3 ms·
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
by 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 agoI 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.)