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They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, a
by ivanhoe 9y ago
They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. There's also a huge problem with the whole that macho, gun loving, power-tripping culture, it just makes things worse, wrong profile of people gets that kind of job.
- freedomben 9y ago> Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. What you are asking them to be is super human, indeed even better than a computer could in the same situation. No amount of "proper training" or "discipline" can prepare you to make perfect decisions based on imperfect data (your sensory perception, plus all the data that isn't present such as must be read from the mind of the suspect). Oh and add to this the stress that if you screw up, one of the following is likely: 1. You get killed 2. You wrongly kill and end up in prison A different approach is needed. I'm not sure what that is, but asking/requiring certain humans to be super human is a sure way to fail.
- seunosewa 9y ago>> 2. You wrongly kill and end up in prison Actually, part of the problem is that you never end up in prison for wrongly killing.
- Xorlev 9y agoEven when it's not pretty clear it's not an accident. See http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-daniel-shaver-police-video-20171208-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-daniel... (Daniel Shaver killing).
- varjag 9y agoSomehow police in the rest of developed world are able to resist shooting a great deal of suspects on the spot. Find what's different in America and fix it.
- cortesoft 9y agoWe know what is different but we refuse to address it. I understand that many people feel the second amendment is very important, but we at least have to have the intellectual honesty to admit that shootings like this are a consequence of it. We might decide we are willing, as a society, to accept that risk, but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.
- joe_the_user 9y agoI don't see much of a plausible argument that lack of gun control makes American police more trigger happy. And I say that as someone with no particular stake in gun rights. America doesn't have that high a murder rate, it just has a high rate of killings by cops. Lack of training, poor training and overall problematic police-culture seem to be the main offenders.
- sgt101 9y ago3x france 4x UK. The USA has a high murder rate; ok.. not as high as Iraq, but by the standards of developed nations, high. Put it this way, more than 10k people a year are murdered in the USA that would not be should the murder rate be the same as the UK's.
- bww 9y agoEasy access to guns in this country means it’s plausible that anyone the police encounter may be armed. As a result all the police also have guns and are reasonably concerned about being shot themselves – especially in tense situations. That’s a pretty direct connection from more guns in the public to more heavily armed, twitchier police.
- Spooky23 9y agoThere’s more connection to excessive traffic stops than to gun ownership. Guns are definately a problem, but a bigger problem is the idea that we Officers at high risk so that they can be gloried toll collectors. If you cut traffic stops by 80% and used cameras for speed enforcement, you’d dramatically reduce Officer shootings and attacks on officers. Train them to be EMTs and paramedics instead. The police and public should not be afraid of each other.
- ouid 9y ago"better than a computer" isn't really a superlative position in human interaction.
- vitalurk 9y agoAs an Infantry soldier who deployed to Afghanistan, I received more training on how to handle this type of situation than most cops seem to ever get. If we require soldiers to be better, why not require cops. Soldiers get to face more stress than cops.
- freedomben 9y agoI also received military training. I don't think it enabled me to make perfect decisions. In fact I saw several poor decisions made by my fellows-in-arms. If you didn't, then you were probably lucky enough to have not been placed in those difficult situations.
- lostlogin 9y agoI broadly agree, but why does the US seem to have a higher frequency of this sort of thing? It isn’t a problem everywhere, so why not do what other places do?
- gaius 9y agoWhat you are asking them to be is super human Here is a cop being fired for NOT shooting someone https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/12/west-virginia-cop-fired-for-not-killing-a-man-with-an-unloaded-gun/?utm_term=.7f16109a72d8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/12/...
- JudasGoat 9y agoThat would be more relevant if it happened on the scale of the Police shooting unarmed people. That is a one off story that you are giving the same weight as something that happens every day in the US.
- lamarpye 9y agoAccording to this article there were 68 unarmed people shot and killed by the police in 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
- anigbrowl 9y agoNo he isn't. Some people are better suited to these situations than others, and people can be better trained for it too. I've talked to more than one Iraq veteran who's troubled by how ready police are to discharge compared to the rules of engagement they used in Iraq, which were more than sufficient for them to maintain public safety. Part of the problem is that police in America offer the default excuse of fearing for their lives in virtually every situation where they shoot someone. I doubt they're actually that cowardly, but it's been a successful formula for them in administrative proceedings.
