Here for example is a person killed the cops in his own home. For what crime did the police come to to his house? None, it was a welfare check:
The only way the police seem to know how to respond to the mentally ill is with SWAT teams.
According to the article, the man swung at officers with a machete and struck one with the flat side of the blade. They attempted to subdue him with beanbag rounds before shooting at him. They did try to use less-than-lethal means. I don’t know what more they could have done before resorting to deadly force. It was only a matter of time before one of the officers was slashed with the blade.
In all seriousness, could they have simply left, waited for him to calm down, called family members or his doctor etc? It doesn’t sound like he was threatening anyone else in the house. Why did they have to subdue him unless he was a threat to himself or others in the house?
He was a threat to the officers he was swinging the machete at.
I know.
But if the officers retreated from the house, he no longer would have been. It’s an option other than having to kill him. I could understand if he was threatening others they’d have little choice, but if was just them be threatened, retreat, regroup, and figure out a plan that gets the guy help, not dead.
“Let’s go away and maybe he won’t follow us and wave his knife around.”
If the officers had retreated, would he have retreated also, or continued to aggressively pursue them with a large knife? Remember, he already hit one of them. It could have been edge-on. They could have retreated at the expense of one or both officers being deeply slashed. And they did fire beanbag rounds at him, but those didn’t subdue him. Sorry, but I don’t think the solution is as simple as you put it.
Yes, this should be the option they take before killing him. Shooting someone should only happen when there is no other choice.
It’s regrettable that the man was killied, but this isn’t a clear-cut case of cops bursting into a man’s house and killing him on sight. It’s just not that black-and-white.
I’m not saying it’s simple. It’s anything but simple. You asked “I don’t know what more they could have done” so I posed an option. They were in his house and he became violent. They already were trying non-lethal methods, so danger of fatalities wasn’t imminent (article said “continued to swing”, so clearly they thought the non-lethal attempts were reasonable in the face of the knife being swung).
Continuing to engage him didn’t necessarily have to be the option, they could tell him they’re leaving, back out (with using lethal force still as an option) and try to diffuse the situation. You don’t have to agree, but it doesn’t make the idea simple or naive.
As was said, it was a welfare check and the guy ended up dead. Nothing wrong in looking at the situation and wondering if it could’ve been handled differently to get a better outcome. It’s not an indictment of the cops. I never said they burst in and killed him. Not sure where you’re getting that from. It wasn’t black and white and that’s the point.
OK. I don’t agree, but I respect that. Yes, lethal force should be a last resort, and I think the officers reached that point. They responded appropriately by trying less-than-lethal means in response to a potentially deadly attack.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Also, and I just noticed this part of your post, no, you didn’t say that and I didn’t mean to imply that you did. That was the impression I had from PastTense’s post that they were trying to indict all police officers as careless killers.
Gotcha.
Cops never seem to win in a situation like this.
I could easily see a news article saying how a machete weilding man went outside and attacked his neighbors killing a family. And how apparently the cops were there the night before but how they just left without doing anything cause they deemed he wasn’t a threat.
I don’t think doing nothing is being suggested.
The combination of opening post and OP username is admirable.
The “justifyable homicide” number is interesting - 461 in 2013.
Fwiw, UK average for the past five years is 1.
http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/deaths-in-police-custody
If there’s no indictment, I see this as a win for the cops.
Thanks for digging that up. It was exactly what I was wondering as I was reading this thread. Without taking a firm stand on police behavior, it’s troubling that we seem to have such a problem with violence in general here.
I get what you are saying, but I have to ask: when is the last time you’ve been in a fight? Because things happen very, very fast, and it is often simply unreasonable to second-guess why someone didn’t think to do something else in a split-second when they are literally under attack.
There’s a big difference between someone being lucky and de-escalating a violent situation by retreating; and believing that someone may have acted inappropriately by failing to de-escalate when someone is literally trying to kill them.