I’m not sure how relevant it is - and I definitely don’t think it’s worth going off on a tangent about.
You claimed in this post that even in cases where a shooting was clearly justified, your side was going to criticize them. That’s a side that needs a dose of reality. I did not say that the Brown shooing was clearly justified, I said that the St Louis shooting was clearly justified. You, OTOH, apparently care very little if a shooting is justified or not - you just want to second-guess the police.
See, that’s the problem. If you are alleging that anyone who says anything about the shooting must be a member of the investigative groups or the grand jury, then either
[ul][li]you are a member of one of those groups, or[/li][li]you are not a member of those groups, and therefore your allegation is stupid and wrong.[/ul]I think we can be reasonably sure you aren’t a member, so that doesn’t leave a lot of options. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
You know what? I’ve never laid an egg, but I don’t have to eat the whole thing before I decide if it’s rotten. Sometimes just the smell is enough.
My actual words:
The words you’re attributing to me are not in that post. Neither is the general sentiment. I was commenting on the idea that the police “can’t win” because people were saying maybe they could’ve avoided killing someone. That’s ludicrous. I’m not going to reread that entire thread right now, but the general argument was that the cops weren’t horrible Nazis but with a different approach they might’ve been able to resolve that situation without killing anyone. Much straw was thrown around.
[quote=“Shodan, post:22, topic:696418”]
See, that’s the problem. If you are alleging that anyone who says anything about the shooting must be a member of the investigative groups or the grand jury, then either
[ul][li]you are a member of one of those groups, or[/li][li]you are not a member of those groups, and therefore your allegation is stupid and wrong.[/ul]I think we can be reasonably sure you aren’t a member, so that doesn’t leave a lot of options.[/li][/quote]
I think I explained what I was saying, but I guess it’s not working. I’ll try again: you suggested that the Brown shooting was “clearly justified.” I don’t think that’s so clear. So I said that either, one, you have more facts at your disposal than everyone else, or two, saying it’s “clearly justified” is empty bluster. Unless your first post in this thread was not about the Brown shooting at all, but was instead a lame attempt to snark on something else I said in another thread about a different situation - lame because it doesn’t even sorta come close to anything I said. That would make this whole thing kind of a waste of time.
I don’t really see the relevance of the statistical “dangerousness” when it come to how the police use force. In the case of a crab fisherman or lumberjack or whatever, you are talking about situations/accidents where the person has no way of mitigating the situation once it happens. If one gets hit by a crab pot or crushed by a log, it usually happens quickly. Even if you see it coming, you can’t stop an 800 lb crab pot with anything you happen to have on your belt. If its 300 lb man charging you or an 80 pound woman with a gun shooting at you, that’s a different story. You CAN do something to save yourself from death or injury. You have options. You are entitled, under the law, to employ whichever option you reasonably deem necessary (with ‘reasonably’ being the key word).
I don’t know what actually happen in Ferguson but I certainly don’t dismiss the use of deadly force against an unarmed person as inherently out of the question. I know if a much bigger/stronger someone just assaulted me and I had to fight to maintain control of my gun and now they were coming back at me I would reasonably assume the worst.
If someone invented a tool that instantly stopped assailants 100% of the time but also resulted in the assailants death 100% of the time, I’d say give that to the cops instead of a pistol. But since there isn’t such a thing the cops have to make do with what they have. What they don’t have, usually, is time. The courts recognize this and give them some latitude.
I’ve already mentioned it in another thread but if you want to understand the way the law looks the use of force read Graham v Connor.
Getting the point across to them would be like teaching your cat algebra. Frustrating to both of you. Fortunately, the law supports your position.
Try harder. I did not say that the Brown shooting was clearly justified, I said that the St Louis shooting was clearly justified. That’s why my post said -
So if you read carefuly, you will understand I did not say that the Brown shooting was clearly justified, I said that the St Louis shooting was clearly justified.
You said that the police were never going to win in any case in which they shot somebody, where “win” meant not being criticized. Shootings which are completely justified are a subset of all cases where the police shoot somebody. Therefore, you said that the police were going to be criticized even in cases where the shooting was justified. Since you were engaging in that sort of criticism in that sort of case, you are therefore OK with criticizing the police no matter whether the shootings are justified or not.
No you didn’t - you claimed that only members of the grand jury or an investigative organization could express themselves on the case. That’s obviously wrong, since you are neither.
