7 ms·

Having gone through police training in another life, you are absolutely correct. I think it's deeper than just what you wear, it's the attitude of the higher up

Having gone through police training in another life, you are absolutely correct. I think it's deeper than just what you wear, it's the attitude of the higher ups and overall culture. The leadership team for police that wants you dressing all paramilitary and in all black is going to have a focus on you acting a different way during training and in what your day to day is like than the other group. There's also the brittle fact that I still remember the day long fire arms training where i was required to watch officers get shot for an hour and got it drilled into my head that it was better to shoot someone if I felt any risk or danger (and what to say if i had to do it), and that I needed to make sure i got to go home. It was all done in a very deniable way, but police officers are 100 percent indoctrinated during training to shoot if they feel like they are in any danger. I can speak more to what kind of training took place and the attitude of the instructors if people are curious.

whatevertrevor 6y ago
I'm curious, please elaborate.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
This is important to introduce into the discussion. I have felt that in the vast majority of controversial police shootings, especially in the mistaken identity cases, they were likely the result of a hair-trigger reflex and being on high alert, with your conditioning telling you that if an adversary either gets the jump on you or even gets into a strategically advantageous position, today is the day that you are going home in a body bag. Part of the training also drills in the fact that an untrained opponent with a sharp object like a knife is at a strategic advantage versus someone with a holstered firearm if they are closer than 21 feet away. Failure to maintain strategic dominance is a potentially fatal mistake. Nobody is interested in empathizing with the mental state of the cop in these situations, and if you try to do so, you’ll be shouted down for not empathizing with the family and friends of the deceased. This is not only a false dichotomy, but it precludes you from arriving at possible solutions. The goal of this exercise is not to feel sorrow for the officer, but to discover the root cause of this pattern. Only after doing so can you expect to find solutions, and ultimately, save lives. It is not acceptable to have a non-zero casualty rate, and what most people fail to understand is that the average human, even with training and experience (and often, experience is actually a liability, not an asset - people with PTSD are further compromised) cannot accurately assess and process a potential threat 100% of the time. This is the simple explanation for why these incidents seem to happen so frequently. Yet the general public thinks that police are somehow different from the average human, and that their brains do not work like their own. Or perhaps more accurately, they don’t understand how their own brain works, so in their mental re-enactment of the scenario, they make the correct decisions, and conclude that the only remaining explanation is hate, racism, or some other evil that only police seem to have. If anyone wants to get a glimpse into what this environment does to a person, next time you go for dinner with a veteran, take note of where they sit at the table. More often than not, they will prefer to select a position that does not leave their back exposed to an entrance. Even in a harmless restaurant, their brain is instinctively on high alert for potential threats. That’s also why many of them cannot sleep. IMHO, the way to prevent these errors is to prevent the number of opportunities to make a fatal mistake. None of this is to suggest a complete lack of malice in all cases - but most of the time, people are people, and they will continue to do what people do, uniform or not.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Cops are not soldiers. They are not fighting a war. Look to any other western nation. America may be a little more violent, a little less stable, but the cop-citizen relationship isn't fundamentally different than in any number of other nations. There is no need for US cops to take that attitude. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. A thousand people a year are killed by US cops. Canada, with 10% of the population, sees maybe 25 in a bad year.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Your perspective is skewed, and the example is arguably irrelevant. It’s not difficult to find examples where the situation is far worse than the US. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. Yes, there is absolutely a reason. There is a reason for everything. If you want to fix it, you need to set your emotions aside and get to the root cause of that reason. If you continue to deny that there is a reason, you can expect the same tragic result.
    - mulmen 6y ago
      Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?
      - asdfgtrewq 6y ago
        Around 15 black men killed in Chicago on memorial day weekend. And that is normal number of homicides on any of the long weekends. During regular weekends that number is bit lower in high single digits. Almost all of them black on black violence.
      - asdfgasdfg 6y ago
        Around 15 black men killed in Chicago on memorial day weekend. And that is normal number of homicides on any of the long weekends. During regular weekends that number is bit lower in high single digits. Almost all of them black on black violence. Nothing to do with current situation. These are numbers for BAU.
vkat 6y ago
I have never understood why the police in the US shoot to kill(chest area) as opposed to disarming or injuring by shooting in the leg.
- ailun 6y ago
  Because that’s action movie nonsense. The issue is that they pull out their guns too easily, not the place they aim them. Guns are not a tool for disarming or wounding. For one thing, a leg shot can easily kill. Second, it’s extremely difficult to make that shot with a pistol, even for trained police. Third, if someone has a weapon and they are about to kill someone (which is the only time police should be pulling out their guns), a leg shot might not stop them quickly enough. And disarming someone with a bullet is absurd except in very rare stand-off situations where the person is sitting still, and a sniper has had time to get set up.
- waste_monk 6y ago
  1) A firearm with live ammunition is explicitly a lethal weapon. You must not fire one at something you don't intend to kill, even if you "only" end up maiming the target. There's also a reasonable chance you'll kill someone if you shoot a limb, e.g. if you hit an artery. Guns are not to be trifled with. 2) Per [1] the surface area of your torso is about double that of one leg (that is, anterior torso is 18%, an individual leg anterior is 9%), so it's far more likely to hit if you aim for the torso. Even if you aim for a torso and miss, you might hit a limb or head - it's a lot less likely to miss a limb and hit something else. 3) The research behind the Tueller anti-knife self defence drill found an attacker with a knife could cover 21 ft / 6.4 metres in about 1.5 seconds. To stop the attack, you have to be able to shoot them before they can close to melee range - you must aim for the largest possible target to have any hope of success. I am not commenting on US police practices generally, but specifically that the idea you can shoot to wound is neither responsible nor practical. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_body_surface_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_body_surface_area
- Buttons840 6y ago
  If a situation allows for shooting at the legs, then it is not serious enough to justify shooting at all.
maest 6y ago
Something I've noticed in a lot of police encounter videos: there is no attempt at de-escalating the situation. The shooting of Daniel Shaver is a prime example of that: a benign situation made deadly by high strung officers shouting and giving conflicting orders to a stressed, innebriated man. I get that they shot because it sorta looked like Shaver may have been reaching for a gun while he was stumbling, but that whole situation could have been avoided with some simple deescalation techniques. Is the lack of interest in deescalating situations due to training or mentality or the wish to maintain authoritative appearances or some other factor I'm not thinking of?
- pixl97 6y ago
  Mentality. I have family members in LE and they have plenty of teaching material on how to properly descalate. The FBI has volumes on how to do this and they provide it to all law enforcement agencies. From the top down they simply dont care to follow. There is no punishment for them being violent against whomever they want.

