15 ms·

There is no reason the officer should have drawn his firearm when pepperspray or a baton would have been sufficient in this situation. The tendency to automatic

by Apes 9y ago

There is no reason the officer should have drawn his firearm when pepperspray or a baton would have been sufficient in this situation. The tendency to automatically resort to their proverbial nuclear option is ridiculous. We should be training police to effectively use and be comfortable with their entire tool set, rather than just having them default to their firearm. As a side note, in the confusion of an arrest, it's easy for a suspect to not realize how much the situation has escalated, and for a police officer to repeatedly give conflicting orders to a suspect, both of which result in a needless death. Here's an idea: Police should have a loud speaker and strobe light on their uniform that trigger when they unholster their firearm. The speaker should repeat over and over until they re-holster their weapon: "SIREN BLARE A POLICE OFFICER HAS DRAWN THEIR WEAPON. REMAIN STILL UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS OR YOU WILL BE SHOT." The strobe light should trigger constantly to let the deaf know an officer has drawn their weapon. There's two reasons for this: 1. It should make it clear to a suspect that they are dangerously close to being shot, and should very quickly change their behavior 2. An officer should not be allowed to give orders to a surrendering and motionless suspect as long as they have their weapon unholstered. If they wish to give commands to the suspect, they should re-holster their firearm and possibly switch to a less lethal device if the situation calls for it.

