# At last, responsibility comes to the American police

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-last-responsibility-comes-to-the-american-police/791872>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 22, 2017, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-last-responsibility-comes-to-the-american-police/791872 "2017-07-22T09:30:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2019, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-last-responsibility-comes-to-the-american-police/791872/41 "2019-06-09T10:59:09Z")

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> [@Defensive\_Indifference](#):
>
> While I’m eased that a police officer has finally been held accountable for an on-duty shooting, I’m curious what makes this case different from all the other shootings by police. Surely there was some factor in this case that made it possible for these prosecutors to succeed where so many others have failed. I must ponder this.

… and also, he fired from the wrong side of the car, across the other policeman sitting there.

Policemen are trained to be afraid of being shot. It is their number one go to excuse for shooting people: “I was in fear for my life”. The idea of having somebody draw a gun on them an fire horrifies every other member of that police force, even if was another police officer.

He lost a lot of the remaining support when they worked that out.

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**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-last-responsibility-comes-to-the-american-police/791872/42 "2019-06-09T14:19:23Z")

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> [@igor\_frankensteen](#):
>
> In my years of observing horror stories like this, one thing I’ve completely lost respect for, is the “head of the department resigns or is fired” trick. Unless it’s done after a thorough investigation proves that it was their incompetence or worse, complicity, that caused the horror, all that such resignations or firings are really for, is to cover up the incident politically, and try to make the general public think the problem was corrected.
> 
> It obviously worked for the OP, here.

Don’t forget that in some cases, resignation ends the investigation. Try and hold a judge accountable in the US, for instance, and they’ll just resign and collect their pension.

Same with lots of cops, except they just move on to another department, as others have noted.

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**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2019, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-last-responsibility-comes-to-the-american-police/791872/43 "2019-06-09T22:29:35Z")

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> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> .
> 
> snip/  
> Policemen are trained to be afraid of being shot. It is their number one go to excuse for shooting people: “I was in fear for my life”. The idea of having somebody draw a gun on them an fire horrifies every other member of that police force, even if was another police officer. /snip.

Unfortunately, that is exactly how this man was trained. This has taken quite a toll on our citizens and is finally being addressed. Our police forces didn’t used to be trained this way, but the number of police who lost their lives and the threat of terrorism (and media emphasis on the possibility) did cause a paranoid change in police training.

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