4 ms·

I have no idea how police are trained but it seems situational awareness and decision making is something they should spend more time on.

by wyck 10y ago

Cenk 10y ago
I coincidentally saw this tweet today: https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 Apparently police officers spend 58 hours learning how to shoot, but only 8 hours are spent on de-escalation tactics.
- talmand 10y ago
  I don't necessarily think they should get much more training on it. They have specialists for that. That training should only be how to identify such a situation and contain it. Then call in the expert to deescalate. For some reason the contain part doesn't seem to be given a chance too often.
  - soneil 10y ago
    I have to disagree with that quite strongly. Almost any instance where an officer is dealing with a member of the public who does not frequently deal with law enforcement, it's going to be stressful for the member of the public. Knowing how to talk them down has to be more valuable than being able to shoot them. I'm British .. we have pretty much the exact opposite of what you describe - we arm our officers with their mouths, and have firearms teams that can be called in if required. I guess this makes me biased, but I do see asking an autistic patient (especially someone severe enough to need to be homed) "what's wrong?" to be more intuitive than firing at them. Missing and hitting someone else just has to be the icing on the cake.
    - talmand 10y ago
      There's was nothing evident pushing the police officer to fire his weapon on those two men. Waiting for a specialist for what appeared to be a dangerous situation might have saved the the guy's trouble of being shot for no reason. What you describe for your British officers is training, which we apparently don't have. But I have to ask, if these officers encounter a situation they believe is a violent escalation do they just starting talking right away and handle the whole thing themselves? Or do they engage until a specialist is present, such as a hostage negotiator? If they do, then that's identifying and containing the situation until it can be resolved. That was missing from this situation.
  - senectus1 10y ago
    When you hand your police force nothing but a toolbox full of hammers ALL problems become nails. This is whats happened in the US.

I have no idea how police are trained but it seems situational awareness and decision making is something they should spend more time on.

by wyck 10y ago

I have no idea how police are trained but it seems situational awareness and decision making is something they should spend more time on.

Cenk 10y ago

I coincidentally saw this tweet today: https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 Apparently police officers spend 58 hours learning how to shoot, but only 8 hours are spent on de-escalation tactics.

talmand 10y ago
I don't necessarily think they should get much more training on it. They have specialists for that. That training should only be how to identify such a situation and contain it. Then call in the expert to deescalate. For some reason the contain part doesn't seem to be given a chance too often.
- soneil 10y ago
  I have to disagree with that quite strongly. Almost any instance where an officer is dealing with a member of the public who does not frequently deal with law enforcement, it's going to be stressful for the member of the public. Knowing how to talk them down has to be more valuable than being able to shoot them. I'm British .. we have pretty much the exact opposite of what you describe - we arm our officers with their mouths, and have firearms teams that can be called in if required. I guess this makes me biased, but I do see asking an autistic patient (especially someone severe enough to need to be homed) "what's wrong?" to be more intuitive than firing at them. Missing and hitting someone else just has to be the icing on the cake.
  - talmand 10y ago
    There's was nothing evident pushing the police officer to fire his weapon on those two men. Waiting for a specialist for what appeared to be a dangerous situation might have saved the the guy's trouble of being shot for no reason. What you describe for your British officers is training, which we apparently don't have. But I have to ask, if these officers encounter a situation they believe is a violent escalation do they just starting talking right away and handle the whole thing themselves? Or do they engage until a specialist is present, such as a hostage negotiator? If they do, then that's identifying and containing the situation until it can be resolved. That was missing from this situation.
- senectus1 10y ago
  When you hand your police force nothing but a toolbox full of hammers ALL problems become nails. This is whats happened in the US.