bluedino 9y ago
On the other hand, you have two unknown dogs approaching you. They are of a potentially dangerous breed, and will likely defend their territory. Sure, your pitbull might be a lover but this type of dog is frequently in the news for biting people and killing children/elderly.
- ourmandave 9y ago
  Heh, pitbulls. I was at the crowded dog park one weekend and this family showed up with a muzzled pitbull. The first thing it did was attack my dog. Even with the muzzle on it was able to nip my dog in the ass a few times before it got pulled off. But that's not about the pitbull. It's about the asshole who brought his pre-muzzled dog to a dog park knowing it was vicious.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    > It's about the asshole who brought his pre-muzzled dog to a dog park knowing it was vicious. In my opinion, muzzling a dog you know is vicious before bringing them to the part is exactly what makes you a non-asshole. I don't understand why you're using "pre-muzzled" as a point against the owner.
    - ourmandave 9y ago
      Because if you know you have to restrain your dog like Hannibal Lecter going on a prisoner transport, don't bring him to a park with other dogs and little kids in the first place. Especially if he can still nip though the mask.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        The "nipping through the mask" part and "Hannibal Lecter" rhetoric aside, if you have a good muzzle, why not bring the dog to the park? That's why you muzzle dogs, so they can take walks in the part without biting.
- twic 9y ago
  Perhaps it would be informative to look at how many policemen have been killed or injured by dogs in countries where they do not routinely shoot them.
- hiyer 9y ago
  Not sure if you watched the video, but the dog was at least 10 feet away from him when he shot it, and it wasn't approaching any further. And if you read the article, there's also an example where a cop shot at a labrador on a leash (and hit a 4-year old girl instead).
eplanit 9y ago
"Police should have a loud speaker and strobe light on their uniform that trigger when they unholster their firearm." Interesting idea, really. In addition to the warnings, the unholstering should also activate body and dash cameras (if not already on), and send a signal of the event to authorities (plural) which records the date/time/lat/lon/etc...
- yomly 9y ago
  This is a cool idea for IoT based policing. As a public entity, they should be confident for all actions to be scrutinised and hold up in a court of law. I was going to suggest connected guns (for additional data harvesting) but realised a connected gun that could be hacked is a terrible idea.
  - Retric 9y ago
    As long as the firing mechanism is purely mechanical hacking the gun becomes meaningless. Picture gun with attacked tiny video camera, hack it and the guy is still holding a working gun.
- burntrelish1273 9y ago
  This might have a side-benefit of not amping up the officer with extreme shouting. A loud megaphone, tactical breathing and a calming voice can defuse more situations instead of self-fulfilling prophecies causing bad outcomes. Meta: also, the US needs more of citizen-led policing a-la Michael A. Wood, Jr. where the police are part of, and communicate with, the community, instead of being merely a mandatory, occupying, paramilitary mafia resting on the monopoly on violence with impunity, lackadaisical/inconsistent training and blue wall of silence.
pandaman 9y ago
I wish there had been a website were I could read advice from LEOs to the software developers as to how ridiculous their current practices are and how to improve them.
- patroller 9y ago
  To be fair, a uniformed beat cop in a marked car with a pistol isn't operating in stealth mode. They aren't exactly snipers, deployed in gilly suits. The preceeding idea is kind of stupid, but then again, an advertisement of proximity to deadly force and the liklihood of extrajudicial summary execution probably has some utility. Something that tells you that a line is about to be crossed, from which there is no return. That little detail about police interaction isn't something that gets a whole lot of lip service. It's usually all "heroes" and implicit trustworthiness.
  - pandaman 9y ago
    An uniformed beat cop still is way more experienced and skilled in dealing with dangerous situations than a commenter here. Think about it this way : who would you want to call when somebody breaks into your house, an uniformed beat cop or the HN commenter with the top ranked comment on the another police outrage post? No, the stealth sniper is not available, Jedi knights too.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      Assuming somebody has broken in to my house and is presently in the house with me. Is calling the police the best of all possible solutions in this scenario. How do the police know which one of you is the offender?
      - Thiez 9y ago
        The police will probably correctly identify the person fleeing the scene while carrying a tv as the perpetrator. If for whatever reason the distinction is not so easy to make, they can just capture you both and ask your neighbours which one of you lives in your house. And presumably there is some way to prove that you live there, e.g. the house is on your name, there are pictures of you laying around, the dog listens to you, you know the color of the cups in the closets in the kitchen, all the clothes in the house happen to fit you... need I go on?
rayiner 9y ago
Or we should just disarm police officers.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Yeah, let's disarm the police officers while the criminals keep their guns. Sounds like a great plan! /s Extreme solutions are rarely the answer. I wouldn't walk through South-side Chicago unarmed as a civilian.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    Lots and lots of people walk through south side chicago every day as unarmed civilians.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Unarmed police have been extremely effective in numerous large cities, London for example.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Extreme solutions are rarely the answer. It's not an extreme solution. Regular policemen aren't armed in several countries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18/5-countries-where-police-officers-do-not-carry-firearms-and-it-works-well https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18.... Nothing's going to happen to you walking around the south side of Chicago unarmed. It's this kind of cowardice and paranoia that causes so many police shootings in the U.S.
    - Simon_says 9y ago
      I'm not going to read the article, but I predict that those countries are ones with fewer guns per capita than the US. This is an easy bet to make, because the US has wayyyy more guns than any other country.
      - rayiner 9y ago
normalocity 9y ago
Given that shots are often fired in a second or less, the strobe option is a bit of a technical solution to a non-technical problem, to say the least. As far as being comfortable with, and trained to use all the tools at their disposal (which should include better deescalation techniques): agreed.
prestonbriggs 9y ago
Pardon my rant, but... People say "baton" and I always think of the lightweight tube runners carry around a track. In this context, a baton is a nightstick. Have you ever examined one? A friend showed me his grandfather's. It was about 2 feet long, made of cherry, and filled with lead. It would break down a door or ruin a car. It would certainly break bones. With the lead weight and small diameter, it would be more effective (lethal) than a baseball bat. "Baton" is just a euphemism that papers over extreme violence.
- leesalminen 9y ago
  Today, they're frequently collapsible, made of metal and can be used to break car windows.
- woodman 9y ago
  When is the last time you saw something like that carried around that wasn't a rerun of "Cops" recorded in '89? Today you see telescoping steel tubes that certainly couldn't break down a door and could only break bones intentionally and with effort. You rarely see them deployed, which is unfortunate in my opinion, because it is an escalation of force step designed to counter physical but non-life-threatening aggression. So essentially you're abandoning a spectrum of force and adopting a model of only two modes - subjugated or dead.
  - prestonbriggs 9y ago
    I don't see police much. But I agree that the police batons I see advertised for sale seem to be metal collapsible things, though I never find a weight mentioned in the adverts. How much lead has been added to the tip? An alternative I've seen used on campus is a big Maglight. I'll agree that it represents a step that's usually less violent that reach for a gun, but when I read of police striking a woman "21 times with a baton", I have a hard time.
    - woodman 9y ago
      I've never seen a leaded telescoping baton, but you might want to reconsider the fixation on weight - because strike damage depends a lot more on the angle and targeted zone. If the cops are getting anything like the military in training on these things - they spend a lot of time learning where and how you can hit somebody without risking permanent damage. I'm pretty much the last person to stick up for cops, but beating somebody with a baton is hard work - so I'd be more inclined to think the cop dealing out the blows is trying harder than his fellow officers to not shoot a person to death.
valuearb 9y ago
Maybe police shouldn't be allowed to carry side-arms. Worked in London.
askvictor 9y ago
If a police officer is not capable of maintaining their cool and issuing clear commands relevant to the context they're in, they shouldn't be issued a lethal weapon in the first place; a recorded voice shouldn't be a replacement for this, and might just add to the confusion of voices and noises, and wouldn't have understanding of the specific situation (until we get to robocop level AI) The strobe idea might have some merit for the deaf, or folks who don't understand the local language, so long as there is a long standing education campaign.
tdeck 9y ago
In many of these police shootings, the whole interaction is over before you could finish that warning sentence.
woodman 9y ago
No kidding, this is exactly what pepperspray was invented for. Before I was even allowed to touch the stuff in the military I had to read a short history of it and a load of technical facts, oh and then get sprayed in the face before running an obstacle course... I really don't see how cops are able to have their cake and eat it too, with the whole "gotta do whatever to get home at the end of the day" and "we bravely risk our lives to hold the thin blue line".
- burntrelish1273 9y ago
  Sabre Red and similar pepper-sprays have a UV dye so it's possible to see on whom and where it was deployed under a blacklight.
  - woodman 9y ago
    That sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Anybody who was sprayed, even after they washed the orange crap off their face, is given away by the bloodshot eyes/red face/running nose and pungent smell. Also, I wonder how effective that would be if they put on sunblock[0] before the blacklight test. [0] http://samanthagouldson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uv_and_vis_sunscreen.jpg http://samanthagouldson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uv_an...
    - burntrelish1273 9y ago
      That's not what it's for. It's to determine where it was sprayed.
burntrelish1273 9y ago
Yup. Sabre Red 50 grams (with UV dye) works wonders. Every sane, normal person should carry capsaicin spray on their person to non-lethally halt the majority of (usually ambush) attacks by animals, human or otherwise.

