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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

by 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.