Damnit. Regarding the police and use of deadly force.

[LeftyFingerPop]

There was a thread a few days ago which discussed the use of a taser on a naked man who was standing on a roof, swinging a fluorescent light bulb. I watched the video. The police tasered him, and he fell to his death.

Now the sad thread today about an Iraq war veteran being shot and killed for swinging a hockey stick.

Here's a thought on a tactic the police could use in situations such as these.

BACK THE FUCK OFF.

Get people away from the individual, give the person some space, and talk him down.

BACK AWAY. BACK THE FUCK OFF.

God, I must be a genius to think of this tactic.

PUT DISTANCE BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE DISTRAUGHT INDIVIDUAL AND TALK TO HIM.

Do I get an award for being so smart?


:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Marrah_G]

1. Seems to me this is the sort of situation a taser was meant for.

Using firearms against a hockey stick seems extreme. And I only say "seems" because I don't know if there are part of the story being left out.

[LeftyFingerPop]

4. Perhaps, but...

I remember a time when tasers did not exist.

I also have personally witnessed a few situations in my younger days that involved out of control and violent drunks.

I have witnessed police talking down individuals after making sure nobody was in harms way.

No one got hurt, no one got killed.

[Marrah_G]

5. When they have to take them down hand to hand people do get hurt

There is no easy or fool-proof way to deal with people who are out of control, each situation is different. They keep trying to find better ways but nothing is 100%.

Like in Boston they wanted to use non-lethal rubber "bullets" for crowd control because it was thought to be less damaging while still making people leave. Well, one bad shot hit in the one place it could be lethal (directly in the eye) and a girl was killed. They no longer use them.

The cops in this case sem to have made a very bad choice as to when lethal force was necessary. Pepper spray or a taser should have been tried first... unless there were circumstances and actions that we know nothing about.

Cops do not go out wanting to kill people. Often if a suspect is killed it is the end of a career for the officer as well, even if it is justified.

[LeftyFingerPop]

8. I understand your point, and I am not a cop basher, but...

My mindset is that not only should force be a last resort, but ENGAGEMENT should be a last resort.

Once the cops are called, there seems to be a mindset that they need to "do something", when this is not always the case.

Their first priority should be to make sure that no one is in harms way.

Their LAST priority should be physical engagement.

This is how things used to be 30 years ago, at least where I live.

Things changed along the way.

[Marrah_G]

10. I agree with you

I also agree with someone else on this thread who mentioned training in dealing with the mentally ill. Now mind you, sometimes it's not easy to know if someone is mentally ill or not, but sometimes it is clear (or there are others present who know the situation).

[LeftyFingerPop]

11. Good point.

A really good cop, in fact, has the gift of gab and is able to talk to all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations, in order to diffuse a problem.

Of course the use of force is sometimes necessary, but it too often seems to be the first choice, when it may not be the best choice.

If you watched the video of the man on the roof getting tasered... that was a horribly bad decision on the cop's part.

[Marrah_G]

15. Yes- that was a horribly bad decision

He is probably no longer an active cop, nor should he be.

[EFerrari]

23. Learning how to "talk down" my much bigger mentally ill husband

has helped me in many situations with angry or disoriented people. Those skills generalize.

[slampoet]

16. How is anyone with a hockey stick a threat to anyone more than 5 yards away?

Secondly the PURPOSE of a Tonfa (the billy club with a handle on the side at 90 degrees) is to DISARM PEOPLE AND BLOCK THEIR BLOWS.

WHY OH WHY are cops such wimps that they can't use their tonfa properly?

I only have a yellow belt in martial arts and I could do it alone.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. As somebody who played organized hockey for ten years (as a kid and teen ager)

I am completely astounded by the argument being made by the police. It is, quite frankly, shocking. I have been hit hard and dirty by hockey sticks more times than I'd like to count. The notion that the hockey stick requires deadly force as a response is so ludicrous as to defy even common intuition.

[slampoet]

21. Believe it. Back in 1997 in Lincoln RI they shot a guy carrying a bamboo walking stick.

IT was less than 3/4 of an inch thick.

