7 ms·

It sounds like this officer was out of line. However it made me think that maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. A stop

It sounds like this officer was out of line. However it made me think that maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. A stop where a cop is overly cautious and ready to use his weapon at a moments notice because the other person could have a weapon too. Police here don't carry guns and I am not worried if they try to stop me. In America I would be very worried if I was going to be stopped and I would be extremely cautious and deliberate in my movements whereas at home I wouldn't think about moving slowly and explaining every action I was taking. Edit: To be 100% clear I am commenting generally, not on this specific incident which, from what we know, seems out of line.

sabertoothed 10y ago
My thoughts exactly.
ProAm 10y ago
For a stolen license plate? Let's be real here, it was an over reaction by the police officer given the circumstances for stopping him.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  I made it VERY clear this officer seems to be out of line. My comment was more on officers in general being extremely cautious in the US .
  - ProAm 10y ago
    Yeah I agree with that. People are by and large a product of their environment and police officers spend a large part of their day around garbage people, however I don't believe that forgives behavior like this.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    > I made it VERY clear this officer seems to be out of line. My comment was more on officers in general being extremely cautious in the US . It isn't caution. It is a lack of consequences combined with political propaganda consumed by a small minority of police officers. Most police officers are fine. The problem is a small subset have realized they don't face consequences if they act this way and the propaganda they consume encourages that behavior. http://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-372025 http://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-37202... > And no matter how you slice it, police work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities and murders of police have been falling for decades—per resident, per officer and even in in absolute terms. http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/ http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/ There are 14 jobs that are more dangerous than being a police officer. Garbagemen and farmers are in greater danger than policemen, ffs. Despite this you get articles like this: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/07/in-2016-job-average-police-officer-has-become-more-difficult-and-dangerous.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/07/in-2016-job-averag... > In 2016, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous > Of course, this type of specious reasoning is ludicrous. A perfunctory look at the raw numbers might be enough to influence the easily persuadable into believing that no war on cops exists, or that there hadn't been a better, safer time to be a police officer in decades, but as with any data set there is more to the numbers than meets the eye. > Since the outgrowth of unfettered, anti-police rhetoric took hold of the public discourse in the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous. "Ignore statisics, we feel its more dangerous because of anti-police rhetoric" > When greater numbers of officers remove themselves from inherently dangerous self-initiated enforcement situations, the likelihood of injury or death correspondingly drops. That doesn't mean that society is any less dangerous or that the job of the average street cop is any safer, however. Aka "We take less unnecessary risks, everyone is safer" somehow became in the mind of the article's author "more dangerous" for everyone. They shouldn't be taking these "self-intiated enforcement actions" (like what happened to the OP) in the first place because what the OP experienced is what these sorts of things look like. They are dangerous to everyone involved and make everyone less safe. Its really quite frightening the level of doublethink the political supporters of police engage in. Its also quite frightening when you realize a substantial percentage of police officers with similar political beliefs share that behavior.
    - b_t_s 10y ago
      That link on deaths per 100k people is gold. I think most people(cops most of all) would be absolutely shocked at all the "normal" jobs that are more dangerous or almost as dangerous as being a cop.
      - Natsu 10y ago
        If they were higher on that list, wouldn't it mean they were bad at their jobs? Police officers face people intentionally trying to kill them, the other jobs generally face some sort of accidental risks.
        fweespeech 10y ago
        > If they were higher on that list, wouldn't it mean they were bad at their jobs? Police officers face people intentionally trying to kill them, the other jobs generally face some sort of accidental risks. That is the same line of thinking that leads to people playing up other reasonably low risk threats (i.e. Terrorists) and ignoring high risk threats (i.e. medical errors). Statistical risk is far, far more important than people's feelings that humans are more dangerous than trees. Flip your logic around, are you going to argue that loggers are bad at their jobs because statistically they are more likely to be killed by a tree than police officers are by human violence? The goal for the worker in both cases is not getting killed while performing your job function. The simple fact is the police have a far, far less dangerous job than most people are willing to admit. https://www.aei.org/publication/is-there-really-a-war-on-cops-the-data-show-that-2015-will-likely-be-one-of-the-safest-years-in-history-for-police/ https://www.aei.org/publication/is-there-really-a-war-on-cop... Even staunchly Republican sources are ready to admit that as long as they aren't Fox News. > According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 58% of likely voters believe there is a “war on police” in America today. The same poll found that 60% believe “comments critical of the police by some politicians make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs.” But misinformation also abounds. > According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), which keeps data on officer deaths going back over 100 years, 24 officers have been shot and killed by suspects this year. This puts the US on pace for 36 non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities in 2015 [I calculate 35 deaths in 2015 based on 24 during the first 251 days this year]. Each one of such deaths is a tragedy for the officers killed, their families and the communities they serve, but this would be the lowest total in 25 years [ more than 125 years according to the ODMP website] aside from 2013 which saw 31 such deaths. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-fatally-shoot-unarmed-black-men-at-disproportionate-rates/2016/04/06/e494563e-fa74-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-f... > In the study, researchers wrote that their analysis of the 990 fatal shootings in 2015 “suggests the police exhibit shooter bias by falsely perceiving blacks to be a greater threat than non-blacks to their safety.” > In 2015, The Post documented 990 fatal shootings by police, 93 of which involved people who were unarmed. Black men accounted for about 40 percent of the unarmed people fatally shot by police and, when adjusted by population, were seven times as likely as unarmed white men to die from police gunfire, The Post found. I'm more worried about the police shooting unarmed civilians (given it happens more often) than the reverse, particular since trees are more dangerous to loggers than civilians are to police.
- Natsu 10y ago
  > For a stolen license plate? Let's be real here, it was an over reaction by the police officer given the circumstances for stopping him. I suspect this is SOP, actually. I live in AZ. When I reported my license plate stolen some years back, they told me to report back if I found it or I would be pulled over at gunpoint. I never did get it back and I checked the screw holes for evidence of stripping--there was none, it was clearly stolen. I think it's due to the drug runners around here using stolen plates. A fair number of police get shot when busting them.
  - 1_2__3 10y ago
    > A fair number of police get shot when busting them. Do you have a citation for this?
    - Natsu 10y ago
      Local newspaper articles I've seen on their deaths. Old issues of the AZ Republic might show something but I can't link a newspaper very well.
peterkelly 10y ago
> maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. In Australia, we don't have anything like the 2nd amendment, and stuff like this simply doesn't happen (even to black people). Just sayin'
- Glyptodon 10y ago
  I have heard otherwise from several Aboriginal Australians, though they've also seemed to suggest that progress is in the right direction.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/asia/australia-police-shoot-3-bystanders/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/asia/australia-police-shoot-3-... > (CNN)Two Australian police officers face an investigation after shooting three innocent bystanders outside a suburban shopping mall, while confronting a psychiatric patient armed with a knife.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  correlation != causation
theli0nheart 10y ago
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. Knocking on the rear-window with a pistol (and pointing it at a little girl!) isn't taking a reasonable precaution against potential aggression, it's plain provocation.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  First line of my comment: "It sounds like this officer was out of line.". I thought it was clear my comment was about stops in general, not this specific one.
  - theli0nheart 10y ago
    What do you mean by "stops in general"? Police officers pulling people over in their cars?
    - k-mcgrady 10y ago
      I mean interactions where police are stopping someone they think may have committed a crime. Whether that's a traffic stop or theft they proceed with an abundance of caution because the perpetrator could very well be armed. This isn't an issue in other countries. In the UK it's unlikely the criminal will be carrying a gun so police in general don't even need guns.
      - elcct 10y ago
        Or criminals don't use guns because Police is not using them. It doesn't mean they don't have them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Glyptodon 10y ago
As someone who lives in Arizona I find the officer's behavior really unusually extreme. Concealed carrying people and permit holders get pulled over all the time and it's usually not a big deal. Rather, this seems to be an example of self-priming for some kind of worst case scenario, which I think is entirely unrelated to 2nd amendment. It's the assumption that, since something's awry, the worst case must be the immediate case, or even some sort of echo of PTSD and war mentality, or misguided ideas along the lines that keeping himself absolutely "safe" is somehow the same as keeping everyone else "safe."
ryandrake 10y ago
This word "cautious" is getting thrown around in this discussion. What was described in the article was insane aggression, not caution. Caution means taking care to AVOID danger and mistakes, not escalating the situation in order to assure it. A cautious person does not point a gun at a child or threaten to murder someone who's non-threatening.
zeveb 10y ago
> However it made me think that maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. Nonsense — we had a 2nd Amendment and far more prevalent arms ownership in the 19th century, with less police violence. Being a police officer really isn't very dangerous. What we need are the police to realise that the vast majority of the people they encounter aren't a danger to them.

sabertoothed 10y ago

My thoughts exactly.

