Ridiculous Police News (Specific events)

[kuronosan]

This situation:



Does not fit into the description of:



as the cop had some assessment of the situation first hand in your scenario.


With that being said "off duty" doesn't mean much to me compared to "on duty" regarding cops. I consider them similar to doctors where they never really are off duty in emergency situations.

I am not anti-cop. I do feel these conversations are important into looking into how cops are trained to handle situations. That doesn't mean there aren't tons of good cops out there doing the right thing. I know there are.

But death is so final that the reduction of losing innocent lives is always a conversation worth having. Because once it happens, that's it. There is no going back and giving these people their future.

As a student doctor, I can corroborate your claim that we're never "off duty" but not because we're demanded to be. We do it because it's the Hippocratic Oath we abide by. We have to assess each situation before acting, because a person's life depends on it.

If you look at it from Melena's point of view, which isn't totally wrong (and not necessarily right), the average police officer (or below average) isn't taking the time (or not wanting to take the time) to assess a situation before acting. It would be like me running in and stabbing Nynja with a scalpel because he complains of lower back pain. He might have a hernia but I just gashed him open because I'm assuming he has a colo-rectal carcinoma because he's screaming and holding his groin.

All kidding aside, because I still believe the Tamir Rice situation is just bad judgment: Police these days aren't being properly screened before being allowed to serve and they probably don't get near the funding or training that they should. I have another 7-8 years to go before I can legally touch any of you.

Most police get 7-8 months.

[Blubbartron]

Unless I am mistaken, I assumed you meant the phrase, "Shoot first, as questions later." Which I am against. Not that the other person literally has to shoot first (which I don't even think blubb is suggesting). But that the cop needs to assess the situation first hand before acting.

Actually I kind of was suggesting that someone should be an active shooter and/or openly aggressive/hostile. The mere holding of a weapon is not enough justification for me, nor is grabbing a weapon that you have on your person. It's too easy for it to be an instinctual move to disarm yourself to just unilaterally say all people that reach for a weapon deserve to get shot.

Basically, I'm way more ok with having 10 cops get killed in the line of duty than I am with cops killing 10 people who were holding weapons without waiting to find out if they had any intention of using them.

[zoobernut]

That is an unrealistic expectation of any career....

When someone has the capacity to take another persons life and thereby violate their 1st amendment right permanently in a government sanctioned capacity it absolutely should be the cornerstone of their training.

[kuronosan]

The real issue is a lack of value for human life.

We value police officers' lives more than we value citizens. Plain and simple. Do I want cops to die? No. But honestly, that's what they signed up for. It sucks. I get it. I signed on to save peoples' lives but there's always that chance that they die anyway, or I might accidentally get stuck with some infectious disease or contagion and I end up dying myself. It comes with the job. Police are severely underpaid. We are not. I guess that's the difference.

I'm curious as to whether the mentality is the same with soldiers. Would we rather they bomb cities overseas because they see a guy walking with a rifle or wait until he shoots someone?

Or, to be more specific... at what point do we say a citizen's life has less value than the police officer responsible for protecting it?

[zoobernut]

The real issue is a lack of value for human life.

We value police officers' lives more than we value citizens. Plain and simple. Do I want cops to die? No. But honestly, that's what they signed up for. It sucks. I get it. I signed on to save peoples' lives but there's always that chance that they die anyway, or I might accidentally get stuck with some infectious disease or contagion and I end up dying myself. It comes with the job. Police are severely underpaid. We are not. I guess that's the difference.

I'm curious as to whether the mentality is the same with soldiers. Would we rather they bomb cities overseas because they see a guy walking with a rifle or wait until he shoots someone?

Or, to be more specific... at what point do we say a citizen's life has less value than the police officer responsible for protecting it?

Thank you. This is what I have been trying to articulate.

[Ksandra]

Police are severely underpaid. We are not. I guess that's the difference.

