Ridiculous Police News (Specific events)

[Aragon of Odin]

^

We need to realize that across the USA alone, the police are probably dispatched thousands of times a day, and of the thousands of times a day, you're able to pull a story here and there a couple times a week. How have you come to the conclusion that they shoot first exactly?

[kuronosan]

Come on man, don't be obtuse. I meant why is the automatic answer "tackle, taze, terminate" when it comes to these confrontations lately.

I don't think I should have to reiterate that I support necessary lethal force. The question is not why, but when. The line that divides when from when not is getting greyer and greyer and I'm confused as to why that's okay.

[Aragon of Odin]

But the question can't really be when either, as it varies from case to case. Assaulting an officer in the line of duty, seems like a decent line not to be crossed without expecting some harsh consequences.

[archibaldcrane]

It's not the job of the police to provide consequences.

[Melena]

It's not the job of the police to provide consequences.

No it's not, but it is there job to ensure not just public safety, but their own safety, which is why they are armed. You make it sound like everyone goes into law enforcement to be Judge Dredd.

[noblemountain]

Deescalation training is the answer. Our police are trained to respond to anything with overwhelming force to a situation to intimidate closure. Most foreign police are trained to deescalate the situation first. Big difference in mindset.

[Thunder]

Deescalation training is the answer. Our police are trained to respond to anything with overwhelming force to a situation to intimidate closure. Most foreign police are trained to deescalate the situation first. Big difference in mindset.

Ya. But I'm open to the idea that in the US it's a little tougher since we've got so many more guns per person and, more-so just imo from traveling so often, we're much more culturally different between races and socio-economics (love jim jeffrey's opinion on the US, "we all win an award, we're all entitled to our opinions, and you can't offend anybody - top of the charts in arrogance, bottom of the charts in performance" ). You'd need to know how to differentiate your deescalation between a lot of different people

I'm not certain, but I'm leaning towards the side that the mindset needs to change when we have 1.5 guns per person (quoted from earlier in this thread) vs a place like the UK which (afaik) is about as violent but has way less guns

[kuronosan]

Criminals still have guns in other countries.

[enzan]

I have a question. What ever happened to the taser guns that law enforcement use to carry? I haven't seen any cops carrying them in a few years. Someone said it was because when you shoot someone you never know what effect it will have on the person. In this case of an unarmed person would it not be more beneficial to taser them instead of putting several bullets in their chest?

[NynJa]

They attempted to taze this homeless dude and it had no effect.

[jmc]

I have a question. What ever happened to the taser guns that law enforcement use to carry? I haven't seen any cops carrying them in a few years. Someone said it was because when you shoot someone you never know what effect it will have on the person. In this case of an unarmed person would it not be more beneficial to taser them instead of putting several bullets in their chest?

Some departments just flat out don't carry them. My department never has due to public outcry.

[noblemountain]

There are plenty of countries with similar or higher gun per capita as the us given pop density and more with even higher rates of violent crimes but still don't have the police fatalities we do. There is no easy solution, but to me...the biggest two are a complete shift in training cops and a huge improvement in our mental health problem in America. A lot of countries in Europe don't have anywhere near the amount of untreated mentally ill people as we do, given our bad health care system. The sad thing is, I know a lot of guys that I served with that are homeless now because of PTSD issues that ruined their life and they can't get the help they need. These guys are one bad day/panic attack away from being that guy with the rock getting capped by three cops.

[Thunder]

Criminals still have guns in other countries.

Right, but when you're a cop and you don't know if the guy being aggressive towards you has a gun or not, it's much more likely that in the US a "quick move" for something is a gun than anywhere else. So it makes sense (to me) that the US policemen and emergency squads would employ tactics that err on the side of safety more heavily than other places

There are plenty of countries with similar or higher gun per capita as the us given pop density and more with even higher rates of violent crimes but still don't have the police fatalities we do. There is no easy solution, but to me...the biggest two are a complete shift in training cops and a huge improvement in our mental health problem in America. A lot of countries in Europe don't have anywhere near the amount of untreated mentally ill people as we do, given our bad health care system. The sad thing is, I know a lot of guys that I served with that are homeless now because of PTSD issues that ruined their life and they can't get the help they need. These guys are one bad day/panic attack away from being that guy with the rock getting capped by three cops.

