5 ms·

The Counted: are US police hiding behind 'suicide by cop' shootings?

13 points by cryoshon 11y ago

mildbow 11y ago
Is the US ipso facto a police state at this point? Well, maybe not. Because "police state" implies a level of involvement by the government/politicization in an organized way. When I think about what interactions I'm worried about having, those with cops make me more anxious than walking along a dark alley. Are cops just the new mob? Of course, you might say .. "No! Look at China etcs", but I don't live in China. I'm not worried about Chinese cops. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Might just be one of the most important questions that will decide the future of the US. Guards watching themselves isn't working anymore, if it ever actually did.
- hga 11y ago
  Is the US ipso facto a police state at this point? We civilians have way too many guns for this to be like any police state previously known to man. E.g., 9 million were manufactured in the US last year, and I could look up the importation numbers if desired. Monthly NICS recorded sales continue to break records. Etc. etc. To those who say this sort of thing is useless, well, ignoring how much this might be suppressing greater unjustified police violence (or, why are they so eager to kill dogs?), note how all those California police units completely lost their shit when 1 mostly crazy guy started killing a few of them. That said, suicide by cop is a real thing, there's even a recorded case of suicide by armed civilian. But certainly some unjustified killings are lurking in the statistics.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > That said, suicide by cop is a real thing A lot of people shot and killed by US police have tiny weapons - little itty bitty 3" blades. Suicide by cop is a thing in the US where police are quick to kill civilians. The fact that the US doesn't accurately count people killed by police is weird and baffling. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/ar... http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-p... http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-shocking-extent-of-fatal-police-shootings-in-the-us-in-one-graphic--lJkmbhc5yb http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-shocking-extent-of...
    - hga 11y ago
      A blade that small is entirely capable of delivering a mortal wound (and normal concealed body armor is little hindrance to edged weapons), and are you aware of the Tueller Drill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill ?
      - DanBC 11y ago
        Sure. Police forces across the western world deal with blades that size or bigger without killing the person holding it. US police are incompetant.
        mildbow 11y ago
        Not incompetent. Rather, the "police can do no wrong" mentality is to engrained within their ranks (and those policing them) that standards of behaviour have drastically been lowered. Just the term "suicide by cop" is insidious and hilarious: victim blaming at it's finest. On the flip side, how bad has the situation gotten to where citizens know cops to be so trigger happy that they count on them as assisted suicide. When LEOs say they put their lives on the lines everyday, I believe them. BUT, they have a big hand in escalating situations to that point. The perceived threat of any harm to a LEO can be used as justification for killing someone. WTF? Hand-wavy accountability combined with the power to take away a life. This is why LEOs need to have body cams.
        michaelbuddy 11y ago
        When it comes to blades, I'd rather be called "incompetent" than dead. a quick youtube or liveleak search shows more than a few of these 'competent' police getting killed.
        DanBC 11y ago
        Yet other police forces in the western world deal with similar knives, and larger, without resorting to killing the person with the weapon. A quick youtube search shows police in England or Germany or etc subduing then arresting people with weapons. Why can they do it while US police can't? It's because i) US police have much less training and ii) US police can use their guns almost with impunity. The fact that the US doesn't even bother to count the number of people killed by police should tell you something.
herbig 11y ago
I'm all for more police scrutiny. As a resident of NYC, I've had a few interactions with police that have left me with the impression that probably 50% of them here are ineffective at best, and a net negative at worst. I'm sure there are good, well intentioned police officers here, but I've honestly never encountered one. However, these stories all involve people who wanted to die getting shot to death by the police because they intentionally posed a danger to them. I can't really fault officers for shooting a man charging at them with a knife and hatchet. Yes, they could have used nonlethal weapons, and yes they could have responded differently, such as shooting his legs. These officers should be disciplined and retrained to handle these situations, but this is not Eric Garner or Michael Brown.
- hga 11y ago
  I can't really fault officers for shooting a man charging at them with a knife and hatchet. Yes, they could have used nonlethal weapons There are no effective ones. Heck, handguns fail frequently enough to stop such attacks; some adversaries who don't get hit in the CNS only stop attacking after sufficient blood loss. Shooting in the legs is for movies. Besides still being lethal force (especially if a femoral artery is hit), a small, often moving a lot more than the torso target is subpar at best. If lethal force is justified, then shooting at the center of mass is the only reasonable policy, maybe followed up by attempts to hit the head (CNS). (NYC police, BTW, have some of the worse firearms training in the country. Turns out there are consequences to extinguishing your firearms culture.)