So either only members of grand juries can criticize, in which case your criticism of the police is worthless, or anyone can express an opinion, in which your criticism of my post is worthless.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re right. In your third post you did get around to explaining which shooting you were talking about, and I didn’t notice. I probably should’ve, but in my own defense, this thread is about a different incident. You responded to something I said about the shooting in Ferguson by making a vague reference to something I’d said in a discussion of the shooting in St. Louis and you didn’t bother to explain that you were talking about something else. You were the first person here to bring up the St. Louis shooting at all and it took you several posts before you bothered to clear that up. You could’ve been upfront about it, but then again you could’ve also made an effort to represent what I said in an honest way.
Oh well.
I taught my cat algebra. I said to her “In this simple second-order differential equation of motion, which variable represents the coefficient of friction?” and she said “μ”.
/aside
No, the thread is about the use of lethal force by cops in general. That’s why the link in the OP has cites and videos from several different cases. Hence also the title of the OP.
And I have not seen you address the other problem - either you think that only members of a grand jury or of an investigative organization may express an opinion on the lethal use of force, in which case you need to keep your thoughts to yourself, or you don’t think this, in which case you shouldn’t try to assert it.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh. I must’ve been confused by the fact that the blogger was discussing that issue in light of the death of Michael Brown and the fact that maybe half a dozen posters mentioned Wilson and Brown without anyone commenting on any other active controversies.
I don’t know why you are having so much trouble with this, but I was referring to the investigation of the shooting of Michael Brown. Since you were not talking about that case, it’s a nonissue. But for the record I didn’t say “only investigators can have an opinion” - just like I didn’t say “I will criticize the police no matter what.”
Moved MPSIMS --> Great Debates.
I don’t think it’s relevant that some jobs are more dangerous than being a police officer. The numbers show that being a police officer is significantly more dangerous than an average job. The fact that some jobs are several times more dangerous than being a police officer just shows that some jobs are really fucking dangerous. I didn’t see them listed, but tower workers for the wireless industry have very high death rates as well (OSHA estimates at 123/100,000 workers, and it’s possibly much higher due to weird things about that industry that make collecting the statistics uniquely difficult.)
What’s relevant is within a dangerous job, what things can be reasonably done to make the worker safer. Further, what can be done to protect society from those workers, because many dangerous jobs have a way of projecting their danger outward into society (think the dangers of coal trucks, logging trucks, construction sites in the middle of town etc.)
It doesn’t make sense to me to claim that entering melee combat with someone isn’t dangerous. That’s an intrinsically dangerous activity, and anyone who would scoff at it and point to aggregate data is not thinking about the issue dispassionately. A medieval man-at-arms probably had a low rate of dying in combat on a yearly average basis, but when they were actually swinging sword to shield it was a very dangerous activity, this is intrinsically so based on human biology and danger being defined as something that puts you in peril of losing life or limb.
It matters because a global perspective on the likelihood of certain events happening can affect behavior in a specific incident. For example, if I tell you an area you are walking in is dangerous, you might be more likely to think someone walking past you as ill intent. That guy jogging down the street seems more suspicious in a bad neighborhood. The guy stealing a soda seems like more of a degenerate who might kill you. When cops have this mistaken impression that their jobs are uniquely dangerous, or significantly more dangerous than other dangerous jobs, it has the potential to escalate interactions because implicit trust is eroded. Reality and statistics are important not only because the truth matters, but also because how police use force is directly related to how vulnerable they feel, and because that feeling is influenced by things real and imagined.
No argument there. The issue is that what is “reasonable” is evolving based on misplaced assumptions, biases, bad policing tactics, and the ridiculous standard that cops should never have to risk even minor injury to avoid using lethal force.
Then you would be making an incredibly stupid and rash decision. If you think the penalty for assault should be death, then just say so. People fight all the time. Sometimes they even fight cops. If you think that means we should allow cops on the street to unilaterally impose the death penalty with 100% effectiveness, then I think you need to think long and hard about them implications of such a policy.
That is part of the disagreement here. They often DO have time. They often DO have choices. They often DON’T have to kill people. Did the guy who murdered Oscar Grant not have time? What about the guys who shot Abner Louima? How do cops in the UK seem to deal with these situations without a gun, and without being hurt more often? How do most developed countries manage to provide adequate safety to their citizens and enforce the law without having to murder unarmed people on a regular basis? Your standards are too low.
