If the devs say you're not allowed to do so, then it is their call. This is their website.
True but, as yet, irrelevant, since DM Barcas is not - to the best of my knowledge? - a Paizo employee?
Debate all you want, but you should stay in the realm of reality. Life is not a movie. People try to kill the cops (about 10% chance per officer per year of being assaulted, 2% with a deadly weapon). If there is a reasonable risk that I will be killed, I will do whatever it takes to prevent that. I won't rely on a technique that has the possibility of me not succeeding and getting killed. I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.
I don't know if he was responding to me or to the removal of several posts above.
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Debate all you want, but you should stay in the realm of reality. Life is not a movie. People try to kill the cops (about 10% chance per officer per year of being assaulted, 2% with a deadly weapon). If there is a reasonable risk that I will be killed, I will do whatever it takes to prevent that. I won't rely on a technique that has the possibility of me not succeeding and getting killed. I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.While I'm not going to debate the merits of various disarming techniques, I'm not comfortable with the "Cop's safety first, at any cost" attitude. It's not even always the best for long-term safety. Increasing militarization and shoot first attitudes might make you safer in the moment, but if they alienate the population and the community you're working in, that leads to a more hostile environment and likely more attacks, which justifies more defensive measures, creating more hostility, etc.
And frankly, despite the anecdotes, policing isn't an extremely dangerous occupation.
More likely to be attacked and injured on the job working retail than as a cop.
I was replying to you. Please don't tell us what or how we discuss ethics.
I think pointing out your ignorance and making the connection that those woefully unequipped to understand the situation have no business making authoritative statements about it is quite fair.
Just as coming up with a reasonable counterpoint would be on your part. Pleading for exemption from the debate while insisting that you get to continue it seems unethical though. Ironically so.
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More likely to be attacked and injured on the job working retail than as a cop.Debate all you want, but you should stay in the realm of reality. Life is not a movie. People try to kill the cops (about 10% chance per officer per year of being assaulted, 2% with a deadly weapon). If there is a reasonable risk that I will be killed, I will do whatever it takes to prevent that. I won't rely on a technique that has the possibility of me not succeeding and getting killed. I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.While I'm not going to debate the merits of various disarming techniques, I'm not comfortable with the "Cop's safety first, at any cost" attitude. It's not even always the best for long-term safety. Increasing militarization and shoot first attitudes might make you safer in the moment, but if they alienate the population and the community you're working in, that leads to a more hostile environment and likely more attacks, which justifies more defensive measures, creating more hostility, etc.
And frankly, despite the anecdotes, policing isn't an extremely dangerous occupation.
Maybe it has to do with cops carrying guns while retail workers are pretty much threatened and trained to not defend themselves, lest the company get a bad yelp review.
I'm strangely comfortable with that.
After posting and deleting several times, I think I'll be "daring" enough to post my experiences with police. Having been stopped at least 30 times as a youth, at least once at gunpoint, I feel that I have ample experience being "stopped for looking the wrong way". On the other hand, I am vanilla white; if you are a minority, you might have experienced extremely different things than me.
- Police are people, too. My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out. I guarantee there are half a dozen minority posters on this board who will cite examples of "driving (or shopping) while black" as the reason they got stopped. Yet once you're stopped, the outcome seems predetermined: If you're friendly, polite, and cooperative, they let you go. If you're confrontational and want to argue and demand their badge number, the name of their captain, tell them they have no right to look in your car, etc., you're going to have trouble. You may be morally "right", but you're going to have trouble.
My friends constantly complained about our "abusive, neo-nazi police force", and how they'd been cuffed, beaten, and/or arrested. And yet every time I was with them, it was *THEY* who started it by being uncooperative and abusive. I was cooperative. I never got cuffed, hit, arrested, or shot. My friends had scars from where police had hit them.
And you know what? When I was with them when we got arrested, I *never* blamed the police.
