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> The reason is obvious: 9 times you might survive trying to do the right thing and then get shot dead on the tenth. If police aren't trying to do the right th
by imagist 10y ago
> The reason is obvious: 9 times you might survive trying to do the right thing and then get shot dead on the tenth.
If police aren't trying to do the right thing, then absolutely nothing differentiates them from a gang.
I have no objections to officers erring on the side of self-preservation, but that's not what we're discussing here. What we are discussing here is a cop who did the right thing and is being punished for it.
- sp527 10y agoWe're also discussing a cop who failed to 'err on the side of self-preservation', which is an obviously relevant detail. The officer was facing a man who was emotionally unstable and had a gun. The cop certainly did the morally correct thing, but it was also logically stupid. Again, it's necessary to think in the aggregate about encounters with armed opponents. It's a logical misstep to treat this incident in isolation.
- imagist 10y agoI'm not treating this event in isolation--I'm actually considering more than you, as I'm considering the lives of suspects across the officer's career in addition to the officer's own life. I can only imagine that the reason you don't care about the suspect's life is an us-or-them mentality, but this is inherently the wrong mentality for police work, and it's exactly why cops kill so many unarmed black men in the US. Police need to keep in mind the lives of the people they serve.