It also shows that our sympathies are largely misplaced. How many people do you see donating thousands of dollars to dead fishermen or cab drivers? How much traction to loggers get when they complain about the dangers of their job to excuse fatal mistakes? The fact that there are far more dangerous jobs that pay less and are not given the benefit of the doubt is important. Obviously, the existence of more dangerous jobs doesn’t mean cops shouldn’t be given respect or sympathies when deserved, but it does mean our police forces needn’t be increasingly militarized under the guise that such measures are needed for their safety. It does mean that any critique of their behavior or policies should be met with, “you don’t know what it’s like” or, “you don’t understand the stress and danger”.
Bullshit. The part that I scoffed at had nothing to do with stats. A cop using a nightstick to beat someone (usually doing so with other cops) is more than ready to step up the force if need be. In fact, they probably wouldn’t start with a nightstick unless they felt it was enough to subdue the person. No cop is rushing some guy holding a knife with his nightstick. It’s clear most cops would never enter this combat without the odds heavily tilted in their favor, thus mitigating much of the risk. As such, the idea that someone would claim beating someone, who is likely unarmed and outnumbered, with a weapon puts THEIR life at risk is absurd.
And even if we put some value on the small risk that a guy being beaten with a nightstick is able to turn the tables on the cop, complaining about holds little water in my opinion given that that is what we pay cops for. There are no shortage of people willing to be cops in most areas, so if they think killing civilians is preferable to accepting those minor risks, then they shouldn’t be cops in my opinion.
Excellent post there, brickbacon.
It’s easy for anyone who has never put their ass on the line to spout statistics as to what jobs are more dangerous than being cops who regularly deal with hostile situations and have to decide when they can and cannot use deadly force. To have to face moments where you wonder, is this the day I die? Do I get to see my wife and kids tonight, or not?
It is germane because if you’ve never put your ass on the line then you do not realize that, at the very moment when your life may be snuffed out because some hood pulls their trigger, it really doesn’t matter if there are other jobs statistically more or less dangerous than yours. You may be able to understand the concept, but you don’t know what it actually feels like. At that moment you are a data point with a discrete binomial outcome: you will either live, or you will die.
Most of the law abiding citizens in this country benefit from the police force who are like a barrier between us and the criminal elements and violence out there. It’s not a perfect barrier, but most of us benefit from it.
Presumably fishermen, charter aircraft pilots, roofers and garbage collectors have similar moments. As do firemen. Police are not unique in this regard.
Hell, lots of people have had such moments in their life. I have. I don’t think that in any way invalidates consideration of the objective risks various people face. I do disagree with brickbacon’s characterization: police work is dangerous statistically speaking. It’s just that there are lots of activities that are much more dangerous. The Vox article has a decent treatment: cops face 4-5 times the risk of fatal injuries as the typical worker. But roofing and ranching is more dangerous.
I consider myself broadly supportive of the cops. I think they should be paid well, but I also think that some are not cut out for it and some should be fired. No conflict there.
That’s not what he wrote. He wrote they won’t always stop someone right away. He didn’t write that they never will. You have changed the premise (inadvertently, I assume) from “A is sometimes true” to “A is true”.
Again, your line of reasoning is so stupid it’s barely worth responding to. How exactly does weight of my opinion, bolstered by logic and statistics, change based on whether I am a cop myself or if I am a pacifist? Does it get extra weight if I was an Army sharpshooter, or if I do motorcycle stunts?
I does because how you react to that “hood” should be based on how likely it is that he will actually pull the trigger on a macro and micro level.
How do you know that? More importantly, why should policy be based on someone’s feelings as opposed to facts and logic?
Which is true for anything.
Of course most benefit, but many don’t. I can pretty much assure the Grant family views it as a net negative.
I didn’t say it ISN’T dangerous. It’s just not THAT dangerous. You’ll note a big chunk of why a job is dangerous is just moving around outside or dealing with complex mechanical equipment. Yes, being a cop is roughly 4x more dangerous than a typical office worker, but that magnifies the difference unnecessarily. It’s also correct to say we can expect ~12 fatalities per 100k on average. Putting it that way let’s you see that difference in fatal injuries between being a garbage collector and a police officer is greater than a police officer and a cashier. Let’s really investigate that for a moment. Guys who roll around on heavy, slow moving garbage trucks are MUCH (2x times) more likely to die than cops who interact with violent criminals and go into dark alleys. What does that tell us? Maybe that we shouldn’t act as if the things cops do are SO dangerous that they demand that we never question their actions under the logic that we could never understand the danger they are exposed to. Yes, many still would not accept the risk inherent in being a cop, but that’s why those people should be cops (or garbagemen).