And sadly, too many justify this as a reason that police can kill innocents, rather than looking into fighting for higher paid higher trained people.

[Melena]

As a student doctor, I can corroborate your claim that we're never "off duty" but not because we're demanded to be. We do it because it's the Hippocratic Oath we abide by. We have to assess each situation before acting, because a person's life depends on it.

If you look at it from Melena's point of view, which isn't totally wrong (and not necessarily right), the average police officer (or below average) isn't taking the time (or not wanting to take the time) to assess a situation before acting. It would be like me running in and stabbing Nynja with a scalpel because he complains of lower back pain. He might have a hernia but I just gashed him open because I'm assuming he has a colo-rectal carcinoma because he's screaming and holding his groin.

All kidding aside, because I still believe the Tamir Rice situation is just bad judgment: Police these days aren't being properly screened before being allowed to serve and they probably don't get near the funding or training that they should. I have another 7-8 years to go before I can legally touch any of you.

Most police get 7-8 months.

7-8 months really only counts if you include their first month or two partnered with someone. At least here, the academy is 180 days.

Now with that said, testing can still be tough. Some tests are single fail and you are out, no do overs. The biggest issue is screening. Psyche/polygraph testing can only do so much, and the Feds have given larger metropolitan areas grants to hire vets as officers. And with that you are running the risk if they were deployed to a warzone that they may have PTSD.

Where I worked, after you finished the academy, you had an 80 hour training on jail procedures. You then after that spent the next 6-12 months working the jail before you would be eligible for a transfer to another department. I honestly would prefer if post got increased to 9-12 months for the academy, but that's just my opinion. I do know we are very selective on who gets hired. Typically when an academy opens up, our agency alone gets a few thousand applicants. We weed that down to less than a hundred who get to go through background and psych, then the background officers have to rank their recruits and sell them to the sheriff who gets final say on who can go into the academy. Typically recruitment is 2-4 months before each academy.

[Delayed]

The real issue is a lack of value for human life.
. .
Or, to be more specific... at what point do we say a citizen's life has less value than the police officer responsible for protecting it?

The moment you choose to break the law and, whether real or fake, a perceived deadly weapon is used is when your life no longer is as important as another's, cop or not.
The biggest issue i see here is how emotionally charged the conversation is.
Human lives are important, but no one's life is more important than your own even when you work in public safety. to determine that because he's a cop he should hesitate and risk being killed by someone just because of his profession is ridiculous.
There have been more and more instance in the years where cops have rolled up, or been somewhere and killed strictly because of the uniform and not because of their actions.
These types of anti police logic being used here is sickening because this is where the same reasoning stems from that individuals have used to murder police simply because they're stopped getting gas.

[archibaldcrane]

There have been more and more instance in the years where cops have rolled up, or been somewhere and killed strictly because of the uniform and not because of their actions.

*citation needed

Police are being murdered at historically low rates over the past few years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...al-crime-wave/

this year (2015) is on track to be the second-safest year for US police officers in history (0.1112 gun-related police deaths per 1 million population), second only to a slightly safer year in 2013 (0.097 deaths per 1 million).

[fantasticdan]

Wait this sounds like a funny story. What happened?

Some drunk idiots that lived next door broke into our house when we weren't home/were in the process of moving out. There wasn't much left there besides furniture, an extremely old computer (like windows 3.1 era) that my brother was using for some project, and my uncles 40-some inch HDTV (this was like 12 years ago so it was pretty expensive I think). They stole the TV, the computer, and a guitar among other things, and left a trail in the yard where they had dragged the TV some of the way between our house and theirs.

After we called the cops and they sorted it out, they decided to take the TV as 'evidence' but nothing else, and refused to release it over the coarse of like 2+ years of calling about it. Kept saying they needed it for trial and it kept getting postponed or something like that. Never did get it back.