Heck, the one time I was held at gunpoint I was sure my friend was going to get shot right in front of me. And he totally deserved it. Ignoring their orders, keeping his hands in his pockets, hiding what he was doing from them. He did his utmost to force them to shoot an unarmed kid. It was damned scary.
- Both sides are guilty of escalation. One of my friends was a teenage reprobate, but moved on to trying to be a police officer. In police academy, he noticed that the commandant's girlfriend was cutting classes, doing no work, and still getting ranked #1 in the class. So he reported it to Internal Affairs. And has never been able to get a job as an officer again. He's now a prison guard. And no longer has any of his original teeth due to the repeated physical assaults on his person. Yet he's never allowed to get mad, or strike back, or take revenge. He must use the minimum force necessary to subdue the prisoner, and forget that the incident ever happened. In short, he is supposed to be far more-than-human in execution of his duties. So he's been hosed by both sides: Corrupt "protect your own" police politics, and corrupt, "Never touch a prisoner" politics.
- The media now exists to sell papers. The infamous McDonald's "hot coffee" incident is a spectacular example. Everyone reads, "Woman spills hot coffee on herself, sues McDonald's, wins millions. The system is broken."
How many people actually know that the store in question was out of heat-proof cups, and had served her the coffee in a non-approved cup that proceeded to melt in her lap, which is the reason she suffered 3rd degree burns to her groin? She didn't spill it. The cup melted. That's not reported. Because it's not inflammatory.
So what really happened in this case? Likely we'll never know. But we have:
- A SWAT team was called in. It wouldn't have happened if the subject of the article wasn't armed. So he was a danger to SOMEONE.
- An officer shot him. It's basically a career-ending move for said officer. The anti-police propaganda machine is such a juggernaut that every officer knows that if he or she shoots an unarmed civilian, he or she will never work in law enforcement again, and may likely do jail time. Yes, I am well aware that unprovoked beatings by officers are all too common, but unprovoked shootings always end up in Internal Affairs, with the likely end of the officer's career. I don't see an officer shooting an unarmed suspect without being scared spitless about something.
Yes, many of you can point out instances where it's happened, because the media jumps all over such cases, but I guarantee the officer had a reason beyond, "Hey, I bet it would be fun to kill someone today!"
In short, I'm not so much "pro-cop" as I am, "Every time I've personally seen the cops do something abusive, it's because they were provoked and were acting like human beings."
I am well aware that there are exceptions to this; I'm simply pointing out *MY* personal experience.
Anyway, that's enough inflammatory rhetoric for one day, and I suspect responses will be such that Chris will be forced to remove my post anyway, but I forgive her, and I just felt like providing a bit more insight from someone who's been on the wrong side of officers far too often, but has yet to be beaten or shot...
An officer shot him. It's basically a career-ending move for said officer. The anti-police propaganda machine is such a juggernaut that every officer knows that if he or she shoots an unarmed civilian, he or she will never work in law enforcement again, and may likely do jail time. Yes, I am well aware that unprovoked beatings by officers are all too common, but unprovoked shootings always end up in Internal Affairs, with the likely end of the officer's career. I don't see an officer shooting an unarmed suspect without being scared spitless about something.I agree with a lot of the rest of your post, though I will note that personal experiences vary not just with race, but with the area.
This last part I'm really not so sure of. There are plenty of cases of cops shooting unarmed civilians and certainly not getting jail time or even losing their job. Even in the high profile cases, that get media time and get the "anti-police propaganda machine" going, trials are rare and convictions rarer. (Especially for shooting minorities)
They all go to Internal affairs, but they're generally ruled good shootings there. If Internal affairs rules it was unprovoked, then the officer is in trouble, but even many that seem unprovoked to an outside observer aren't.
Or am I just corrupted by the anti-police propaganda machine? Do you have data backing up the "if he or she shoots an unarmed civilian, he or she will never work in law enforcement again, and may likely do jail time" claim? Sadly, despite federal laws, no centralized data is kept on police shootings, so it's hard to be definitive.
