4 ms·

Suicide by cop is a thing and if you aggressively go after officers it is safe to say you may have a mental illness.

DanBC 11y ago
Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US. People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot. It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  >> It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. This is a total over generalization. Mainly because the numbers of people shot by police do not include the context of the shooting. Questions like: - Did the person charge at a police officer? - Did the person brandish a weapon like a knife or gun and threaten the officer? - Did the person physically attack the officer? - Did the person refuse to put down a weapon after being asked several times? Are not included in a statistical breakdown of police shootings. As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force - where it comes down to it's either the cop dying or the person they're trying to arrest dying. This is probably the one thing that irks the shit of me more than anything. The data about police shootings is unreliable at best, completely inaccurate at worst: Officials with the Justice Department keep no comprehensive database or record of police shootings, instead allowing the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings as part of the FBI’s annual data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement. “The FBI’s justifiable homicides and the estimates from (arrest-related deaths) both have significant limitations in terms of coverage and reliability that are primarily due to agency participation and measurement issues,” said Michael Planty, one of the Justice Department’s chief statisticians, in an email. Even less data exists for officer-involved shootings that do not result in fatalities. “We do not have information at the national level for police shootings that result in non-fatal injury or no injury to a civilian,” Planty said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/0...
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    >As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force What exactly is "many"? Of course deadly force is sometimes justified. But you do realize that civilian deaths at the hands of police are through the roof in the US compared to any other country, right? Is the US population psychotic? >This is probably the one thing that irks the shit of me more than anything. What irks the shit out of me are apologists who justify police violence because "sometimes" deadly force is required. Is there anyone in this country that doesn't understand that, as a Police Officer, you're going to end up in scary situations? You're signing up for it. It doesn't give you permission to shoot something every time you feel the least bit threatened. Hopefully body cameras solve this ridiculous problem.
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      >Is the US population psychotic? The US is by far the most violent Western nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... >Hopefully body cameras solve this ridiculous problem. Body cameras will likely vindicate police more than opponents would like, although it may be hard to compare before and after because knowing you are being recorded will have an affect.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      > Is the US population psychotic? Frustrating that you chose to use word psychotic there. Psychosis isn't linked to violence. Previous episode of violence are; a drug or alcohol addiction are; and if you combine any (or all) of these you get a stronger predictor. But a person with psychosis is far more likely to be the victim not perpetrator of violent crime, are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. Maybe psychopathic fits, but that's still pretty stigmatising.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Except we know that people in other countries who use similar weapons in similar ways (brandishing a small knife, refusing to drop it, etc) are not shot and killed by police nearly as often as they are in the US. A guy weilding a machete and charging police in, say, London is much less likely to be shot and killed by police. (And you can see this on youtube).
- dagw 11y ago
  It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. No it's not poor training, it's just fundamentally different training. The US train their police force that it's OK to draw their weapons and potentially use deadly force in far more situations than the police in for example Europe.
  - elektromekatron 11y ago
    They may be following their training, however "poor" and "fundamentally different" are not mutually exclusive concepts. The fact that the US train their police force that it's OK to draw their weapons and potentially use deadly force in far more situations than police manage in lots of other countries, would suggest that it is poor training, as many other police forces seem to be much better at de-escalation, and the training given to them seems to be a major component of that.
rmxt 11y ago
Your tone suggests that police officers have less agency/responsibility in such a scenario than the people with mental illnesses themselves. Is that actually what you are suggesting?

DanBC 11y ago

Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US. People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot. It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
>> It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. This is a total over generalization. Mainly because the numbers of people shot by police do not include the context of the shooting. Questions like: - Did the person charge at a police officer? - Did the person brandish a weapon like a knife or gun and threaten the officer? - Did the person physically attack the officer? - Did the person refuse to put down a weapon after being asked several times? Are not included in a statistical breakdown of police shootings. As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force - where it comes down to it's either the cop dying or the person they're trying to arrest dying. This is probably the one thing that irks the shit of me more than anything. The data about police shootings is unreliable at best, completely inaccurate at worst: Officials with the Justice Department keep no comprehensive database or record of police shootings, instead allowing the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings as part of the FBI’s annual data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement. “The FBI’s justifiable homicides and the estimates from (arrest-related deaths) both have significant limitations in terms of coverage and reliability that are primarily due to agency participation and measurement issues,” said Michael Planty, one of the Justice Department’s chief statisticians, in an email. Even less data exists for officer-involved shootings that do not result in fatalities. “We do not have information at the national level for police shootings that result in non-fatal injury or no injury to a civilian,” Planty said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/0...
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force What exactly is "many"? Of course deadly force is sometimes justified. But you do realize that civilian deaths at the hands of police are through the roof in the US compared to any other country, right? Is the US population psychotic? >This is probably the one thing that irks the shit of me more than anything. What irks the shit out of me are apologists who justify police violence because "sometimes" deadly force is required. Is there anyone in this country that doesn't understand that, as a Police Officer, you're going to end up in scary situations? You're signing up for it. It doesn't give you permission to shoot something every time you feel the least bit threatened. Hopefully body cameras solve this ridiculous problem.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    >Is the US population psychotic? The US is by far the most violent Western nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... >Hopefully body cameras solve this ridiculous problem. Body cameras will likely vindicate police more than opponents would like, although it may be hard to compare before and after because knowing you are being recorded will have an affect.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > Is the US population psychotic? Frustrating that you chose to use word psychotic there. Psychosis isn't linked to violence. Previous episode of violence are; a drug or alcohol addiction are; and if you combine any (or all) of these you get a stronger predictor. But a person with psychosis is far more likely to be the victim not perpetrator of violent crime, are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. Maybe psychopathic fits, but that's still pretty stigmatising.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Except we know that people in other countries who use similar weapons in similar ways (brandishing a small knife, refusing to drop it, etc) are not shot and killed by police nearly as often as they are in the US. A guy weilding a machete and charging police in, say, London is much less likely to be shot and killed by police. (And you can see this on youtube).
dagw 11y ago
It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. No it's not poor training, it's just fundamentally different training. The US train their police force that it's OK to draw their weapons and potentially use deadly force in far more situations than the police in for example Europe.
- elektromekatron 11y ago
  They may be following their training, however "poor" and "fundamentally different" are not mutually exclusive concepts. The fact that the US train their police force that it's OK to draw their weapons and potentially use deadly force in far more situations than police manage in lots of other countries, would suggest that it is poor training, as many other police forces seem to be much better at de-escalation, and the training given to them seems to be a major component of that.

rmxt 11y ago

Your tone suggests that police officers have less agency/responsibility in such a scenario than the people with mental illnesses themselves. Is that actually what you are suggesting?