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If I'm not mistaken "routine" traffic stops are the single most (maybe fell to #2 this year?) dangerous thing for a LEO to do (i.e. the highest number of office

by modoc 10y ago

If I'm not mistaken "routine" traffic stops are the single most (maybe fell to #2 this year?) dangerous thing for a LEO to do (i.e. the highest number of officer fatalities occur during a traffic stop). So asking officers to go do the most dangerous part of their job without a weapon is unreasonable (IMHO).

knz 10y ago
I don't disagree. I'm not sure that the firearm should be out of it's holster by default though? Even if the shooting in MN was just a tragic accident, there needs to be some reform that addresses why people are pulled over and why the officer had the firearm up and ready to shoot. I've been pulled over by the police in MN for similar reasons and they didn't even have a hand on their holstered firearm.
learc83 10y ago
I don't know how disarming traffic cops would alter this statistic, but there were 42 officers shot and killed in the line of duty in 2015 and over 13 million traffic stops. That puts the risk of death in a traffic stop at 0.0003%.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  _At the most_. How many of those 42 officer deaths occurred _during_ traffic stops?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    7
tptacek 10y ago
The odds that a police officer will be attacked in a traffic stop are spectacularly low. Further, it's important to remember that traffic stops are the primary way that police officers confront strangers in their day to day work. Assaults at traffic stops are probably a reasonable proxy for all police encounters. From that perspective, the dangers of these stops seems mythologized. Equally important: armed confrontations at parking stops occur in large part because subjects are cornered. Reactions to the situation on both sides are fueled by cortisol and adrenaline. An armed subject confronted by unarmed traffic enforcement officers (specially marked, and with different uniforms) isn't cornered, and can in fact just drive away --- or, for that matter, brandish a firearm. My public policy suggestion is not that we do away with assault officers altogether! There are currently 13,000 assault officers in the Chicago Police Department. A force constituted of 20% assault officers would still have ~2,500 assault officers available to handle escalations.

by modoc 10y ago

knz 10y ago

I don't disagree. I'm not sure that the firearm should be out of it's holster by default though? Even if the shooting in MN was just a tragic accident, there needs to be some reform that addresses why people are pulled over and why the officer had the firearm up and ready to shoot. I've been pulled over by the police in MN for similar reasons and they didn't even have a hand on their holstered firearm.

learc83 10y ago

I don't know how disarming traffic cops would alter this statistic, but there were 42 officers shot and killed in the line of duty in 2015 and over 13 million traffic stops. That puts the risk of death in a traffic stop at 0.0003%.

FireBeyond 10y ago
_At the most_. How many of those 42 officer deaths occurred _during_ traffic stops?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  7

tptacek 10y ago

The odds that a police officer will be attacked in a traffic stop are spectacularly low. Further, it's important to remember that traffic stops are the primary way that police officers confront strangers in their day to day work. Assaults at traffic stops are probably a reasonable proxy for all police encounters. From that perspective, the dangers of these stops seems mythologized. Equally important: armed confrontations at parking stops occur in large part because subjects are cornered. Reactions to the situation on both sides are fueled by cortisol and adrenaline. An armed subject confronted by unarmed traffic enforcement officers (specially marked, and with different uniforms) isn't cornered, and can in fact just drive away --- or, for that matter, brandish a firearm. My public policy suggestion is not that we do away with assault officers altogether! There are currently 13,000 assault officers in the Chicago Police Department. A force constituted of 20% assault officers would still have ~2,500 assault officers available to handle escalations.