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They definitely tell lifeguards and firefighters and first responders that their "first priority is to go home safely tonight". If you have a small group of pe

by akerl_ 8y ago

They definitely tell lifeguards and firefighters and first responders that their "first priority is to go home safely tonight". If you have a small group of people who can help, and a much larger group that need help, it's critically important that your helpers don't get themselves killed by being reckless with their own lives. The overuse of force by police in the US is terrible. It's a combination of bad judgement, bad training, and no repercussions. But that's fully separate from the fact that "keep yourself alive" is a core tenet of all the jobs you listed.

rrauenza 8y ago
They also express it that "now we've got N+1 victims we have to rescue, and one less helper."
GW150914 8y ago
There’s a difference between telling people to not put themselves in risky situations thst will just lead to adding a casualty (firefighter running into a collapsing building) and shooting people to “be on the safe side.” The equivalent for a cop would be to wait for backup, not murdering someone else because they’re scared.
craftyguy 8y ago
They generally do not give lifeguards, firefighters, and first responders firearms and instruct them to kill the survivors if they feel like their life is in danger.
- Spivak 8y ago
  It's not very often those people are being attacked on the job though, seems like the right analogue would be training on when to let someone in danger die. Having went through lifeguard training the very clear message was that if you feel unsafe in a situation or can't subdue someone who's dragging you down you preserve your own life first.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  They don't tell them to directly kill anyone. Because very few people attack firefighters. Indirectly, however they do recommend that. If the burning building is very dangerously unstable, firefighter SOP is not to enter to try to save anyone who might still be alive (nor permit others to do the same).
- isoskeles 8y ago
  I don't understand why people are typing on this thread as if the officers shot this man to death with bullets. It seems disingenuous.
  - rahimnathwani 8y ago
    "Tragically, Magdiel never heard the police commands - because he was deaf. During the stand-off, neighbours shouted to the officers to tell them this, but they shot him anyway."
scarface74 8y ago
There is a huge difference between “keeping yourself alive” by not going into a burning building that there is a huge risk that you won’t come out alive and you won’t help anyone and shooting an unarmed person just in case they might be carrying a weapon. As a police officer, they signed up for an increased risk of death (even though statistically it’s not that dangerous). I as an African American, didn’t sign up to be shot just because I “look suspicious” for living in a predominantly White neighborhood.
- elipsey 8y ago
  I am extremely sympathetic to this view. I think it's hard for some people to appreciate how others are policed, because they have not experienced it first hand. I have lived in all sorts of neighborhoods, and in some I was repeatedly searched, restrained, and detained. I had broken no law, and I have never been charged with a crime. Not everyone can simply avoid interacting with the police by virtue of their behavior, and interacting with the police is dangerous even when one is trying to be compliant.
  - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
    > Not everyone can simply avoid interacting with the police by virtue of their behavior, and interacting with the police is dangerous even when one is trying to be compliant. Yep. If you haven't been in this situation, there really isn't anything comparable to having each word spoken and action made taken as a immediate threat by an officer with a gun who is visibly high from the adrenaline rush they got from the situation.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  Did you get shot?
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
Look, what I'm saying is I would never expect a fireman to say "I didn't go near that burning house because it would have put my life in danger", or for a doctor to say "I won't treat this Ebola patient because, dangit, Ebola". The people in that kind of job put their ass on the line to save other peoples' bacon and accept that their job carries a risk. They won't actively try to harm another person (a person, btw, they're supposed to protect) to avoid getting killed. Imagine a lifeguard who bonks a panicked swimmer on the head and lets him sink, because "when they start panicking they can pull you under, so it's my life or his". That would be completely mad, wouldn't it? You'd expect the lifeguard to be trained to deal with that sort of thing wihtout having to kill someone they're trying to save in the first place. And like I say, obviously, nobody expects, or asks those people to lay down their lives in the line of duty. But they're there to handle dangerous situations that not everyone can handle. Right? That's what the police are there for. If someone tries to rob the bank, they're supposed to stop the robbery. It's a dangerous line of business. Of course they shouldn't get killed while at it, but if the best they can do to keep alive is to execute everyone around them, they shouldn't be doing that job. They're supposed to be cops, not Judge Dredd.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  > (a person, btw, they're supposed to protect) Do you suppose maybe the officers' intent was to protect the person who called them? I'm not happy this happened, and I think some blame can be put on the culture of police officers using violence as a solution to many problems, but I also think a lot of blame can be put on the culture of people-not-knowing-their-neighbors. I would want to know more about my neighbors before calling the cops on them, even if they did some crazy thing like walk around the hallways naked or yell or scream.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    >> Do you suppose maybe the officers' intent was to protect the person who called them? The officer's stated intent was to go home to his family that night. That's what's bothering me. He didn't try to explain his actions in terms of protecting the public from a potentially dangerous individual, he put it in terms of protecting himself. So what's going to happen if you give a man a gun, tell them "protect yourself first" and send them in a situation where someone might put their life in danger? I think it's obvious- they'll shoot the person putting them in danger. To protect themselves.
washadjeffmad 8y ago
I suppose I've never thought about a lifeguard intentionally drowning a panicking swimmer (or preemptively drowning someone who appeared not to be abiding pool rules) because they wanted to ensure their own or other's safety. Likewise, firefighters are tooled for survival in the environments they're expecting to work. Police share more of their tooling in common with robbers and kidnappers than with lifeguards or firefighters, who we don't regularly see them killing others. If we made regular police white glove, non-lethal social servants and only minimally armed them (or not at all), would this decrease violent escalation? We'd need to treat mental health crises as medical situations and have an armed response division trained in deescalation, but I think the current belief in us vs them and commonplace sanctioning of deadly force are wounds on our society that need to be healed.

by akerl_ 8y ago

rrauenza 8y ago

They also express it that "now we've got N+1 victims we have to rescue, and one less helper."