I appreciate the intelligent response and no, I have no such data. I could be wrong. I only have two officers that I know, both in Northern California, a notoriously-liberal community. So I obviously cannot speak for the country as a whole.
Thanks for the good insight!
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I was replying to you. Please don't tell us what or how we discuss ethics.I think pointing out your ignorance and making the connection that those woefully unequipped to understand the situation have no business making authoritative statements about it is quite fair.
Just as coming up with a reasonable counterpoint would be on your part. Pleading for exemption from the debate while insisting that you get to continue it seems unethical though. Ironically so.
And I disagree on all your points.
Edit: An example bit of data, admittedly probably from the anti-police propaganda machine
The NAACP presented statistics from Oakland authorities on 45 officer-involved shootings from 2004 to 2008, one-third of which were fatal. Of the people shot, 37 were black and none was white. Although weapons were not found in 40 percent of cases, no officers were charged.
Having been in Oakland at night and seen Oakland teens dealing with officers, I'm afraid I'll just say... Oakland is a REALLY bad example if you're looking for unjustified officer shootings. Our (admittedly hostile) encounters with them usually ended up with officers involved, and the Oakland teens were even worse than my friend who nearly got himself shot. Honestly, though I was not one of them (the Oakland teens), they seemed to feel like getting shot by an officer would be a badge of honor, so they tried REALLY hard to get officers to shoot them. But I haven't looked at all 37 cases. Obviously some officers could take advantage of this general trend and run off on shooting sprees of innocents. And my experience is from 1985-1991, a far cry from 2004-2008. Much could have changed.
I'm not naive enough to believe police corruption doesn't exist.
I'm not paranoid enough to believe that every officer is corrupt.
EDIT: And let me be very fair here: We were white, middle-class kids. When an officer said, "Stop or I'll shoot," we were more than willing to stop, put our hands up, and turn ourselves in. Because we fundamentally knew that we weren't going to get charged with anything. We'd been fighting with some other kids. No one went to the hospital. No property was damaged. Just some kids fighting at night to let off steam. No harm, no foul. The Oakland kids were poor black kids. When the officer said, "Stop or I'll shoot," many of them probably felt that getting shot at was better than the inevitable jail time they'd face if they turned themselves in. Different lives, different circumstances, different treatment by the law (an absolute truth in this society), and therefore different reactions.
So I'm accepting many of thejeff's arguments because he's making a good point, and I'm coming from an admittedly-biased point of view.
What?True, but it was also an officer violating their sworn oath.Another article by the same author:
Officer Pulls Woman Over. Instead of a Ticket, He Showed His HumanityNot a very exciting article, I admit, but not exactly one you'd expect to see written by someone who would only be happy if police officers are killed.
The Officer swore an oath to enforce the law. By law he should have ticketed the driver. He didn't, he did something better.
Edit: An example bit of data, admittedly probably from the anti-police propaganda machine
The NAACP presented statistics from Oakland authorities on 45 officer-involved shootings from 2004 to 2008, one-third of which were fatal. Of the people shot, 37 were black and none was white. Although weapons were not found in 40 percent of cases, no officers were charged.Having been in Oakland at night and seen Oakland teens dealing with officers, I'm afraid I'll just say... Oakland is a REALLY bad example if you're looking for unjustified officer shootings. Our (admittedly hostile) encounters with them usually ended up with officers involved, and the Oakland teens were even worse than my friend who nearly got himself shot. Honestly, though I was not one of them (the Oakland teens), they seemed to feel like getting shot by an officer would be a badge of honor, so they tried REALLY hard to get officers to shoot them. But I haven't looked at all 37 cases. Obviously some officers could take advantage of this general trend and run off on shooting sprees of innocents.
I'm not naive enough to believe police corruption doesn't exist.
I'm not paranoid enough to believe that every officer is corrupt.
Whatever the attitude of Oakland teens and whatever the level of corruption, it's a pretty clear counter to ""if he or she shoots an unarmed civilian, he or she will never work in law enforcement again, and may likely do jail time".