ProAm 10y ago

For a stolen license plate? Let's be real here, it was an over reaction by the police officer given the circumstances for stopping him.

k-mcgrady 10y ago
I made it VERY clear this officer seems to be out of line. My comment was more on officers in general being extremely cautious in the US .
- ProAm 10y ago
  Yeah I agree with that. People are by and large a product of their environment and police officers spend a large part of their day around garbage people, however I don't believe that forgives behavior like this.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > I made it VERY clear this officer seems to be out of line. My comment was more on officers in general being extremely cautious in the US . It isn't caution. It is a lack of consequences combined with political propaganda consumed by a small minority of police officers. Most police officers are fine. The problem is a small subset have realized they don't face consequences if they act this way and the propaganda they consume encourages that behavior. http://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-372025 http://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-37202... > And no matter how you slice it, police work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities and murders of police have been falling for decades—per resident, per officer and even in in absolute terms. http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/ http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/ There are 14 jobs that are more dangerous than being a police officer. Garbagemen and farmers are in greater danger than policemen, ffs. Despite this you get articles like this: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/07/in-2016-job-average-police-officer-has-become-more-difficult-and-dangerous.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/07/in-2016-job-averag... > In 2016, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous > Of course, this type of specious reasoning is ludicrous. A perfunctory look at the raw numbers might be enough to influence the easily persuadable into believing that no war on cops exists, or that there hadn't been a better, safer time to be a police officer in decades, but as with any data set there is more to the numbers than meets the eye. > Since the outgrowth of unfettered, anti-police rhetoric took hold of the public discourse in the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous. "Ignore statisics, we feel its more dangerous because of anti-police rhetoric" > When greater numbers of officers remove themselves from inherently dangerous self-initiated enforcement situations, the likelihood of injury or death correspondingly drops. That doesn't mean that society is any less dangerous or that the job of the average street cop is any safer, however. Aka "We take less unnecessary risks, everyone is safer" somehow became in the mind of the article's author "more dangerous" for everyone. They shouldn't be taking these "self-intiated enforcement actions" (like what happened to the OP) in the first place because what the OP experienced is what these sorts of things look like. They are dangerous to everyone involved and make everyone less safe. Its really quite frightening the level of doublethink the political supporters of police engage in. Its also quite frightening when you realize a substantial percentage of police officers with similar political beliefs share that behavior.
  - b_t_s 10y ago
    That link on deaths per 100k people is gold. I think most people(cops most of all) would be absolutely shocked at all the "normal" jobs that are more dangerous or almost as dangerous as being a cop.
    - Natsu 10y ago
      If they were higher on that list, wouldn't it mean they were bad at their jobs? Police officers face people intentionally trying to kill them, the other jobs generally face some sort of accidental risks.
      - fweespeech 10y ago
        > If they were higher on that list, wouldn't it mean they were bad at their jobs? Police officers face people intentionally trying to kill them, the other jobs generally face some sort of accidental risks. That is the same line of thinking that leads to people playing up other reasonably low risk threats (i.e. Terrorists) and ignoring high risk threats (i.e. medical errors). Statistical risk is far, far more important than people's feelings that humans are more dangerous than trees. Flip your logic around, are you going to argue that loggers are bad at their jobs because statistically they are more likely to be killed by a tree than police officers are by human violence? The goal for the worker in both cases is not getting killed while performing your job function. The simple fact is the police have a far, far less dangerous job than most people are willing to admit. https://www.aei.org/publication/is-there-really-a-war-on-cops-the-data-show-that-2015-will-likely-be-one-of-the-safest-years-in-history-for-police/ https://www.aei.org/publication/is-there-really-a-war-on-cop... Even staunchly Republican sources are ready to admit that as long as they aren't Fox News. > According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 58% of likely voters believe there is a “war on police” in America today. The same poll found that 60% believe “comments critical of the police by some politicians make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs.” But misinformation also abounds. > According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), which keeps data on officer deaths going back over 100 years, 24 officers have been shot and killed by suspects this year. This puts the US on pace for 36 non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities in 2015 [I calculate 35 deaths in 2015 based on 24 during the first 251 days this year]. Each one of such deaths is a tragedy for the officers killed, their families and the communities they serve, but this would be the lowest total in 25 years [ more than 125 years according to the ODMP website] aside from 2013 which saw 31 such deaths. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-fatally-shoot-unarmed-black-men-at-disproportionate-rates/2016/04/06/e494563e-fa74-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-police-f... > In the study, researchers wrote that their analysis of the 990 fatal shootings in 2015 “suggests the police exhibit shooter bias by falsely perceiving blacks to be a greater threat than non-blacks to their safety.” > In 2015, The Post documented 990 fatal shootings by police, 93 of which involved people who were unarmed. Black men accounted for about 40 percent of the unarmed people fatally shot by police and, when adjusted by population, were seven times as likely as unarmed white men to die from police gunfire, The Post found. I'm more worried about the police shooting unarmed civilians (given it happens more often) than the reverse, particular since trees are more dangerous to loggers than civilians are to police.
Natsu 10y ago
> For a stolen license plate? Let's be real here, it was an over reaction by the police officer given the circumstances for stopping him. I suspect this is SOP, actually. I live in AZ. When I reported my license plate stolen some years back, they told me to report back if I found it or I would be pulled over at gunpoint. I never did get it back and I checked the screw holes for evidence of stripping--there was none, it was clearly stolen. I think it's due to the drug runners around here using stolen plates. A fair number of police get shot when busting them.
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  > A fair number of police get shot when busting them. Do you have a citation for this?
  - Natsu 10y ago
    Local newspaper articles I've seen on their deaths. Old issues of the AZ Republic might show something but I can't link a newspaper very well.

