Well, my point was that there are like over 1,000 police fatal shootings per year, and only a very, very small percent, even with camera evidence, become “controversial.” I don’t think any police officer, or anyone, should be “trusted” when they shoot and kill someone. Obviously everyone is entitled, in a criminal sense, to a presumption of innocence, but at least from an investigatory perspective (which isn’t the same thing as the court/criminal proceeding perspective) each case should start with skeptical investigators looking to find evidence of wrongdoing. In most cases such evidence doesn’t come up, now some of that is 100% due to a “blue line” effect, but I also think based on the best evidence we have, the vast majority of police shootings are both legally and morally justified.
But the ones that are not and in which it’s either covered up or goes unpunished, represent a serious problem. I think everyone is in agreement more monitoring in the form of more and better body cameras is a good check on police power that historically we did not have.
I think you’re talking about two different things here. Police abuse of power, unwarranted violence and etc are as old as police forces. Frankly, given what we know about the South and even many large cities in the North during the Civil Rights era, and the even lesser oversight, I think police abuses were probably substantially more common 40 years ago than now, and even more common 20 years ago than now.
But that isn’t really what I’m talking about. To me there are different situations and scenarios.
A cop pulling a black man over for “driving too nice a car” is an example of overt racism and inappropriate behavior, same as it was in the 1960s when it was expected police behavior. Police beating a black suspect while calling him a nigger, is likewise.
But police having more “police interactions” with black suspects because of “Broken Windows” policing that requires them to harass ordinary citizens over penny ante crimes, and also deploys police in far greater force in black neighborhoods, is a reflection of both systemic racism as well as systemic problems in black neighborhoods. When those situations become violent, and a ‘hyper-vigilant’ cop shoots someone or chokes someone to death, or is walking a stairwell with gun drawn because the housing building he’s patrolling scares him to death–that to me isn’t qualitatively the same as the cops arresting blacks for being too uppity in the Jim Crow South. That’s more a consequence of multiple shifts in policing policy.
From everything I’ve heard the ‘hyper-vigilant’ officer safety training indeed started about 20-25 years ago en masse. I’ve talked with police officers who lived through the shift, and they said there was a notable difference between the outlook toward suspects among veterans from the late 70s and 80s and those who came up in the early/mid-90s. Traditional policing it was more expected if you went along the “continuum” with a person of “ask, tell, make” the “make” part of it generally meant going hand to hand. A lot of older cops even described their jobs as “fighting drunks and druggies”, police today for various reasons are more likely to not tolerate the sort of risks involved in that sort of policing, removing various tools from the tool belt (like hand to hand wrestling, impact weapons etc.) Lots of older police will tell you they could achieve amazing success and compliance from unruly suspect using a baton.
But the baton or night stick is almost unused now. Now you mostly have a continuum of pepper spray/taser–>gun, with a lot of situations arising in the past where at most the cop might have used his stick, and now he goes straight for his side arm.
I think in situations where shooting someone is justified it would work in almost none of them, to be honest.
Example: a cop pulls a guy over for speeding. Guy reaches into his pants for something. Should the cop risk killing a man to issue a $75 ticket? Or maybe a temporary retreat isn’t such a bad idea at that moment? That’s where people often disagree. Perhaps in a particular situation, shooting the suspect IS justified. But is getting into that situation in the first place justified?
These are the questions we should be asking. Mike Brown may have stormed Officer Brown, justifying his killing. But was stopping two black men for crossing the street in the first place justified? No. EVERY police action has the potential to end lives and destroy families. They shouldn’t be so blase about choosing to use their power.
Traffic stops are the single most dangerous thing a cop regularly does in their career. So maybe instead of using that fact to justify trigger happy cops, we should use that fact to justify eliminating traffic stops?
Wilson did not stop Michael Brown for crossing the street, but because he matched the description of someone who had just robbed a convenience store and assaulted the clerk. Do you believe this was an inappropriate use of police power?
As an agent of the state imbued with police power, assaulting a cop, killing a cop or even resisting arrest probably should be a bigger deal than assaulting me, or even killing me.
Cops do not get special considerations in court. I used to clerk for a judge and we stated several times during jury selection that cops are not due any more or any less credibility than anyone else by virtue of their occupation. Then when we give the jury instruction we once again say that cops are not due any more or any less credibility than anyone else by virtue of their occupation.
Cops frequently seem more credible when there is conflicting testimony because the guy that is providing conflicting testimony is frequently a criminal that was committing a crime at the time. Absent any evidence to the contrary, I might believe an average citizen over a criminal that was committing a crime at the time. Wouldn’t you?
If the cop was somehow “dirty” I might believe the average citizen over the cop.
This is why we see cops point out the criminal history of the other guy. And the other guy will point out if the cop has ever shot anyone before or had a complaint filed against him.
Of the cops that have been recently involved in police shootings, how many do you think had a college degree? Not necessarily Harvard but a two year college degree?