Which is all I really intended.
Counter to my argument accepted and acknowledged.
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My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out.
Please take some time to think about this.
These statements don't hold true for everyone, just people like you and me.
I'm not gonna refute you point by point, since you're not wrong -- it's just that this only holds true for a small number of people.
It's always worth examining your situation and how it might be that you're blind to things outside your experience.
How would you feel if you did NOT look suspicious, and yet you were treated with outright hostility by police? What if instead of the benefit of the doubt, there was an assumption of guilt? How might your interactions with the police have gone?
The police are people too. But because of the power they have over individuals they have to be held to a higher standard. Their actions are subject to greater scrutiny. "It's tough out there" is not sufficient to excuse anything. Yes, it is tough, and we demand the best behavior and adherence to the law from those who enforce it. They might deserve a little slack, but we can never allow them to have it. The reasons for this are well explored throughout history.
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My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out.Please take some time to think about this.
These statements don't hold true for everyone, just people like you and me.
I'm not gonna refute you point by point, since you're not wrong -- it's just that this only holds true for a small number of people.
It's always worth examining your situation and how it might be that you're blind to things outside your experience.
How would you feel if you did NOT look suspicious, and yet you were treated with outright hostility by police? What if instead of the benefit of the doubt, there was an assumption of guilt? How might your interactions with the police have gone?
The police are people too. But because of the power they have over individuals they have to be held to a higher standard. Their actions are subject to greater scrutiny. "It's tough out there" is not sufficient to excuse anything. Yes, it is tough, and we demand the best behavior and adherence to the law from those who enforce it. They might deserve a little slack, but we can never allow them to have it. The reasons for this are well explored throughout history.
A good point, but three of my best friends were black, and were constantly getting stopped for, "Walking/Driving while black".
Is this acceptable? No! But they knew that arguing with the officers themselves would just cause them more trouble, so they cooperated when pulled over, and never had issues.
Then they wrote a letter to the police department. Every. Single. Time. They were stopped.
All three were quickly left to their own devices.
But this is a much more do-able solution if you're a local in a small town. It doesn't work for a minority visiting from out of town.
And it still doesn't excuse the officers who did it. And those officers were never disciplined.
As I keep saying, it's not that officers aren't corrupt. It's that confronting them in the streets while they're abusing you isn't a wise choice.
Be polite, bite your tongue, move on, and report it once you're safe.
I have far too many friends who have declared, "This isn't right! I'm going to stop this RIGHT NOW!" and spent the night in jail because of their insistence on their rights.
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After posting and deleting several times, I think I'll be "daring" enough to post my experiences with police. Having been stopped at least 30 times as a youth, at least once at gunpoint, I feel that I have ample experience being "stopped for looking the wrong way". On the other hand, I am vanilla white; if you are a minority, you might have experienced extremely different things than me.
...
- Police are people, too. My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out. I guarantee there are half a dozen minority posters on this board who will cite examples of "driving (or shopping) while black" as the reason they got stopped. Yet once you're stopped, the outcome seems predetermined: If you're friendly, polite, and cooperative, they let you go. If you're confrontational and want to argue and demand their badge number, the name of their captain, tell them they have no right to look in your car, etc., you're going to have trouble. You may be morally "right", but you're going to have trouble.
My friends constantly complained about our "abusive, neo-nazi police force", and how they'd been cuffed, beaten, and/or arrested. And yet every time I was with them, it was *THEY* who started it by being uncooperative and abusive. I was cooperative. I never got cuffed, hit, arrested, or shot. My friends had scars from where police had hit them.
And you know what? When I was with them when we got arrested, I *never* blamed the police.
Heck, the one time I was held at gunpoint I was sure my friend was going to get shot right in front of me. And he totally deserved it. Ignoring their orders, keeping his hands in his pockets, hiding what he was doing from them. He did his utmost to force them to shoot an unarmed kid. It was damned scary.