[kuronosan]

The moment you choose to break the law and, whether real or fake, a perceived deadly weapon is used is when your life no longer is as important as another's, cop or not.

Are you fucking stupid?

to determine that because he's a cop he should hesitate and risk being killed by someone just because of his profession is ridiculous.

Never mind, you answered that pretty readily. No one said anything about hesitating. An officer's job is not to overreact, shoot first if they sense danger even when none is present, and then justify it by saying their life is more important. How you could be so short-sighted eludes me.

There have been more and more instance in the years where cops have rolled up, or been somewhere and killed strictly because of the uniform and not because of their actions.

Do I smell a citation? No? My bad. That must be the bullshit.

These types of anti police logic being used here is sickening because this is where the same reasoning stems from that individuals have used to murder police simply because they're stopped getting gas.

And your type of "if you're not for cops killing suspected criminals you're anti-cop" is why stupid fucking people like you enable stupid fucking people like that police officer to continue doing shitty police work.

[Ksandra]

The moment you choose to break the law

So: everyone.

[Quicklet]

Kuro, you know you're talking to a wall at this point. Some people just want to believe what they want to believe, logic and reason and evidence be damned.

[TheDirtyHobo]

The moment you choose to break the law and, whether real or fake, a perceived deadly weapon is used is when your life no longer is as important as another's, cop or not.

Don't pull out a cell phone while jaywalking or your life is forfeit, got it.

[Eurell]

Do I want cops to die? No. But honestly, that's what they signed up for. It sucks

While everything else you said was fine, this line here is absolute bullshit.

[FNH]

rather than looking into fighting for higher paid higher trained people.

I don't think anyone would be against more training, but unfortunately most americans would balk at the cost in taxes. Hell it costs the citizens of Tuscaloosa 500k per home game to police BDS, and all that is is OT pay.

You'll say they can't place a price on a human life, but in the real world many put a price on life.

It's all well and good to dialogue(realistically there are a couple that would prefer a monologue circle-jerk forum) on a video game forum about how police need more training but this doesn't accomplish anything other than make a few of you feel a little uppity because you are "standing up for a cause". Do any of you actually write to senators/reps, city council, etc? Or do you think typing a few words to slam a neo-con is enough for a day's work?

I'd vote for an increase in taxes to better my local PD, but I'm not going to campaign for anything because, from my perspective, the status quo isn't too bad or "getting worse". We just happen to see what it's really like because of cameras. I would have liked to see reactions if we had body cams and cell phones before Tenn. V. Garner.

[kuronosan]

While everything else you said was fine, this line here is absolute bullshit.

Only if you remove the overall context.

No one becomes a cop to die. No one joins the army to die. No one works in food service to get screamed at. I didn't get into medicine to get sued. No one plays football to get injured. I could keep going, but the point is that those are the inherent risks associated with those lines of work and you do your best to avoid those situations.

You don't go looking for trouble or, in the case of football, you don't go injuring other players so that you don't get injured.

[Tyche]

I wish I could've been home to crush all the ridiculous fucking arguments people were making for the cop yesterday. None of you bothered to familiarize yourself with the case or read the 28 page letter to Lorreta Lynch I posted. Also, to the people defending the cop and blaming dispatch for making it look like an "active shooter" situation, if the cop spent more than two seconds to notice a kid sitting on a fucking park bench, I would think his critical thinking skills would have kicked in and realize "OK, not an active shooter". Just because the cop is an ignorant, self perseving, mentally unfit for duty price of shit with zero critical thinking skills doesn't mean that he's absolved from a quite clear legal definition of murder. I mean, if I do something illegal based on bad Intel, do I get away with it? Is ignorance suddenly an excuse.

[Eurell]

I mean, if I do something illegal based on bad Intel, do I get away with it? Is ignorance suddenly an excuse.

Sometimes yes? Like those people that shoot and kill family members because they think they are intruders. They arent being charged with murder.

[Roranora]

Oscar Pistorius?