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That makes sense if police are using stun guns instead of pistols. The concern is that they are using stun guns instead of defusing situations verbally, or usi

That makes sense if police are using stun guns instead of pistols. The concern is that they are using stun guns instead of defusing situations verbally, or using stun guns instead of billy clubs, allowing them to punish/torture people without leaving marks. You could say our drone warfare technology is creating that same sort of problem. On one hand they are much cheaper and do not risk a pilot being shot down in some enemy country. On the other hand, that makes it cheap and relatively risk free to drop bombs on people, so why not use them all the time?

js2 9y ago
"Don't tase me, bro." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_in... My opinion on that incident is that the police over-reacted. Police in the US seem to be sorely undertrained in defusing situations, and in fact often are the ones escalating. They certainly (in my experience) do not like to have their authority challenged. They are the professionals - shouldn't the onus be on them to maintain calm? That said, there are thousands of police/citizen interactions every day that don't end up in the news. Maybe the bad apples have biased my opinion. Disclosure: white middle-aged middle-class male. I've had maybe a dozen interactions with police, mostly traffic incidents, mostly when I was much younger. I can think of two incidents in particular where the officer became verbally abusive with no obvious provocation on my part, and I had to de-escalate through calm and submission.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  They have no incentive not to escalate, they gain more legal advantages as the situation escalates and the DA gains better statistics.
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    I find it hard to believe that an individual officer in a situation where they are scared chooses to escalate on the basis of how the DA looks. It's more likely that the situation triggers an emotional reaction which they're unable to process at the time, and because they're unable to remove themselves from the situation they cease to act rationally.
    - dionidium 9y ago
      Human beings will ultimately act like human beings in these situations. It's very easy to expect something else when you're not the human being under threat. The only way to prevent human beings from acting in the default way human beings act is rigorous evidence-based training. No proposition that there must have been something else they could have done is meaningful unless it's backed up by specific, rigorous, evidence-based training for the situation in question. Absent that, we're asking people to respond to threats unrealistically. We're making them sick and commanding them to be well.
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      It's more that they know they will, with near certainty, never be held accountable for improper use of force, so there's no reason not to immediately escalate the situation.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  This reminds me of driving home from the eclipse. The Missouri Highway Patrol may not have created the 90-mile traffic jam, but they did their damnedest to make it worse. They didn't post alternate routes (which I took most of the way, but I had to get back on the main highway to get where I was going and was met with more bumper-to-bumper). They didn't wave traffic through the three stoplights (on the whole hundred miles of mostly-limited-access) that were causing most of the problem. Instead they continually zipped up and down the median and shoulders of the road in their own giant traffic machines, regularly pulling people over for minor offenses (no one was speeding, that's for sure) and finding other reasons to jam their cruisers in and out of traffic. It's as if police never stop to think about the purpose of their jobs. I guess they're like many other people that way...
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >It's as if police never stop to think about the purpose of their jobs. I guess they're like many other people that way... This. If you're gonna take the guy to the station and have the vehicle towed then why not stick the guy in the cruiser, wait for the truck and conduct your search in the impound lot where you're not clogging up traffic and at risk of getting hit by someone on their phone. The problem is that there isn't pressure from the top down to be efficient.

js2 9y ago

"Don't tase me, bro." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_in... My opinion on that incident is that the police over-reacted. Police in the US seem to be sorely undertrained in defusing situations, and in fact often are the ones escalating. They certainly (in my experience) do not like to have their authority challenged. They are the professionals - shouldn't the onus be on them to maintain calm? That said, there are thousands of police/citizen interactions every day that don't end up in the news. Maybe the bad apples have biased my opinion. Disclosure: white middle-aged middle-class male. I've had maybe a dozen interactions with police, mostly traffic incidents, mostly when I was much younger. I can think of two incidents in particular where the officer became verbally abusive with no obvious provocation on my part, and I had to de-escalate through calm and submission.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
They have no incentive not to escalate, they gain more legal advantages as the situation escalates and the DA gains better statistics.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  I find it hard to believe that an individual officer in a situation where they are scared chooses to escalate on the basis of how the DA looks. It's more likely that the situation triggers an emotional reaction which they're unable to process at the time, and because they're unable to remove themselves from the situation they cease to act rationally.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    Human beings will ultimately act like human beings in these situations. It's very easy to expect something else when you're not the human being under threat. The only way to prevent human beings from acting in the default way human beings act is rigorous evidence-based training. No proposition that there must have been something else they could have done is meaningful unless it's backed up by specific, rigorous, evidence-based training for the situation in question. Absent that, we're asking people to respond to threats unrealistically. We're making them sick and commanding them to be well.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    It's more that they know they will, with near certainty, never be held accountable for improper use of force, so there's no reason not to immediately escalate the situation.
jessaustin 9y ago
This reminds me of driving home from the eclipse. The Missouri Highway Patrol may not have created the 90-mile traffic jam, but they did their damnedest to make it worse. They didn't post alternate routes (which I took most of the way, but I had to get back on the main highway to get where I was going and was met with more bumper-to-bumper). They didn't wave traffic through the three stoplights (on the whole hundred miles of mostly-limited-access) that were causing most of the problem. Instead they continually zipped up and down the median and shoulders of the road in their own giant traffic machines, regularly pulling people over for minor offenses (no one was speeding, that's for sure) and finding other reasons to jam their cruisers in and out of traffic. It's as if police never stop to think about the purpose of their jobs. I guess they're like many other people that way...
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >It's as if police never stop to think about the purpose of their jobs. I guess they're like many other people that way... This. If you're gonna take the guy to the station and have the vehicle towed then why not stick the guy in the cruiser, wait for the truck and conduct your search in the impound lot where you're not clogging up traffic and at risk of getting hit by someone on their phone. The problem is that there isn't pressure from the top down to be efficient.