- Both sides are guilty of escalation. One
Love the attitude that when police abuse their powers we should just give in.
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Love the attitude that when police abuse their powers we should just give in.
Post right above yours. Give in at the moment, as you are in personal danger. Document exactly what happened. Report it and publicize it once you're safe.
Too many people think that "in the moment" confrontation is the best path.
It rarely is.
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Love the attitude that when police abuse their powers we should just give in.Post right above yours. Give in at the moment, as you are in personal danger. Document exactly what happened. Report it and publicize it once you're safe.
Too many people think that "in the moment" confrontation is the best path.
It rarely is.
I'm skeptical of the results of your approach, but I'll add, if you're going to do this: Document it. Record the encounter, audio at least, video if you can do it without further inciting the officer. Or do so if the officer is harassing someone else.
Because if something does go down, it's your word against his and the jury and everyone else in the system will believe him. And the bad cops lie.
Considering that less than 10% of complaints are investigated, I highly doubt the results this would get as well.
Maybe it has to do with cops carrying guns while retail workers are pretty much threatened and trained to not defend themselves, lest the company get a bad yelp review.More likely to be attacked and injured on the job working retail than as a cop.Debate all you want, but you should stay in the realm of reality. Life is not a movie. People try to kill the cops (about 10% chance per officer per year of being assaulted, 2% with a deadly weapon). If there is a reasonable risk that I will be killed, I will do whatever it takes to prevent that. I won't rely on a technique that has the possibility of me not succeeding and getting killed. I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.While I'm not going to debate the merits of various disarming techniques, I'm not comfortable with the "Cop's safety first, at any cost" attitude. It's not even always the best for long-term safety. Increasing militarization and shoot first attitudes might make you safer in the moment, but if they alienate the population and the community you're working in, that leads to a more hostile environment and likely more attacks, which justifies more defensive measures, creating more hostility, etc.
And frankly, despite the anecdotes, policing isn't an extremely dangerous occupation.
As someone who was a manager at several big box retailers before I started my own business, I can tell you this is not true. Retail employees are trained to deescalate a situation by the most direct means available. That means if a person comes in with a gun and says "give me all the money" you say "yes sir" then you open the register, take out the till, and set it on the counter. Then you ask them if they want what's in the safe too.
If they want product you give them the product. Never make eye contact. Tell them, "I didn't see your face, no body here has seen your face."
You do these things because they are the most likely way to get everyone through a situation alive. Secondly (and pragmatically), the couple grand in cash or product they take is cheaper for the company than paying death benefits not to mention the cost of hiring a new employee and training them.
Debate all you want, but you should stay in the realm of reality. Life is not a movie. People try to kill the cops (about 10% chance per officer per year of being assaulted, 2% with a deadly weapon). If there is a reasonable risk that I will be killed, I will do whatever it takes to prevent that. I won't rely on a technique that has the possibility of me not succeeding and getting killed. I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.While I'm not going to debate the merits of various disarming techniques, I'm not comfortable with the "Cop's safety first, at any cost" attitude. It's not even always the best for long-term safety. Increasing militarization and shoot first attitudes might make you safer in the moment, but if they alienate the population and the community you're working in, that leads to a more hostile environment and likely more attacks, which justifies more defensive measures, creating more hostility, etc.
And frankly, despite the anecdotes, policing isn't an extremely dangerous occupation.
agree with the first part, disagree with the second part.
Do you know why officers are so cautious?
The aggravated assault rate for the nation as a whole is 242 per 100K in 2012. The number for officers is ten times higher (about 2000 per 100K). Our death rate is so low because of the cautious approach that we take. The assault rate for officers is a staggering 10,000 per 100K. That is considerably higher than any other profession.
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"Tread carefully" is not a solution.
It's what's easiest to do for self preservation.
Generations of compliance lead to a police force that sees non-compliance as a crime, even in the absence of any other crime.
We need to support our police officers by recognizing how hard their job really is, and holding them to a higher standard than civilians.