[Possumpoint]

2. Tell That To A Cop

He might shoot you for assault. Get use to it, we live in a police state. We have sold some of our liberties in the name of security. Politicians have responded to the violence in our society by giving ever less restraint on the police departments. In theory, you could be shot down for giving a policeman grief for a parking ticket. Read the methods used by swat teams.

[Uben]

3. But, but, but..............

What if that bulb was filled with deadly nerve gas that endangered the entire population of the city? What if that hockey stick was concealing a nuclear weapon inside? Huh? What then?


These stupid fucking cops never cease to amaze me, and I come from a family with a long history of law enforcement. Most cops are jerks. They think that badge makes them somekind of fucking super-hero. OTOH, I do know cops who are just there to enforce the law.
A little training in dealing with mentally impaired people would help a lot!

[CoffeeCat]

6. That's the problem...

There are plenty of great cops, who are doing their job. And they're most likely
disgusted by the bad, power-trip cops who shouldn't even be near any position in which
they have power over anyone.

The problem is---we've put these horrible torture devices in their hands, and we've given
them carte blanche to use them on people. We've seen plenty of video where "angry" cops
tasered people--because they felt like it or because the person said a smart ass remark.

That's not right. A taser should be a substitute for a gun. You only use it when there
is a grave danger, not when some twenty year old--who is pulled over for speeding--asks
you a question you don't like.

Weapons like these end up in the hands of very sadistic police officers. They're
the ones who kill people and use excessive force.

There needs to be more restrictions on tasers. The police should be afraid to use them.

I'm hoping that the taser class-action lawsuit comes soon. Tasers are revolting.

[LeftyFingerPop]

14. Correct. Taser = Gun.

If a guy pulls a knife on you...they have every right to use either one.

If a guy pulls a gun on you, shoot to kill.

If a guy is standing on a roof swinging a light bulb...talk to him but don't get near him.

If a guy is swinging a hockey stick to prevent you from touching him...back away from him. If you can't back away, taser him. The guy didn't want to be touched. JUST BACK AWAY!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. I will tell this story again:

I have a friend who just retired as a municipal cop after doing his 25. He told me, once, that what scared the pure living hell out of him these days were the graduates from Community College criminal justice courses who were coming into the system. He called them "Hitler Youth". He said they were highly indoctrinated with this idea that they were a breed apart from the ordinary rabble and all thought that they were there to clean up all crime from our streets and were going to go to any lengths to do it. He said a lot of them were steroid users and from what I have seen, it shows. Both the new guys on the force are small, but gigantic and have reputations for huge tempers. Lots of the new guys on the Sheriff's Department, which is a block away from me, also show clear signs of chemical physique enhancement. A number of years ago, another good friend, an NJSP Detective Sergeant First Class and barracks training officer, told me that steroids in the ranks were the single biggest problem facing law enforcement and that the amount of new guys he saw that were clearly users petrified him, as he knew what came next. In fact, it was the big reason he got out on the day his retirement was up. He could no longer deal with the realities he saw on the job, regarding the young troopers.

I would say that there is a lot of this in play, across the nation.

[LeftyFingerPop]

9. Thank you for this post. n/t

[EFerrari]

25. And before that, it was coke.

A friend spent six months taping a film with a local sherrif's department. He told me those guys always had some kind of "sniffles". . . .

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. The police can't have it both ways

On the one hand, they go on and on about how they are professionals, and they request untold treasure for "training" and "professionalization."

On the other, they claim that they are "simply human," and "react to fear" and "life threatening situations" as would any other citizen.