13 points by cryoshon 11y ago

Is the US ipso facto a police state at this point? Well, maybe not. Because "police state" implies a level of involvement by the government/politicization in an organized way. When I think about what interactions I'm worried about having, those with cops make me more anxious than walking along a dark alley. Are cops just the new mob? Of course, you might say .. "No! Look at China etcs", but I don't live in China. I'm not worried about Chinese cops. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Might just be one of the most important questions that will decide the future of the US. Guards watching themselves isn't working anymore, if it ever actually did.

hga 11y ago
Is the US ipso facto a police state at this point? We civilians have way too many guns for this to be like any police state previously known to man. E.g., 9 million were manufactured in the US last year, and I could look up the importation numbers if desired. Monthly NICS recorded sales continue to break records. Etc. etc. To those who say this sort of thing is useless, well, ignoring how much this might be suppressing greater unjustified police violence (or, why are they so eager to kill dogs?), note how all those California police units completely lost their shit when 1 mostly crazy guy started killing a few of them. That said, suicide by cop is a real thing, there's even a recorded case of suicide by armed civilian. But certainly some unjustified killings are lurking in the statistics.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > That said, suicide by cop is a real thing A lot of people shot and killed by US police have tiny weapons - little itty bitty 3" blades. Suicide by cop is a thing in the US where police are quick to kill civilians. The fact that the US doesn't accurately count people killed by police is weird and baffling. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/ar... http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-p... http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-shocking-extent-of-fatal-police-shootings-in-the-us-in-one-graphic--lJkmbhc5yb http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-shocking-extent-of...
  - hga 11y ago
    A blade that small is entirely capable of delivering a mortal wound (and normal concealed body armor is little hindrance to edged weapons), and are you aware of the Tueller Drill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill ?
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Sure. Police forces across the western world deal with blades that size or bigger without killing the person holding it. US police are incompetant.
      - mildbow 11y ago
        Not incompetent. Rather, the "police can do no wrong" mentality is to engrained within their ranks (and those policing them) that standards of behaviour have drastically been lowered. Just the term "suicide by cop" is insidious and hilarious: victim blaming at it's finest. On the flip side, how bad has the situation gotten to where citizens know cops to be so trigger happy that they count on them as assisted suicide. When LEOs say they put their lives on the lines everyday, I believe them. BUT, they have a big hand in escalating situations to that point. The perceived threat of any harm to a LEO can be used as justification for killing someone. WTF? Hand-wavy accountability combined with the power to take away a life. This is why LEOs need to have body cams.
      - michaelbuddy 11y ago
        When it comes to blades, I'd rather be called "incompetent" than dead. a quick youtube or liveleak search shows more than a few of these 'competent' police getting killed.
        DanBC 11y ago
        Yet other police forces in the western world deal with similar knives, and larger, without resorting to killing the person with the weapon. A quick youtube search shows police in England or Germany or etc subduing then arresting people with weapons. Why can they do it while US police can't? It's because i) US police have much less training and ii) US police can use their guns almost with impunity. The fact that the US doesn't even bother to count the number of people killed by police should tell you something.

herbig 11y ago

I'm all for more police scrutiny. As a resident of NYC, I've had a few interactions with police that have left me with the impression that probably 50% of them here are ineffective at best, and a net negative at worst. I'm sure there are good, well intentioned police officers here, but I've honestly never encountered one. However, these stories all involve people who wanted to die getting shot to death by the police because they intentionally posed a danger to them. I can't really fault officers for shooting a man charging at them with a knife and hatchet. Yes, they could have used nonlethal weapons, and yes they could have responded differently, such as shooting his legs. These officers should be disciplined and retrained to handle these situations, but this is not Eric Garner or Michael Brown.

hga 11y ago
I can't really fault officers for shooting a man charging at them with a knife and hatchet. Yes, they could have used nonlethal weapons There are no effective ones. Heck, handguns fail frequently enough to stop such attacks; some adversaries who don't get hit in the CNS only stop attacking after sufficient blood loss. Shooting in the legs is for movies. Besides still being lethal force (especially if a femoral artery is hit), a small, often moving a lot more than the torso target is subpar at best. If lethal force is justified, then shooting at the center of mass is the only reasonable policy, maybe followed up by attempts to hit the head (CNS). (NYC police, BTW, have some of the worse firearms training in the country. Turns out there are consequences to extinguishing your firearms culture.)