval. There were half assed riots in two cities, well, one city and one neighborhood.

We live in a nation with at least hundreds of people killed by police a year. There are national stories of maybe a few per year. This shows that for the most part, people are pretty apathetic about police shootings.

Which indicates that, maybe, just maybe, there are reasons some of them make people angrier.

We are at what, ~300 fatal police shootings so far this year?

 d-usa wrote:
We are at what, ~300 fatal police shootings so far this year?

the online database I linked to earlier has 753 total people killed by police for the year:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

Drilling down, you get 660 by gunshot and 39 by Taser.

 Polonius wrote:


That's cute, but we're not exactly in a time of civil upheaval. There were half assed riots in two cities, well, one city and one neighborhood.

We live in a nation with at least hundreds of people killed by police a year. There are national stories of maybe a few per year. This shows that for the most part, people are pretty apathetic about police shootings.

Which indicates that, maybe, just maybe, there are reasons some of them make people angrier.

Well, let's look at the ones that have made people angry:

Brown -- Committed a crime, forensics shows attempts to interact with the LEOs firearm. Shameful media representation leads to "half assed" rioting that "only" resulted in around $5M in damages.
Rice -- Brandished real looking firearm towards police. Police, according to the video, handle the situation poorly.
DuBose - Subject has open warrants and 2lbs of MJ in the car; not sure what the video shows; IMO impossible to tell if the car is moving when the shots are fired or not.
Grey - Probably clearest case of police malfeasance.

The link you provided shows a lot of criminals being criminals. The only difference is that the criminals I listed above (Rice wasn't really a criminal, just a stupid kid with bad parents) didn't have working firearms on them.

I'd say this cop getting his ass beat would tend to support the notion that, just because you don't have a firearm, you can still be dangerous.

 Polonius wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
We are at what, ~300 fatal police shootings so far this year?

the online database I linked to earlier has 753 total people killed by police for the year:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

Drilling down, you get 660 by gunshot and 39 by Taser.

Good old Oklahoma...

And how many of these became riots and/or national news stories that made police question how they do their job?

I know that of the 30 in Oklahoma we haven't had much of any public outcry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:

I'd say this cop getting his ass beat would tend to support the notion that, just because you don't have a firearm, you can still be dangerous.

I don't think anyone is denying that. The question is when do you cross the threshold from "he might be dangerous" to "he is dangerous" and at what point is the use of lethal force appropriate.

 d-usa wrote:


I don't think anyone is denying that. The question is when do you cross the threshold from "he might be dangerous" to "he is dangerous" and at what point is the use of lethal force appropriate.

Sometime before getting pistol whipped with your own service weapon, I'd imagine.

But really, it's the unarmed part that the media is harping on. Like it makes you less of a threat, or less of a criminal.

 cincydooley wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


I don't think anyone is denying that. The question is when do you cross the threshold from "he might be dangerous" to "he is dangerous" and at what point is the use of lethal force appropriate.

Sometime before getting pistol whipped with your own service weapon, I'd imagine.

But likely sometime after "walking unarmed towards a cop"?

But really, it's the unarmed part that the media is harping on. Like it makes you less of a threat..

Of course being unarmed makes you less of a thread. To pretend otherwise is just ridiculous.

It's the reason why cops will handle someone without any weapons differently than someone with a knife and differently than someone with a gun.

It's the reason why I carry a gun, because if I need to defend myself I am a bigger threat to the bad guy than if I was unarmed.

or less of a criminal.

Being a criminal should NEVER be used as a justification for lethal force, it's the degree of imminent danger a criminal poses that should determine what actions you take, not their status as a criminal.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:


That's cute, but we're not exactly in a time of civil upheaval. There were half assed riots in two cities, well, one city and one neighborhood.

We live in a nation with at least hundreds of people killed by police a year. There are national stories of maybe a few per year. This shows that for the most part, people are pretty apathetic about police shootings.

Which indicates that, maybe, just maybe, there are reasons some of them make people angrier.

Well, let's look at the ones that have made people angry:

Brown -- Committed a crime, forensics shows attempts to interact with the LEOs firearm. Shameful media representation leads to "half assed" rioting that "only" resulted in around $5M in damages.
Rice -- Brandished real looking firearm towards police. Police, according to the video, handle the situation poorly.
DuBose - Subject has open warrants and 2lbs of MJ in the car; not sure what the video shows; IMO impossible to tell if the car is moving when the shots are fired or not.
Grey - Probably clearest case of police malfeasance.

The link you provided shows a lot of criminals being criminals. The only difference is that the criminals I listed above (Rice wasn't really a criminal, just a stupid kid with bad parents) didn't have working firearms on them.

I'd say this cop getting his ass beat would tend to support the notion that, just because you don't have a firearm, you can still be dangerous.

You forgot the one where the copy shot the guy in the back-while the guy was running away- on video, and then tried to plant part of his taser next to him so he would say they were fighting.

There was also the one very recently where the cop had what appeared to be a negligent discharge into the head of the guy in the car, although he really didn't have a reason to pull the gun to begin with.