- throwaway2048 9y agoI like how the police feel threatened and have a hard job is more important than the fact a completely innocent person died.
- trophycase 9y agoIt's more important in terms of solving the issue. Why would we even be talking about this if an innocent person dying wasn't important?
- alsetmusic 9y ago> Oh and add to this the stress that if you screw up, one of the following is likely: I think this sums it up better than if you were trying to make the point that I’m about to attempt. It’s not necessarily “likely” that someone is going to die in all of these situations. It’s a possibility. It’s probably near impossible to tell the difference in the middle of a high-stress situation, but the assumption that it’s going to result in death at the outset is the problem.
- valuearb 9y agoIt's not asking them to be super-human. Its asking them not to shoot until they actually see a weapon.
- computerex 9y agoYea this answer is total and utter crap. We aren't asking law enforcement to be super human, we want them to be educated and competent. The fact that the U.S is both lacking in training and competence is a well established fact. Law enforcement in the United States has proven itself to lack training and discipline by firing on innocent unarmed citizens many many times. I don't believe any other country in the world has this problem to our extent. We have a very dangerously trigger happy law enforcement. These issues correlate with lack of training. Civil crime is not like a battlefield, people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty as is law. If someone can't handle this reality, they shouldn't be allowed to wield a weapon that kills. With great force and power comes responsibility. We should be far more selective at the type of people that can go into law enforcement, only those with a grounded temperament and proven track record should be allowed to use deadly force after extensive training. In the U.S, any Joe shmoe hungry for a power trip can attain a legal license to kill by going in law enforcement. That is the actual problem. I'd love to hear an actual solution or alternative if you have one. But the U.S isn't a special snowflake. It should take a leaf from other countries like Germany, England and France and foster a strong culture of policing by consent rather than the bullshit we have right now. Also when was the last time an American white law enforcement agent was imprisoned for discharging his or her weapon on an unarmed suspect?
- rdiddly 9y agoActual solution or alternative: You and tons more people like you, should apply for jobs in law enforcement, work your way up into leadership, and change policy.
- bryanrasmussen 9y agoI missed the part where perfect decisions were required?
- Spooky23 9y agoThe military often operates on much more restrictive rules of engagement. Example, where a soldier was criminally charged for shooting a likely combatant in the head, after nearly being blown up by a bomb. http://www.micourthistory.org/2013_ms/ http://www.micourthistory.org/2013_ms/
- ivanhoe 9y agoIt's not a binary thing, it's a matter of probability, one can be more or less likely to overreact and training helps with that. You most likely can't fix the problem entirely, mistakes happen, but you can at least reduce the number of incidents.
- jeffdavis 9y agoThat's not fair -- we don't know what kind of training the officer had, or what his attitude is. Maybe it's just really hard to train for this situation?
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoI was under the impression police office training regimes are public knowledge. Regardless, we know that police, with very few exceptions, right across the world, are trained to respond with escalating violence.
- taberiand 9y agoThe worst scenario is that an innocent person is killed
- valuearb 9y agoShouldn't they prepare for the most likely scenarios, i.e. it's a bogus call or misrepresented whats happening, or that the perp just wants to surrender? How often do these calls turn out to be actually dangerous? One in a dozen? A hundred? Should cops wearing body armor use sniper rifles to shoot someone on their porch several hundred feet away just on the off chance they might have a pistol in their waistband?
- kbar13 9y agoif you worked a job where your life is legitimately at risk then you would know that you prepare for the worst every time.
- viraptor 9y agoMultiple policemen killing random unarmed people is not the worst?
- jackmott 9y agoLook up the statistics on police officer safety. It is not a particularly dangerous job overall.
- ryanlol 9y agoThe death of a single innocent civilian is objectively worse than the death of a single police officer.