by Apes 9y ago

bluedino 9y ago

On the other hand, you have two unknown dogs approaching you. They are of a potentially dangerous breed, and will likely defend their territory. Sure, your pitbull might be a lover but this type of dog is frequently in the news for biting people and killing children/elderly.

ourmandave 9y ago
Heh, pitbulls. I was at the crowded dog park one weekend and this family showed up with a muzzled pitbull. The first thing it did was attack my dog. Even with the muzzle on it was able to nip my dog in the ass a few times before it got pulled off. But that's not about the pitbull. It's about the asshole who brought his pre-muzzled dog to a dog park knowing it was vicious.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- StavrosK 9y ago
  > It's about the asshole who brought his pre-muzzled dog to a dog park knowing it was vicious. In my opinion, muzzling a dog you know is vicious before bringing them to the part is exactly what makes you a non-asshole. I don't understand why you're using "pre-muzzled" as a point against the owner.
  - ourmandave 9y ago
    Because if you know you have to restrain your dog like Hannibal Lecter going on a prisoner transport, don't bring him to a park with other dogs and little kids in the first place. Especially if he can still nip though the mask.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      The "nipping through the mask" part and "Hannibal Lecter" rhetoric aside, if you have a good muzzle, why not bring the dog to the park? That's why you muzzle dogs, so they can take walks in the part without biting.
twic 9y ago
Perhaps it would be informative to look at how many policemen have been killed or injured by dogs in countries where they do not routinely shoot them.
hiyer 9y ago
Not sure if you watched the video, but the dog was at least 10 feet away from him when he shot it, and it wasn't approaching any further. And if you read the article, there's also an example where a cop shot at a labrador on a leash (and hit a 4-year old girl instead).