Like what countries?

I searched (albeit quickly) and all I'm finding is that we're double every country besides 1-2 depending on the estimates. Only yemen compares if you grossly overestimate their numbers (@81 guns per 100 with a 54 average) and that doesn't even beat the US's low-balled estimates (@82), average for US being 88. According to the wiki source material, anyway. Every other chart/data has US grossly ahead

And I'm not sure tallying violent crime is really all that relevant, I'm looking at homicide rates vs gun ownership and it looks to have a weak inverse proportionality with the US being a crazy outlier with low homicide and mega-high gun ownership. (source@http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/2014/03/comparing-murder-rates-across-countries/). Plus, we might not have a lot of violent crime because the police are doing a good job - I'm pretty people have sourced things saying that we're very good at keeping cartels, gangs, terrorism, etc at bay

And for the record, yeah, "improving" training of policemen and improving healthcare would be awesome. I just don't think taking away "your life 1st, your teammates/partners next, everyone else 3rd" being drilled into law enforcement and emergency teams is a good idea

[Melena]

I have a question. What ever happened to the taser guns that law enforcement use to carry? I haven't seen any cops carrying them in a few years. Someone said it was because when you shoot someone you never know what effect it will have on the person. In this case of an unarmed person would it not be more beneficial to taser them instead of putting several bullets in their chest?

Depends on the city/county/agency. As JMC said, some won't even carry them due to the public backlash. Some agencies (i may be wrong, it may be all, i can only base off the one I worked for in a civilian capacity) do require you completing a certification course, and then follow up with yearly recerts to carry a taser.

[Aragon of Odin]

Deescalation training is the answer. Our police are trained to respond to anything with overwhelming force to a situation to intimidate closure. Most foreign police are trained to deescalate the situation first. Big difference in mindset.

I can accept this, there's no doubt that they need better training. What I don't get is knowing that they need better training, why does this thread for the most part have the lynch mob mentality towards the police themselves then, instead of those deciding what training they shall be provided?

To me they do a good job given what training/tools they actually have. Considering this thread consists of a couple headlines here or there, most of which the police were just doing their jobs how they were trained, it's very rare to actually see a story where a cop belligerently crossed the line, and you're getting these couple headlines/week out of thousands of incidents each day in which the police respond to.

[Melena]

Here's another question. What sort of specific training. What's going to work to deescalate an issue with say, someone who is suicidal, is not going to work on someone coked out of their head, or suffering from severe mental illness. There isn't a magic button to push.

[Gokku]

Joking and obviously baiting but "that trigger is"

[Aragon of Odin]

Here's another question. What sort of specific training. What's going to work to deescalate an issue with say, someone who is suicidal, is not going to work on someone coked out of their head, or suffering from severe mental illness. There isn't a magic button to push.

I'm sure that you could design a training program that would cover a broad variety of different scenarios, including those listed plus much more. It's more just about getting the funding then anything else, and that's the hard part, trying to convince the decision makers that their police isn't trained enough, and personally I just don't see it happening, especially seeing they can't even get funding for body cams, training would cost 10 fold what that alone costs.

[Hatedregret]

That 89 out 100 is such made up bullshit. They're just taking the amount registered and dividing by population. That's dumb. Not only that, it suggests all those registered guns are hand guns or even able to be concealed which is also bullshit.

[Acevalefor]

That 89 out 100 is such made up bullshit. They're just taking the amount registered and dividing by population. That's dumb. Not only that, it suggests all those registered guns are hand guns or even able to be concealed which is also bullshit.

It not only suggests it, but it wants you to believe that. I am a gun owner and I own 0 handguns. I have family members who own more than 40 guns. 2 of them are handguns. That is a major skewing of the data.