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> There isn't some secret reservoir of especially heroic people to draw on. This is true, but irrelevant. The conversation at hand is about the fact that we ar

by imagist 10y ago

> There isn't some secret reservoir of especially heroic people to draw on. This is true, but irrelevant. The conversation at hand is about the fact that we are actively firing heroes for taking heroic actions. > They are not expected to place their lives at unnecessary risk (like trying to negotiate with an armed, unstable person) on behalf of the public. Again, this is a straw man argument. This is not what I am proposing. Please read the posts you are responding to before you respond to them. > Bottom line: If you display a gun and emotional instability in the presence of a cop, you have forfeited your right to necessarily walk away alive. If you think that's unreasonable, then I suppose that's your opinion. That's not my opinion, it's the straw man you're presenting. Please respond to what I actually said, not to straw men. My actual opinion, which you have completely ignored, is that when police make the correct call and correctly identify that a suspect is not dangerous despite the fact that the suspect is holding a gun, police should not be punished for doing the right thing.

sp527 10y ago
> My actual opinion, which you have completely ignored, is that when police make the correct call and correctly identify that a suspect is not dangerous despite the fact that the suspect is holding a gun, police should not be punished for doing the right thing. Well in that case, addressing this point directly, I would argue that defying standard training/protocol in a real life situation is among the few incontestably red flag behaviors one can observe with respect to cops and that is precisely when you should fire someone, before his behavior can result in tragedy for himself, his fellow officers, or an innocent bystander. The officer did the right thing at the expense of good situational judgment. We as observers have difficulty stomaching it, of course. But a cop's career spans a much wider breadth than a single encounter with an armed, suicidal individual. This is why good judgment is so important: you have to weigh this across all such encounters with armed persons, which then has a bearing on a highly relevant random variable (cop survives his career).
- imagist 10y ago
  Okay, we're analyzing this situation in two ways, which I think are both legitimate ways to analyze it: 1. Looking only at this situation, Mader made the right decision which, if not for the other officers, would have saved the suspect's life. Looking only at this situation, I think we can agree that Mader's actions were correct, and the protocol is wrong. 2. Looking at the bigger picture, Mader made a decision which has bearing on a highly relevant random variable (whether he survives his career). But there is another highly relevant random variable: whether or not Williams, the suspect, survives the encounter. And during his career, Mader would make this decision hundreds of times with hundreds of suspects. I have no objection to valuing an officer's life over a suspect's, but even with that weighted valuation, it's hard to make the claim that a difference in the probability of Mader's surviving his career is worth him being required to leave a swath of dead bodies in his wake. It's an extraordinary claim that every police officer killing every suspect with a gun they encounter is a better result than simply letting the police officers make the decision themselves. The police have the most at stake (their own lives and whether they've taken another person's life) so they have the right to make their own decisions on how to handle a situation. The police in a situation also have the most information about that situation. Even looking at the big picture, I still think that Mader's actions were correct, and the protocol is wrong. EDIT: It's a bit disingenuous to approach this as if your stance is based in caring for the well-being of the police. This isn't a situation where you're defending an officer. Remember, you're defending someone sitting behind a desk firing a police officer who risked his life to save someone else's. Let's keep that in perspective.
  - sp527 10y ago
    Sure that's fine. My personal belief is that no matter which way you look at it, you're dealing with a tradeoff between the likelihood of a cop being killed and the likelihood of an 'innocent' armed and unstable person being 'murdered'. Whatever else you may choose to believe, there was no way for Mader to know with any certainty whether or not this individual would have shot him. He would have had to use his gut in this instance (and did) and that defies police protocol for the various reasons I outlined. I'm okay with the nature of this tradeoff as currently interpreted in police work because, tragic edge cases such as suicide-by-cop aside, it's a policy that makes sense. I'm staunchly against this idea that cops should hesitate to neutralize individuals posing a clear threat (and I think an armed, suicidal individual qualifies) to them and those around them. There could come an unfortunate time where you or I might be a bystander in this situation and I'm not interested in a cop gambling with my life as well as his own on the off chance he can convince said person to stand down (which btw is stupidly unlikely considering they don't even have the training to do that). I don't want to live in a world of cops hesitating to shoot armed, unstable people and neither should you.

by imagist 10y ago

sp527 10y ago

> My actual opinion, which you have completely ignored, is that when police make the correct call and correctly identify that a suspect is not dangerous despite the fact that the suspect is holding a gun, police should not be punished for doing the right thing. Well in that case, addressing this point directly, I would argue that defying standard training/protocol in a real life situation is among the few incontestably red flag behaviors one can observe with respect to cops and that is precisely when you should fire someone, before his behavior can result in tragedy for himself, his fellow officers, or an innocent bystander. The officer did the right thing at the expense of good situational judgment. We as observers have difficulty stomaching it, of course. But a cop's career spans a much wider breadth than a single encounter with an armed, suicidal individual. This is why good judgment is so important: you have to weigh this across all such encounters with armed persons, which then has a bearing on a highly relevant random variable (cop survives his career).

imagist 10y ago
Okay, we're analyzing this situation in two ways, which I think are both legitimate ways to analyze it: 1. Looking only at this situation, Mader made the right decision which, if not for the other officers, would have saved the suspect's life. Looking only at this situation, I think we can agree that Mader's actions were correct, and the protocol is wrong. 2. Looking at the bigger picture, Mader made a decision which has bearing on a highly relevant random variable (whether he survives his career). But there is another highly relevant random variable: whether or not Williams, the suspect, survives the encounter. And during his career, Mader would make this decision hundreds of times with hundreds of suspects. I have no objection to valuing an officer's life over a suspect's, but even with that weighted valuation, it's hard to make the claim that a difference in the probability of Mader's surviving his career is worth him being required to leave a swath of dead bodies in his wake. It's an extraordinary claim that every police officer killing every suspect with a gun they encounter is a better result than simply letting the police officers make the decision themselves. The police have the most at stake (their own lives and whether they've taken another person's life) so they have the right to make their own decisions on how to handle a situation. The police in a situation also have the most information about that situation. Even looking at the big picture, I still think that Mader's actions were correct, and the protocol is wrong. EDIT: It's a bit disingenuous to approach this as if your stance is based in caring for the well-being of the police. This isn't a situation where you're defending an officer. Remember, you're defending someone sitting behind a desk firing a police officer who risked his life to save someone else's. Let's keep that in perspective.
- sp527 10y ago
  Sure that's fine. My personal belief is that no matter which way you look at it, you're dealing with a tradeoff between the likelihood of a cop being killed and the likelihood of an 'innocent' armed and unstable person being 'murdered'. Whatever else you may choose to believe, there was no way for Mader to know with any certainty whether or not this individual would have shot him. He would have had to use his gut in this instance (and did) and that defies police protocol for the various reasons I outlined. I'm okay with the nature of this tradeoff as currently interpreted in police work because, tragic edge cases such as suicide-by-cop aside, it's a policy that makes sense. I'm staunchly against this idea that cops should hesitate to neutralize individuals posing a clear threat (and I think an armed, suicidal individual qualifies) to them and those around them. There could come an unfortunate time where you or I might be a bystander in this situation and I'm not interested in a cop gambling with my life as well as his own on the off chance he can convince said person to stand down (which btw is stupidly unlikely considering they don't even have the training to do that). I don't want to live in a world of cops hesitating to shoot armed, unstable people and neither should you.