whatevertrevor 6y ago

I'm curious, please elaborate.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

This is important to introduce into the discussion. I have felt that in the vast majority of controversial police shootings, especially in the mistaken identity cases, they were likely the result of a hair-trigger reflex and being on high alert, with your conditioning telling you that if an adversary either gets the jump on you or even gets into a strategically advantageous position, today is the day that you are going home in a body bag. Part of the training also drills in the fact that an untrained opponent with a sharp object like a knife is at a strategic advantage versus someone with a holstered firearm if they are closer than 21 feet away. Failure to maintain strategic dominance is a potentially fatal mistake. Nobody is interested in empathizing with the mental state of the cop in these situations, and if you try to do so, you’ll be shouted down for not empathizing with the family and friends of the deceased. This is not only a false dichotomy, but it precludes you from arriving at possible solutions. The goal of this exercise is not to feel sorrow for the officer, but to discover the root cause of this pattern. Only after doing so can you expect to find solutions, and ultimately, save lives. It is not acceptable to have a non-zero casualty rate, and what most people fail to understand is that the average human, even with training and experience (and often, experience is actually a liability, not an asset - people with PTSD are further compromised) cannot accurately assess and process a potential threat 100% of the time. This is the simple explanation for why these incidents seem to happen so frequently. Yet the general public thinks that police are somehow different from the average human, and that their brains do not work like their own. Or perhaps more accurately, they don’t understand how their own brain works, so in their mental re-enactment of the scenario, they make the correct decisions, and conclude that the only remaining explanation is hate, racism, or some other evil that only police seem to have. If anyone wants to get a glimpse into what this environment does to a person, next time you go for dinner with a veteran, take note of where they sit at the table. More often than not, they will prefer to select a position that does not leave their back exposed to an entrance. Even in a harmless restaurant, their brain is instinctively on high alert for potential threats. That’s also why many of them cannot sleep. IMHO, the way to prevent these errors is to prevent the number of opportunities to make a fatal mistake. None of this is to suggest a complete lack of malice in all cases - but most of the time, people are people, and they will continue to do what people do, uniform or not.