With as much as they are being paid, why can’t we get more qualified people? I can be convinced to increase the budget for police from its current 5% to maybe 10% of our budget but I doubt doubling the budget would get you where we need. How much are you willing to pay to fix a problem that at least one study indicates is not a problem (well police brutality IS a problem but the rate of killing may not split along racial lines if you correct for things like criminality). http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/11/no-racial-bias-police-shootings-study-harvard-prof/
I agree that there a lot of cops have horrible attitudes but this is not solely the result of a bad cop culture, it is the result of a bad American culture. Warrior worship that has bled from worshiping the Audie Murphy’s of the world to worshiping pretty much anyone in a uniform.
OK so we agree that this is not a recent phenomenon and that if training is insufficient now then it has been insufficient for our entire history. And while there is always room for improvement, police brutality seems like it might be lower on the list of priorities for government dollars if that improvement comes at too high a cost.
Can you be more specific about the package you would offer to entice these men and women with the bravery, discretion, restraint, judgment, and willingness to risk their lives and their careers to meet these higher standards?
I’m not condescending, I’m pointing out how impractical it is to “shoot to disable”
I’m all for spending more money for better police but how many schools or firehouses would you close to do it? Or would you simply raise taxes for an ill defined problem that is getting a lot of press?
OK, lets say I have a gun that I am going to point at you. How do you disable me without killing me? You pretty much have to shoot the gun out of my hand right? The vast majority of people can’t do that in a stress situation no matter how much they train for it.
You are not asking for compassion and intelligence, you are asking for special forces skills combined with the wisdom of solomon for a situation that accounts for a tiny sliver of what cops have to encounter on a day to day basis. How much of their domestic violence training should they cut to improve their ability to disable an armed suspect?
If your point is that cops are killing innocent people, then I agree. Cops killed 1000 people last year. I suspect that dozens of them were unjustified or the result of the use of excessive force.
But this thread is about how cops react when they are threatened by a gun. What do you think is the appropriate response then?
Now in the Philando Castile case, there was a gun and that case created a rift in the gun community because there are a lot of kneejerk cop supporters in that community (because a lot of them are cops or first responders) and there are a lot of believers in an armed citizenry. That cop seemed way too nervous to be a cop.
I actually do. “Large black man wanted in connection with a robbery” is not enough info to stop any large black man you see. That’s part of my “don’t get into that situation in the first place” advice. I see it all the time, “so and so matched description of our suspect, so we stopped him and killed him when he resisted”, when the entirety of that description reduces down to “black man at large”. Maine just ruled that black men are justified in fleeing the police, partly for this reason.
Yeah that isn’t what happened. He had a pretty detailed description of Brown–more than enough to meet the standard for making a stop of a person on the street–which is “reasonable suspicion.” Additionally helping the legal aspects is the fact Brown was illegally jaywalking, which obviously is a very minor crime, but even a minor crime is the difference between a cop being able to stop you essentially “if he feels like it” and whether he has no recourse if you just ignore him and keep walking (since Wilson had reasonable suspicion Brown was a robbery/assault suspect he could’ve detained brown even if Brown was Brown walking down the side walk legally.)
Tactically many have questioned the form of approach and initial behavior of Wilson, which is probably where we could have a discussion about training. But the idea that the stop itself was ill advised isn’t supported by reality.
As for a traffic stop, you wouldn’t shoot someone for putting their hands in their pockets in my opinion, that’s a situation where you should draw your gun and order them to slowly show their hands. If they proceed to actually pull something out then it becomes a different situation.
These are all good questions but you don’t honestly mean to say that we should stop traffic stops, right?
Perhaps traffic stops are dangerous because the people who are dangerous are more likely than most to flout traffic laws. That level of danger is something that I think we expect cops to tolerate. Forcing them to hesitate before they react when they believe their life is in danger is not.
The description was not that vague. It was specific enough to make the stop reasonable. The incident was investigated by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (these are some of the best lawyers in the country bar none) and they could not find any basis for filing criminal charges against the police officer.
Michael Brown was shot in the front. All the credible witnesses and forensic evidence corroborated the cop’s story and all the conflicting stories came from witnesses that were not credible. Michael Browns hands were not in the air, he was shot in the front and forensic evidence shows that he was moving towards the cop. there are race problems in Ferguson but Michael brown is not good proof of a racist police department.
Wow, your States are a bit anal when it comes to printing or accidental uncovering of your concealed weapon. Here in Florida unintentional display is not a crime. I believe that if you carry your Wesson should be concealed. However, bending over, wind, etc. can cause your weapon to print through a shirt.
Carrying at all is very new in Illinois. The last state to allow concealed carry, and just a couple years ago at that, cops here are still trying to figure out how to handle us. So not only is the law one of the strictest, with qualifications being among the strictest, interpretation of said law is also the most conservative, as no current license holders want to push our luck. Maybe things will be different in another 10 years. Heck, there isn’t even a procedure in place yet for renewing our CCL, since they have two and a half (about, I think) more years to come up with one.
That’s an excellent piece and really illustrates the issue well - I know a lot about guns and a number of those fooled me; I’d hate to be trying to make a split-second decision on the matter as a police officer facing a potential threat.