peterkelly 10y ago

> maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. In Australia, we don't have anything like the 2nd amendment, and stuff like this simply doesn't happen (even to black people). Just sayin'

Glyptodon 10y ago
I have heard otherwise from several Aboriginal Australians, though they've also seemed to suggest that progress is in the right direction.
emodendroket 10y ago
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/asia/australia-police-shoot-3-bystanders/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/asia/australia-police-shoot-3-... > (CNN)Two Australian police officers face an investigation after shooting three innocent bystanders outside a suburban shopping mall, while confronting a psychiatric patient armed with a knife.
CWuestefeld 10y ago
correlation != causation

theli0nheart 10y ago

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. Knocking on the rear-window with a pistol (and pointing it at a little girl!) isn't taking a reasonable precaution against potential aggression, it's plain provocation.

k-mcgrady 10y ago
First line of my comment: "It sounds like this officer was out of line.". I thought it was clear my comment was about stops in general, not this specific one.
- theli0nheart 10y ago
  What do you mean by "stops in general"? Police officers pulling people over in their cars?
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    I mean interactions where police are stopping someone they think may have committed a crime. Whether that's a traffic stop or theft they proceed with an abundance of caution because the perpetrator could very well be armed. This isn't an issue in other countries. In the UK it's unlikely the criminal will be carrying a gun so police in general don't even need guns.
    - elcct 10y ago
      Or criminals don't use guns because Police is not using them. It doesn't mean they don't have them.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Glyptodon 10y ago

As someone who lives in Arizona I find the officer's behavior really unusually extreme. Concealed carrying people and permit holders get pulled over all the time and it's usually not a big deal. Rather, this seems to be an example of self-priming for some kind of worst case scenario, which I think is entirely unrelated to 2nd amendment. It's the assumption that, since something's awry, the worst case must be the immediate case, or even some sort of echo of PTSD and war mentality, or misguided ideas along the lines that keeping himself absolutely "safe" is somehow the same as keeping everyone else "safe."

ryandrake 10y ago

This word "cautious" is getting thrown around in this discussion. What was described in the article was insane aggression, not caution. Caution means taking care to AVOID danger and mistakes, not escalating the situation in order to assure it. A cautious person does not point a gun at a child or threaten to murder someone who's non-threatening.

zeveb 10y ago

> However it made me think that maybe this type of stop is a trade off you have to make for the 2nd amendment. Nonsense — we had a 2nd Amendment and far more prevalent arms ownership in the 19th century, with less police violence. Being a police officer really isn't very dangerous. What we need are the police to realise that the vast majority of the people they encounter aren't a danger to them.