GW150914 8y ago

There’s a difference between telling people to not put themselves in risky situations thst will just lead to adding a casualty (firefighter running into a collapsing building) and shooting people to “be on the safe side.” The equivalent for a cop would be to wait for backup, not murdering someone else because they’re scared.

craftyguy 8y ago

They generally do not give lifeguards, firefighters, and first responders firearms and instruct them to kill the survivors if they feel like their life is in danger.

Spivak 8y ago
It's not very often those people are being attacked on the job though, seems like the right analogue would be training on when to let someone in danger die. Having went through lifeguard training the very clear message was that if you feel unsafe in a situation or can't subdue someone who's dragging you down you preserve your own life first.
paulddraper 8y ago
They don't tell them to directly kill anyone. Because very few people attack firefighters. Indirectly, however they do recommend that. If the burning building is very dangerously unstable, firefighter SOP is not to enter to try to save anyone who might still be alive (nor permit others to do the same).
isoskeles 8y ago
I don't understand why people are typing on this thread as if the officers shot this man to death with bullets. It seems disingenuous.
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  "Tragically, Magdiel never heard the police commands - because he was deaf. During the stand-off, neighbours shouted to the officers to tell them this, but they shot him anyway."

scarface74 8y ago

There is a huge difference between “keeping yourself alive” by not going into a burning building that there is a huge risk that you won’t come out alive and you won’t help anyone and shooting an unarmed person just in case they might be carrying a weapon. As a police officer, they signed up for an increased risk of death (even though statistically it’s not that dangerous). I as an African American, didn’t sign up to be shot just because I “look suspicious” for living in a predominantly White neighborhood.

elipsey 8y ago
I am extremely sympathetic to this view. I think it's hard for some people to appreciate how others are policed, because they have not experienced it first hand. I have lived in all sorts of neighborhoods, and in some I was repeatedly searched, restrained, and detained. I had broken no law, and I have never been charged with a crime. Not everyone can simply avoid interacting with the police by virtue of their behavior, and interacting with the police is dangerous even when one is trying to be compliant.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  > Not everyone can simply avoid interacting with the police by virtue of their behavior, and interacting with the police is dangerous even when one is trying to be compliant. Yep. If you haven't been in this situation, there really isn't anything comparable to having each word spoken and action made taken as a immediate threat by an officer with a gun who is visibly high from the adrenaline rush they got from the situation.
isoskeles 8y ago
Did you get shot?

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

Look, what I'm saying is I would never expect a fireman to say "I didn't go near that burning house because it would have put my life in danger", or for a doctor to say "I won't treat this Ebola patient because, dangit, Ebola". The people in that kind of job put their ass on the line to save other peoples' bacon and accept that their job carries a risk. They won't actively try to harm another person (a person, btw, they're supposed to protect) to avoid getting killed. Imagine a lifeguard who bonks a panicked swimmer on the head and lets him sink, because "when they start panicking they can pull you under, so it's my life or his". That would be completely mad, wouldn't it? You'd expect the lifeguard to be trained to deal with that sort of thing wihtout having to kill someone they're trying to save in the first place. And like I say, obviously, nobody expects, or asks those people to lay down their lives in the line of duty. But they're there to handle dangerous situations that not everyone can handle. Right? That's what the police are there for. If someone tries to rob the bank, they're supposed to stop the robbery. It's a dangerous line of business. Of course they shouldn't get killed while at it, but if the best they can do to keep alive is to execute everyone around them, they shouldn't be doing that job. They're supposed to be cops, not Judge Dredd.

isoskeles 8y ago
> (a person, btw, they're supposed to protect) Do you suppose maybe the officers' intent was to protect the person who called them? I'm not happy this happened, and I think some blame can be put on the culture of police officers using violence as a solution to many problems, but I also think a lot of blame can be put on the culture of people-not-knowing-their-neighbors. I would want to know more about my neighbors before calling the cops on them, even if they did some crazy thing like walk around the hallways naked or yell or scream.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> Do you suppose maybe the officers' intent was to protect the person who called them? The officer's stated intent was to go home to his family that night. That's what's bothering me. He didn't try to explain his actions in terms of protecting the public from a potentially dangerous individual, he put it in terms of protecting himself. So what's going to happen if you give a man a gun, tell them "protect yourself first" and send them in a situation where someone might put their life in danger? I think it's obvious- they'll shoot the person putting them in danger. To protect themselves.

washadjeffmad 8y ago

I suppose I've never thought about a lifeguard intentionally drowning a panicking swimmer (or preemptively drowning someone who appeared not to be abiding pool rules) because they wanted to ensure their own or other's safety. Likewise, firefighters are tooled for survival in the environments they're expecting to work. Police share more of their tooling in common with robbers and kidnappers than with lifeguards or firefighters, who we don't regularly see them killing others. If we made regular police white glove, non-lethal social servants and only minimally armed them (or not at all), would this decrease violent escalation? We'd need to treat mental health crises as medical situations and have an armed response division trained in deescalation, but I think the current belief in us vs them and commonplace sanctioning of deadly force are wounds on our society that need to be healed.