These are incompatible positions, and the essence of having it both ways. All that money for professional training? That's provided so that you DON'T react like any other citizen. That's the essentially meaning of a PROFESSIONAL: you have a capacity borne of extensive training that differentiates you in your task domain from the ordinary person. A doctor is differentiated in her task domain from the ordinary person: she does not react to sickness like anyone else. An engineer is differentiated in his task domain from the ordinary person: his training means that his response to an engineering problem will not be that of common intuition. A professor of psychology will not SEE a collective dynamic the way the ordinary person will, because she will have the training to understand its structures. This is what it means to be a professional. In the case of the police officer, being a professional means not responding to threatening a situations in the same way that an ordinary person would. This is why we throw our collective money at police training. This is why we support professionalization of the police force. This is why we make significant investment in equipment and knowledge-building for our police. This is why we pay a salary, and benefits, and make attractive retirement packages available to people in their mid-40's. Because we don't want the police to act like THE MAN ON THE STREET. Because we want them to be differentiated in their task domain.

So, whenever a police officer shoots because "he felt threatened," even where no threat existed, that police officer is essentially telling us that he or she is not qualified to do the job we hired him or her to do. They are admitting that they are not differentiated in their task domain, and that any money we spent training them to be so was wasted. they are saying that they are not professional police. They are no different than the ordinary person. Imagine a doctor making the same argument in a malpractice case! "No, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Doctor So-and-so checked the 8 years of medical training at the door, and approached the patient just as you or I would!" Imagine the reaction to that. But police make this argument all the time, and people buy it for some reason I cannot understand.

Either you are a professional in your field or you are an ordinary person on the street. You can't be both (in your task domain) at once. You can't be an expert and a non-expert in nuclear waste storage. You can't be a doctor and a non-doctor. You can't be a police officer who reacts to fear like everybody else. Or, if you can, then we should immediately cease whatever funds flow into the police departments of this country for the purposes of making these people PROFESSIONALS.

[LeftyFingerPop]

13. Excellent. Thanks. n/t

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

17. Look, the sad reality is...

And this came from my recently retired friend as well, that a lot of the young cops getting hired just ain't that smart. One of the things both he and my NJSP retired friend pointed out was that almost all of the new guys could not write a report in understandable, grammatical, syntax-correct and correctly-spelled english. They just could not evince compositional english skills of a 5th grader and could not be arsed to try. The training officer Sergeant, who dealt with the nuggets just out of the Sea Girt academy, said that some of them were essentially illiterate. He would have to make them rewrite reports as much as 5 times.

This matters. Where they supposedly were turned into professionals, they were not given professional clerical skills. Where else was their training lacking?

Now, as I understand it, things have changed somewhat in the NJSP: they now must have a college degree. It shows, too, because these days, NJ Troopers are a far more professional breed and a hell of a lot more low-key. It has even rubbed off on some of the older hands, left from earlier regimes.

That said, at the municipal level, things are not good. Lots of punk kids, long on 'tude and short on smarts. But a lot of departments want it that way. Don't want smart guys trying to climb the ranks or making trouble about the things they see.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Yes, I get this, and it is true

But that means we should reconsider the expenditures we make on police training. If the police training is essentially useless in professionalizing these people, then it should be scaled back significantly, especially where having a bunch of yahoos out there seems to be the policy.

This could be run very much like the highway funds is run. You comply with standards for hiring and professionalization of the police force, or you're cut off. Period. The public is at risk, and it is a very serious matter indeed when a citizen is KILLED because the police departments of this country cannot get their professional act together. It is the most grievous offense of any government, and it cannot be excused with the "man on the street" argument. If we wanted any man on the street to do the policing, we wouldn't be funneling public money into these institutions.

[AuntPatsy]

22. Excellent, your post should have it's own thread...no one has said it better.

[screembloodymurder]

20. Don't call the police unless you need lethal force.

It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

[EFerrari]

26. The family with hockey stick didn't call the police, they called

the paramedics for an ambulance.

[MadHound]

24. Talking somebody down, used to be SOP,

Now apparently it is a forgotten talent among America's finest. Used to live in an authoritarian, redneck city twenty years ago. Watched a confrontation between a wild man wielding an ax and the cops who came to get him. Had their guns out, but talked him into submission. Now, that dude would probably have wound up dead.

Cops have gone from the mentality of being a public servant, protect and serve, to the one of being guards at an outdoor insane asylum. They have power and will use it in its entirety at any possible chance.