- notwedtm 9y agoWhile any unnecessary loss of life is a tragedy, I would agree with your statement simply because the LEO puts on the badge knowing the risks they are accepting. The victim from this article did not. He simply answered his door, and lost his life for it.
- MaxfordAndSons 9y agoIronically, militarized police training teaches the exact opposite: the officer must protect their lives and the lives of their fellow officers above all else.
- rdiddly 9y agoHate to break it to you, but America IS a macho, gun-loving, power-tripping culture. What macho, gun-loving, power-tripping game were two man-children playing that got one of them so pissed at the other that he SWATted him?
- mastax 9y agoThe victim was an unrelated third party.
- rdiddly 9y agoIt often is.
- mrguyorama 9y agoThat's quite the victim blaming you're doing there. I'll make sure to never play an FPS against a twelve year old again, just to make sure a cop doesn't shoot me for no reason
- aphexbr 9y agoNot good enough. The person who got killed was not one of the people involved in the game. The guy who was the target to be swatted gave a false address to the person calling him out. Not playing the FPS would not protect you in this case. That's what makes this so much worse - the guy who got killed never knew why the cops were there, which is presumably why he was confused and made the mistake that killed him. He died because he was innocent.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dclowd9901 9y agoThe worst case scenario? I’m pretty sure that is the scenario that played out. Police should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort. It works this way for the military. I can’t fathom why it doesn’t work this way with police.
- dba7dba 9y agoPolice should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort. I disagree. No one should be prepared to die while working a job, a job that one will have all his life.
- lowbloodsugar 9y agoThen you don't get to be a cop. Or a soldier.
- dba7dba 9y agoA soldier is in direct danger of losing life/limb only upto 25 years old so. As you go up higher in rank, your exposure to danger goes down exponentially. And that is usually when an active war is going on. Even when an active war is on, those in charge have learned to limit the length of time a soldier spends in warzone to 1 year. Like US did in Vietnam war. For cop in certain areas, they are exposed to loving life/limb any day. It may happen only once a year or just a few years. But still, I wouldn't say one can be a cop only if you are willing to lose own life.
- fredophile 9y agoI don't think you've ever been a soldier. Sure the average private or corporal is in their twenties but when I was in Afghanistan the average NCO was in their thirties. Even higher ranked people with office jobs weren't immune from danger. Rocket attacks on KAF and the FOBs was a regular occurrence. Soldiers can easily get a lot more than one year of combat time. How many full time soldiers only do a single tour in Iraq or Afghanistan? The stats show policing isn't that dangerous. Most cops never need to draw their weapons. If you want to see a dangerous job look at crab fishing.
- Spooky23 9y agoIt’s a great example of why these SWAT units shouldn’t be in every small cities police department. Paramilitary tactics should come with military discipline.
- notwedtm 9y agoPolice shouldn't be using military tactics or equipment. If those tactics/weapons are truly needed, then the National Guard should be called in. There is a fundamental difference between military tactics/actions and law enforcement. It seems that over the past 4-5 decades, we've allowed the lines to be blurred in exchange for a false sense of security and safety.
- MaxfordAndSons 9y agoYea, this outcome seems to happen surprisingly infrequently for the amount of SWATings that occur, precisely because big city SWAT units are selected for experience and discipline. When any small town cowboy sheriff and his goons can ride in with assault rifles on a bargain bin APC courtesy of the Pentagon, these standards fall off rapidly.
- banku_brougham 9y ago>They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. I don’t agree with this. I think they are preparing for particular forms of the worst case, and its causing these incidents. Is killing innocent civilians the worst case? This outcome isn’t being considered.
- MaxfordAndSons 9y ago>Is killing innocent civilians the worst case? No, they're literally taught that protecting their lives and the lives of their fellow officers is their top priority. They're taught by the 'warrior mindset' not to treat civilians like, well, civilians, but instead like potential enemy combatants. Sure, they're mitigating the personal risks they endure on the job, but they're doing so at the cost of increasing the risk of harm and death to everyone they encounter.
- u801e 9y ago> They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. That's not a true premise in the vast majority of cases that involve SWAT raids.