sandworm101 6y ago
Cops are not soldiers. They are not fighting a war. Look to any other western nation. America may be a little more violent, a little less stable, but the cop-citizen relationship isn't fundamentally different than in any number of other nations. There is no need for US cops to take that attitude. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. A thousand people a year are killed by US cops. Canada, with 10% of the population, sees maybe 25 in a bad year.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Your perspective is skewed, and the example is arguably irrelevant. It’s not difficult to find examples where the situation is far worse than the US. There is no reason for them to be killing as many people as they do. Yes, there is absolutely a reason. There is a reason for everything. If you want to fix it, you need to set your emotions aside and get to the root cause of that reason. If you continue to deny that there is a reason, you can expect the same tragic result.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Please, enlighten us. Why is "shot by police" the leading cause of death among black men? What is your proposed solution?
    - asdfgtrewq 6y ago
      Around 15 black men killed in Chicago on memorial day weekend. And that is normal number of homicides on any of the long weekends. During regular weekends that number is bit lower in high single digits. Almost all of them black on black violence.
    - asdfgasdfg 6y ago
      Around 15 black men killed in Chicago on memorial day weekend. And that is normal number of homicides on any of the long weekends. During regular weekends that number is bit lower in high single digits. Almost all of them black on black violence. Nothing to do with current situation. These are numbers for BAU.

vkat 6y ago

I have never understood why the police in the US shoot to kill(chest area) as opposed to disarming or injuring by shooting in the leg.

ailun 6y ago
Because that’s action movie nonsense. The issue is that they pull out their guns too easily, not the place they aim them. Guns are not a tool for disarming or wounding. For one thing, a leg shot can easily kill. Second, it’s extremely difficult to make that shot with a pistol, even for trained police. Third, if someone has a weapon and they are about to kill someone (which is the only time police should be pulling out their guns), a leg shot might not stop them quickly enough. And disarming someone with a bullet is absurd except in very rare stand-off situations where the person is sitting still, and a sniper has had time to get set up.
waste_monk 6y ago
1) A firearm with live ammunition is explicitly a lethal weapon. You must not fire one at something you don't intend to kill, even if you "only" end up maiming the target. There's also a reasonable chance you'll kill someone if you shoot a limb, e.g. if you hit an artery. Guns are not to be trifled with. 2) Per [1] the surface area of your torso is about double that of one leg (that is, anterior torso is 18%, an individual leg anterior is 9%), so it's far more likely to hit if you aim for the torso. Even if you aim for a torso and miss, you might hit a limb or head - it's a lot less likely to miss a limb and hit something else. 3) The research behind the Tueller anti-knife self defence drill found an attacker with a knife could cover 21 ft / 6.4 metres in about 1.5 seconds. To stop the attack, you have to be able to shoot them before they can close to melee range - you must aim for the largest possible target to have any hope of success. I am not commenting on US police practices generally, but specifically that the idea you can shoot to wound is neither responsible nor practical. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_body_surface_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_body_surface_area
Buttons840 6y ago
If a situation allows for shooting at the legs, then it is not serious enough to justify shooting at all.

maest 6y ago

Something I've noticed in a lot of police encounter videos: there is no attempt at de-escalating the situation. The shooting of Daniel Shaver is a prime example of that: a benign situation made deadly by high strung officers shouting and giving conflicting orders to a stressed, innebriated man. I get that they shot because it sorta looked like Shaver may have been reaching for a gun while he was stumbling, but that whole situation could have been avoided with some simple deescalation techniques. Is the lack of interest in deescalating situations due to training or mentality or the wish to maintain authoritative appearances or some other factor I'm not thinking of?

pixl97 6y ago
Mentality. I have family members in LE and they have plenty of teaching material on how to properly descalate. The FBI has volumes on how to do this and they provide it to all law enforcement agencies. From the top down they simply dont care to follow. There is no punishment for them being violent against whomever they want.