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> And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a littl

by Dove 9y ago

> And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I can understand that, but I recommend caution when it comes to judgement. Combat is every bit as technical as system architecture, and I think it requires related experience to judge fairly. Movies prepare you to critique a fighter about as well as they prepare you to critique a system security posture. Which is to say, not at all. The best way to understand why police react the way they do is get a little experience with the real thing: watch footage of actual confrontations. Here are some examples: https://youtu.be/uyEE_IpjstA https://youtu.be/uyEE_IpjstA https://youtu.be/2mnTE85LYFU https://youtu.be/2mnTE85LYFU https://youtu.be/p6mds5tDqDw https://youtu.be/p6mds5tDqDw Combat is fast. When someone makes a sudden move, you have to react immediately or you will lose. I'm mad that this went down the way it did, too, but from the description, it is very understandable. It is tragic that people with no combat background just don't understand what looks threatening and why. You'd no doubt consider it foolhardy to point an airsoft pistol at a policeman, but probably don't understand that a movement that could be a fast concealed weapon draw is just as threatening. I do a little martial arts, and we train that if someone is hiding their hand, assume it contains a knife or gun. If you have your hand behind you or in your pocket and move it fast, I have to react as if it's an attack, as that's the only way to avoid it. It takes too long to identify a weapon. Look at some videos of knife attacks, for example: https://youtu.be/dqnwsljTVt8 https://youtu.be/dqnwsljTVt8 https://youtu.be/ts2LCbDQkeg https://youtu.be/ts2LCbDQkeg They are fast and sudden. The only way you can hope to defend them is to assume a hand you don't see is about to hit you with a knife. Which is why police are jumpy. This is the environment they work in and what they train for. If your day to day life involves no violence, your ideas about what's reasonable in that context don't come from applicable experience. > I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position where police are pointing guns at me and shouting instructions, I expect I will be shot. I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that. Move slowly. Keep your hands very visible and very obviously empty. Even if you can't hear the officer's commands, moving slowly and keeping your hands visible will keep you from appearing suddenly threatening, which should let you get the situation sorted out. I can't help you if you run into a policeman who is a bully, but most of these tragedies are misunderstandings between good people. The very best way to avoid that is to do everything slowly and deliberately. Don't panic. Just move slowly and carefully. Pretend the cop is a dinosaur or something and sudden movement will provoke him.

Malician 9y ago
This is true, if you think in terms of "behavior required to win in a fight against someone who ambushes you with intent to kill." Action beats reaction. And there's no way to maintain both your behavior and the situation of every encounter, all tens of thousands of them per officer across every officer in the country in such a way that you're safe against someone like the attackers in those videos. It can't happen. Most people don't have combat background. They come in a range of IQs, a range of behavioral disorders, of intoxication of various means, of absurd beliefs and paranoias and irrationalities and mental health disorders. They are unpredictable and unreliable and don't use their turn signals let alone follow spot-on perfect form in an unexpected situation with adrenaline pumping. As a result, almost everyone shot by police will have done something to "justify" it by the standard of behavior you have here. Since police usually are called on someone who is engaged in somewhat unsavory behavior (usually drug related,) it's really easy to paint the shooter in a negative light. A lot of people respond to a shooting incident with - "another lowlife, gangbanger, or meth-head, who cares?" With cops on a hair trigger primed with videos of trained killers ambushing fellow police, any incident where a police officer gets scared for any reason could lead to your death. What this video and incident shows is that this is still true for your average Joe with no drugs and no reason to be connected to the police in any way. This is no less true for many people who were shot and killed as the result of a traffic stop or a drug bust - they didn't necessarily deserve to be killed, their death is no less tragic - it's just less evident.
tacomonstrous 9y ago
>Pretend the cop is a dinosaur or something and sudden movement will provoke him. It's really perverse that I have to train myself to deal safely with a purported practised officer of the law.
- burntwater 9y ago
  This. The burden should be on the few police to be trained well enough to recognize body language, not on the mass population to train how to avoid being shot.
  - 9y ago

by Dove 9y ago

Malician 9y ago

This is true, if you think in terms of "behavior required to win in a fight against someone who ambushes you with intent to kill." Action beats reaction. And there's no way to maintain both your behavior and the situation of every encounter, all tens of thousands of them per officer across every officer in the country in such a way that you're safe against someone like the attackers in those videos. It can't happen. Most people don't have combat background. They come in a range of IQs, a range of behavioral disorders, of intoxication of various means, of absurd beliefs and paranoias and irrationalities and mental health disorders. They are unpredictable and unreliable and don't use their turn signals let alone follow spot-on perfect form in an unexpected situation with adrenaline pumping. As a result, almost everyone shot by police will have done something to "justify" it by the standard of behavior you have here. Since police usually are called on someone who is engaged in somewhat unsavory behavior (usually drug related,) it's really easy to paint the shooter in a negative light. A lot of people respond to a shooting incident with - "another lowlife, gangbanger, or meth-head, who cares?" With cops on a hair trigger primed with videos of trained killers ambushing fellow police, any incident where a police officer gets scared for any reason could lead to your death. What this video and incident shows is that this is still true for your average Joe with no drugs and no reason to be connected to the police in any way. This is no less true for many people who were shot and killed as the result of a traffic stop or a drug bust - they didn't necessarily deserve to be killed, their death is no less tragic - it's just less evident.

tacomonstrous 9y ago

>Pretend the cop is a dinosaur or something and sudden movement will provoke him. It's really perverse that I have to train myself to deal safely with a purported practised officer of the law.

burntwater 9y ago
This. The burden should be on the few police to be trained well enough to recognize body language, not on the mass population to train how to avoid being shot.
- 9y ago