I suppose it depends on your definition of "extremely dangerous". It's not in the top 10. Below things like construction worker and truck driver.Below garbageman (number 6).
I assault my garbageman every week.
He sees me in my pajamas.
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So we're not allowed to debate the ethics of situations we've never been a part of?
I am hearing this more and more in regards to police shootings, allegations of police brutality and security or tram inspectors harming the public (a hot topic where I live since a woman was nearly killed for evading a fare), but it's a debate that follows a similar course - one side always saying "you weren't there" "you aren't in this specific profession" you don't get to have an opinion or debate it non-security/law professional. It is almost like those in these professions look down on the common people and their protestations of breached rights.
Sounds like trying to control the narrative and dissent to me. I don't think it works very well.
After posting and deleting several times, I think I'll be "daring" enough to post my experiences with police. Having been stopped at least 30 times as a youth, at least once at gunpoint, I feel that I have ample experience being "stopped for looking the wrong way". On the other hand, I am vanilla white; if you are a minority, you might have experienced extremely different things than me
Quite the understatement.
Police are people, too. My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out. I guarantee there are half a dozen minority posters on this board who will cite examples of "driving (or shopping) while black" as the reason they got stopped. Yet once you're stopped, the outcome seems predetermined: If you're friendly, polite, and cooperative, they let you go. If you're confrontational and want to argue and demand their badge number, the name of their captain, tell them they have no right to look in your car, etc., you're going to have trouble. You may be morally "right", but you're going to have trouble.
My friends constantly complained about our "abusive, neo-nazi police force", and how they'd been cuffed, beaten, and/or arrested. And yet every time I was with them, it was *THEY* who started it by being uncooperative and abusive. I was cooperative. I never got cuffed, hit, arrested, or shot. My friends had scars from where police had hit them.
And you know what? When I was with them when we got arrested, I *never* blamed the police.
Heck, the one time I was held at gunpoint I was sure my friend was going to get shot right in front of me. And he totally deserved it. Ignoring their orders, keeping his hands in his pockets, hiding what he was doing from them. He did his utmost to force them to shoot an unarmed kid. It was damned scary.
So you're cool with cops beating up your friends because they deserve it? I know one person who is permanently off my Christmas card list.
Regarding the earlier statement, knowing your rights is just as important as knowing when to make use of them. Screaming in a cops face that you are going to get them fired is stupid. Blithely accepting the worst excesses is even worse.
Both sides are guilty of escalation. One of my friends was a teenage reprobate, but moved on to trying to be a police officer. In police academy, he noticed that the commandant's girlfriend was cutting classes, doing no work, and still getting ranked #1 in the class. So he reported it to Internal Affairs. And has never been able to get a job as an officer again. He's now a prison guard. And no longer has any of his original teeth due to the repeated physical assaults on his person. Yet he's never allowed to get mad, or strike back, or take revenge. He must use the minimum force necessary to subdue the prisoner, and forget that the incident ever happened. In short, he is supposed to be far more-than-human in execution of his duties. So he's been hosed by both sides: Corrupt "protect your own" police politics, and corrupt, "Never touch a prisoner" politics....
disgusting, regarding the police academy incident. I hope your friend gets some real justice soon. More than human as a prison guard? I wouldn't say that falls into this category by far. It is an unfair situation in some ways, but I wouldn't say taking revenge, being short tempered, or smacking someone who is out of line should be a job perk when you are working as a prison guard.
The media now exists to sell papers. The infamous McDonald's "hot coffee" incident is a spectacular example. Everyone reads, "Woman spills hot coffee on herself, sues McDonald's, wins millions. The system is broken."
How many people actually know that the store in question was out of heat-proof cups, and had served her the coffee in a non-approved cup that proceeded to melt in her lap, which is the reason she suffered 3rd degree burns to her groin? She didn't spill it. The cup melted. That's not reported. Because it's not inflammatory.