eplanit 9y ago

"Police should have a loud speaker and strobe light on their uniform that trigger when they unholster their firearm." Interesting idea, really. In addition to the warnings, the unholstering should also activate body and dash cameras (if not already on), and send a signal of the event to authorities (plural) which records the date/time/lat/lon/etc...

yomly 9y ago
This is a cool idea for IoT based policing. As a public entity, they should be confident for all actions to be scrutinised and hold up in a court of law. I was going to suggest connected guns (for additional data harvesting) but realised a connected gun that could be hacked is a terrible idea.
- Retric 9y ago
  As long as the firing mechanism is purely mechanical hacking the gun becomes meaningless. Picture gun with attacked tiny video camera, hack it and the guy is still holding a working gun.
burntrelish1273 9y ago
This might have a side-benefit of not amping up the officer with extreme shouting. A loud megaphone, tactical breathing and a calming voice can defuse more situations instead of self-fulfilling prophecies causing bad outcomes. Meta: also, the US needs more of citizen-led policing a-la Michael A. Wood, Jr. where the police are part of, and communicate with, the community, instead of being merely a mandatory, occupying, paramilitary mafia resting on the monopoly on violence with impunity, lackadaisical/inconsistent training and blue wall of silence.

pandaman 9y ago

I wish there had been a website were I could read advice from LEOs to the software developers as to how ridiculous their current practices are and how to improve them.

patroller 9y ago
To be fair, a uniformed beat cop in a marked car with a pistol isn't operating in stealth mode. They aren't exactly snipers, deployed in gilly suits. The preceeding idea is kind of stupid, but then again, an advertisement of proximity to deadly force and the liklihood of extrajudicial summary execution probably has some utility. Something that tells you that a line is about to be crossed, from which there is no return. That little detail about police interaction isn't something that gets a whole lot of lip service. It's usually all "heroes" and implicit trustworthiness.
- pandaman 9y ago
  An uniformed beat cop still is way more experienced and skilled in dealing with dangerous situations than a commenter here. Think about it this way : who would you want to call when somebody breaks into your house, an uniformed beat cop or the HN commenter with the top ranked comment on the another police outrage post? No, the stealth sniper is not available, Jedi knights too.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Assuming somebody has broken in to my house and is presently in the house with me. Is calling the police the best of all possible solutions in this scenario. How do the police know which one of you is the offender?
    - Thiez 9y ago
      The police will probably correctly identify the person fleeing the scene while carrying a tv as the perpetrator. If for whatever reason the distinction is not so easy to make, they can just capture you both and ask your neighbours which one of you lives in your house. And presumably there is some way to prove that you live there, e.g. the house is on your name, there are pictures of you laying around, the dog listens to you, you know the color of the cups in the closets in the kitchen, all the clothes in the house happen to fit you... need I go on?

rayiner 9y ago

Or we should just disarm police officers.

scottLobster 9y ago
Yeah, let's disarm the police officers while the criminals keep their guns. Sounds like a great plan! /s Extreme solutions are rarely the answer. I wouldn't walk through South-side Chicago unarmed as a civilian.
- jbooth 9y ago
  Lots and lots of people walk through south side chicago every day as unarmed civilians.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Unarmed police have been extremely effective in numerous large cities, London for example.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Extreme solutions are rarely the answer. It's not an extreme solution. Regular policemen aren't armed in several countries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18/5-countries-where-police-officers-do-not-carry-firearms-and-it-works-well https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18.... Nothing's going to happen to you walking around the south side of Chicago unarmed. It's this kind of cowardice and paranoia that causes so many police shootings in the U.S.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    I'm not going to read the article, but I predict that those countries are ones with fewer guns per capita than the US. This is an easy bet to make, because the US has wayyyy more guns than any other country.
    - rayiner 9y ago

normalocity 9y ago

Given that shots are often fired in a second or less, the strobe option is a bit of a technical solution to a non-technical problem, to say the least. As far as being comfortable with, and trained to use all the tools at their disposal (which should include better deescalation techniques): agreed.

