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Because, in the current climate, a cop who shoots first is certainly going home to their family at night and is certainly going to retire in good health. Even t

Because, in the current climate, a cop who shoots first is certainly going home to their family at night and is certainly going to retire in good health. Even though the chances of getting injured by a person are pretty low, the chances of getting injured by a dead person are zero. Cops are humans with concrete human motivations and the risk/reward balance of shooting people is biased heavily towards reward.

bachmeier 8y ago
This is definitely not correct. You are saying the police are safer if their strategy is "shoot immediately". If that is the case, they've just eliminated any incentive for someone with a gun to not shoot at them or to resist arrest. In many cases, the cops do not have the advantage, and if you know with certainty that you will die if the police get the first shot, you will shoot at the police at the first opportunity. You don't open the door and talk to the police. You find a place where you'll be protected and wait for the police to walk into the room. I don't know the exact probabilities of each of these events, and it would depend on the situation, but it's dangerous to assume that the police are better off if they open fire just to be sure they kill the bad guy.
- loeg 8y ago
  > If that is the case, they've just eliminated any incentive for someone with a gun to not shoot at them or to resist arrest. Yes, I think that's a good point — it is a vicious cycle and sort of self-perpetuates.
rosser 8y ago
> Cops are humans with concrete human motivations and the risk/reward balance of shooting people is biased heavily towards reward. There is demonstrably little risk in the US for police who shoot people, absent specific evidence of bad faith. There's also no "reward" for shooting people, unless they're actually murdering people opportunistically under cover of their badges. Then again, consider the case in Baltimore of a ring of officers carrying toy guns to plant on people after shooting them, and how the cooperating member of the ring was found dead of an apparent suicide just before he was going to testify. [0] Or that it's only the happenstance of a bystander with a camera phone recording a cop shooting someone in the back, then planting his taser on the body, and reporting the victim had taken it. [1] Or the car chase that ended in a death, during which the sheriff's deputy's body cam recorded him saying, "I love this shit. God, I tell you what, I thrive on it. If they don’t think I’ll give the damn order to kill that motherfucker they’re full of shit." [2] Those are just what we've found. I get that being a law enforcement officer is a dangerous job, and that they're risking their lives every time they respond to an unknown situation. The thing is, they signed up for that. It's not like cops getting shot was a surprise sprung upon them only after they were sworn in. They're also given the authority to use deadly force, and — ideally — the trust that they will do so judiciously. Not only do they sometimes abjectly fail to do that, the system fails to penalize egregious abuses of that trust. We've somehow chosen as a society to lionize the police, and give them incredibly wide latitude and presumption of good faith. Most cops are good cops, and probably can be trusted with substantial latitude. A permissive attitude invites abuse, however, and not only are there bad cops, but the good ones, and the system itself, abet them (which, I submit, severely mitigates their good cop-ness). [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer... [2] https://www.salon.com/2018/02/08/tennessee-sheriff-recorded-saying-shoot-him-before-suspect-died/ https://www.salon.com/2018/02/08/tennessee-sheriff-recorded-...

bachmeier 8y ago

This is definitely not correct. You are saying the police are safer if their strategy is "shoot immediately". If that is the case, they've just eliminated any incentive for someone with a gun to not shoot at them or to resist arrest. In many cases, the cops do not have the advantage, and if you know with certainty that you will die if the police get the first shot, you will shoot at the police at the first opportunity. You don't open the door and talk to the police. You find a place where you'll be protected and wait for the police to walk into the room. I don't know the exact probabilities of each of these events, and it would depend on the situation, but it's dangerous to assume that the police are better off if they open fire just to be sure they kill the bad guy.

loeg 8y ago
> If that is the case, they've just eliminated any incentive for someone with a gun to not shoot at them or to resist arrest. Yes, I think that's a good point — it is a vicious cycle and sort of self-perpetuates.

rosser 8y ago

> Cops are humans with concrete human motivations and the risk/reward balance of shooting people is biased heavily towards reward. There is demonstrably little risk in the US for police who shoot people, absent specific evidence of bad faith. There's also no "reward" for shooting people, unless they're actually murdering people opportunistically under cover of their badges. Then again, consider the case in Baltimore of a ring of officers carrying toy guns to plant on people after shooting them, and how the cooperating member of the ring was found dead of an apparent suicide just before he was going to testify. [0] Or that it's only the happenstance of a bystander with a camera phone recording a cop shooting someone in the back, then planting his taser on the body, and reporting the victim had taken it. [1] Or the car chase that ended in a death, during which the sheriff's deputy's body cam recorded him saying, "I love this shit. God, I tell you what, I thrive on it. If they don’t think I’ll give the damn order to kill that motherfucker they’re full of shit." [2] Those are just what we've found. I get that being a law enforcement officer is a dangerous job, and that they're risking their lives every time they respond to an unknown situation. The thing is, they signed up for that. It's not like cops getting shot was a surprise sprung upon them only after they were sworn in. They're also given the authority to use deadly force, and — ideally — the trust that they will do so judiciously. Not only do they sometimes abjectly fail to do that, the system fails to penalize egregious abuses of that trust. We've somehow chosen as a society to lionize the police, and give them incredibly wide latitude and presumption of good faith. Most cops are good cops, and probably can be trusted with substantial latitude. A permissive attitude invites abuse, however, and not only are there bad cops, but the good ones, and the system itself, abet them (which, I submit, severely mitigates their good cop-ness). [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer... [2] https://www.salon.com/2018/02/08/tennessee-sheriff-recorded-saying-shoot-him-before-suspect-died/ https://www.salon.com/2018/02/08/tennessee-sheriff-recorded-...