Sales of newspaper have always pushed the media, as long as there has been a free press. People don't spend money boring stories- it's why the bible is full of sex, death, magic, and at least one(relatively slow moving) chase scene. With the advent of the internet we are all called upon to be careful and sober consumers of what we hear, as every crank now has an audience, not just the ones in the dead tree redistribution business.
SWAT team was called in. It wouldn't have happened if the subject of the article wasn't armed. So he was a danger to SOMEONE.
If that's where the story ends for you, then that's fine. I would rather an investigation be done, as this seems to be out of line with procedure regarding a suicidal individual.
officer shot him. It's basically a career-ending move for said officer. The anti-police propaganda machine is such a juggernaut that every officer knows that if he or she shoots an unarmed civilian, he or she will never work in law enforcement again, and may likely do jail time. Yes, I am well aware that unprovoked beatings by officers are all too common, but unprovoked shootings always end up in Internal Affairs, with the likely end of the officer's career. I don't see an officer shooting an unarmed suspect without being scared spitless about something.
Yes, many of you can point out instances where it's happened, because the media jumps all over such cases, but I guarantee the officer had a reason beyond, "Hey, I bet it would be fun to kill someone today!"
I really want to live where you live. It sounds scads better than where I live.
In short, I'm not so much "pro-cop" as I am, "Every time I've personally seen the cops do something abusive, it's because they were provoked and were acting like human beings."
I am well aware that there are exceptions to this; I'm simply pointing out *MY* personal experience.
Our experiences vastly differ. Vastly.
My overwhelming experience: If you treat officers with courtesy and respect, they will reciprocate. I always told the police what I was doing, let them search my bags or car, etc. Because I *knew* that I looked 'suspicious'. I was an upper-middle-class white kid acting out.Please take some time to think about this.
These statements don't hold true for everyone, just people like you and me.
I'm not gonna refute you point by point, since you're not wrong -- it's just that this only holds true for a small number of people.
It's always worth examining your situation and how it might be that you're blind to things outside your experience.
How would you feel if you did NOT look suspicious, and yet you were treated with outright hostility by police? What if instead of the benefit of the doubt, there was an assumption of guilt? How might your interactions with the police have gone?
The police are people too. But because of the power they have over individuals they have to be held to a higher standard. Their actions are subject to greater scrutiny. "It's tough out there" is not sufficient to excuse anything. Yes, it is tough, and we demand the best behavior and adherence to the law from those who enforce it. They might deserve a little slack, but we can never allow them to have it. The reasons for this are well explored throughout history.
A good point, but three of my best friends were black, and were constantly getting stopped for, "Walking/Driving while black".
Is this acceptable? No! But they knew that arguing with the officers themselves would just cause them more trouble, so they cooperated when pulled over, and never had issues.
Then they wrote a letter to the police department. Every. Single. Time. They were stopped.
All three were quickly left to their own devices.
But this is a much more do-able solution if you're a local in a small town. It doesn't work for a minority visiting from out of town.
And it still doesn't excuse the officers who did it. And those officers were never disciplined.As I keep saying, it's not that officers aren't corrupt. It's that confronting them in the streets while they're abusing you isn't a wise choice.
Be polite, bite your tongue, move on, and report it once you're safe.
I have far too many friends who have declared, "This isn't right! I'm going to stop this RIGHT NOW!" and spent the night in jail because of their insistence on their rights.
Knowing when to assert your rights is important. Always be recording. Always.
Assault on a police officer is a specific UCR code that requires force or attempted force. Words will not do, and it also does not count acts of resisting arrest. We are talking about over 50,000 separate assaults using force against officers every year, and 10,000 uses of deadly force.
Debate all you want - but you should (and legally must) take into account the totality of circumstances known to the officer at the moment of the decision. The context of rampant assaults and assaults with a deadly weapon is something that you should take into account.
For those saying that policing is safe, how many of the other professions on that list have someone actively trying to kill them on a basis ten times higher than the rest of the population? Soldiers and firefighters are also not in the top 10 most dangerous professions, but you wouldn't call them safe jobs.