prestonbriggs 9y ago

Pardon my rant, but... People say "baton" and I always think of the lightweight tube runners carry around a track. In this context, a baton is a nightstick. Have you ever examined one? A friend showed me his grandfather's. It was about 2 feet long, made of cherry, and filled with lead. It would break down a door or ruin a car. It would certainly break bones. With the lead weight and small diameter, it would be more effective (lethal) than a baseball bat. "Baton" is just a euphemism that papers over extreme violence.

leesalminen 9y ago
Today, they're frequently collapsible, made of metal and can be used to break car windows.
woodman 9y ago
When is the last time you saw something like that carried around that wasn't a rerun of "Cops" recorded in '89? Today you see telescoping steel tubes that certainly couldn't break down a door and could only break bones intentionally and with effort. You rarely see them deployed, which is unfortunate in my opinion, because it is an escalation of force step designed to counter physical but non-life-threatening aggression. So essentially you're abandoning a spectrum of force and adopting a model of only two modes - subjugated or dead.
- prestonbriggs 9y ago
  I don't see police much. But I agree that the police batons I see advertised for sale seem to be metal collapsible things, though I never find a weight mentioned in the adverts. How much lead has been added to the tip? An alternative I've seen used on campus is a big Maglight. I'll agree that it represents a step that's usually less violent that reach for a gun, but when I read of police striking a woman "21 times with a baton", I have a hard time.
  - woodman 9y ago
    I've never seen a leaded telescoping baton, but you might want to reconsider the fixation on weight - because strike damage depends a lot more on the angle and targeted zone. If the cops are getting anything like the military in training on these things - they spend a lot of time learning where and how you can hit somebody without risking permanent damage. I'm pretty much the last person to stick up for cops, but beating somebody with a baton is hard work - so I'd be more inclined to think the cop dealing out the blows is trying harder than his fellow officers to not shoot a person to death.

valuearb 9y ago

Maybe police shouldn't be allowed to carry side-arms. Worked in London.

askvictor 9y ago

If a police officer is not capable of maintaining their cool and issuing clear commands relevant to the context they're in, they shouldn't be issued a lethal weapon in the first place; a recorded voice shouldn't be a replacement for this, and might just add to the confusion of voices and noises, and wouldn't have understanding of the specific situation (until we get to robocop level AI) The strobe idea might have some merit for the deaf, or folks who don't understand the local language, so long as there is a long standing education campaign.

tdeck 9y ago

In many of these police shootings, the whole interaction is over before you could finish that warning sentence.

woodman 9y ago

No kidding, this is exactly what pepperspray was invented for. Before I was even allowed to touch the stuff in the military I had to read a short history of it and a load of technical facts, oh and then get sprayed in the face before running an obstacle course... I really don't see how cops are able to have their cake and eat it too, with the whole "gotta do whatever to get home at the end of the day" and "we bravely risk our lives to hold the thin blue line".

burntrelish1273 9y ago
Sabre Red and similar pepper-sprays have a UV dye so it's possible to see on whom and where it was deployed under a blacklight.
- woodman 9y ago
  That sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Anybody who was sprayed, even after they washed the orange crap off their face, is given away by the bloodshot eyes/red face/running nose and pungent smell. Also, I wonder how effective that would be if they put on sunblock[0] before the blacklight test. [0] http://samanthagouldson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uv_and_vis_sunscreen.jpg http://samanthagouldson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uv_an...
  - burntrelish1273 9y ago
    That's not what it's for. It's to determine where it was sprayed.

burntrelish1273 9y ago

Yup. Sabre Red 50 grams (with UV dye) works wonders. Every sane, normal person should carry capsaicin spray on their person to non-lethally halt the majority of (usually ambush) attacks by animals, human or otherwise.