My interactions with police officers over the weekend were remarkably pleasant given the circumstances.
There was some fear of arrests among my fellow activists as we marched down Newbury Street and "shut down" the intersection with Mass Ave for a couple of minutes, but I didn't really think the Boston PD were going to do anything about it. Bad PR to arrest the MIT Black Woman's Alliance, I'd imagine.
The following night, when I was pulled over for driving the wrong way drunkenly down a one-way street, the officer was very courteous, professional, and obviously poorly-trained in identifying inebriated motorists. Maybe he was a rookie, he looked pretty young.
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I will pick the most reliable method of protecting myself.
And thats a problem when whats safest for the cop results in the death of another being. If you don't like that the public judges you for that then...
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (anything sounds profound in latin)
The public gave you a great deal of power and authority. We're SUPPOSED to be keeping an eye on you. Having risked my health by fishing raccoons out of dumpsters, injured geese out of frozen lakes, or picking up loose rottweilers to return to their owners I'm more than a little concerned with some officers approach that ANY risk is too much. I mean if i value the life of a critter more than someone values the life of the public they're supposed to be protecting something has gone horribly wrong.(I worked maintenance in a state park. Higher death and dismemberment ratio than 3/4 branches of the armed forces...)
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Since 1990 violent crime has steadily and dramatically decreased, yet media coverage of those crimes has increased astronomically.
Statistically, police officers are safer now than at any time since the turn of the (20th) century.
Paradoxically, the populous is being told they are under constant and legitimate threat, in need of heavy duty military equipment, training, funding, and absolute compliance regardless of the situation.
The scariest part: the young officers (many of whom are also former or current military) have been raised on this culture of fear and mistrust don't know any better. They don't question their acculturation, and especially don't question their superiors in the agencies. That is simple career suicide.
Do cops face danger? Yes, obviously.
Is it as bad as they would have you believe? Not by a long shot.
But there is no way to change that system. At least none that I can reasonably see employed or successful.
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For those saying that policing is safe, how many of the other professions on that list have someone actively trying to kill them on a basis ten times higher than the rest of the population? Soldiers and firefighters are also not in the top 10 most dangerous professions, but you wouldn't call them safe jobs.
Hate to break it to you, but statistically police officer is not one of the 10 deadliest professions.
1. Loggers
2. Fishers
3. Aircraft Pilot and Flight Engineers
4. Roofers
5. Structural steel workers
6. Garbageman
7. Powerline installation and repair
8. Driver (truck and sales)
9. Farmers and ranchers
10. Construction worker
Police officers used to be in the list, back in the mid-00's, but have fallen off.
I'm not surprised that my job was a combination of 1 6 8 and 10 on that list...
I'm not sure you got my point. Police aren't in the top 10 because we actively prevent people from killing us. If every attempt succeeded, we would have more than 25 per day killed. My point was that firefighters and soldiers are also not in the top 10, but no one would claim that they have a safe job.
I'm not sure you got my point. Police aren't in the top 10 because we actively prevent people from killing us.
So you're saying that there are enough justified shootings that you would be in the top ten without shooting back?
Probably true. But no ones saying never shoot back and never respond lethally. We're suggesting that some departments at least have an acceptable threat level that's unwarranted by the actual threat. 100% chance of killing someone for a !% threat to you is unacceptable for example.
Example, when I was in highschool the town police broke up a drinking party in the woods. Shot guns, rifles, pistols all out and drawn... for kids drinking in the woods.
(and they thought i was crazy for bringing that cheap knock off chilean sniper suit)
Its also possible that being a little less trigger happy would result in fewer dead police because of fewer incidents of escalation. (hard to say though)
If every attempt succeeded, we would have more than 25 per day killed. My point was that firefighters and soldiers are also not in the top 10, but no one would claim that they have a safe job.
I wonder where police rank on this...
