# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 481
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9602 "2016-10-07T01:50:05Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Maybe I didn’t express myself clearly, … > > I suppose Taser-ing him was an option, but as I previously mentioned, a knife is deadly force, and calls (IMO) for something more, and more certain, than a less-than-lethal option like a Taser. You “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight”, and you don’t bring a Taser to a knife fight. > > I have never trained with or used or received a Taser. I have trained in knife disarms. And almost the first thing my _sensei_ said was that a knife disarm is a low-percentage move - the last, worst choice. …But it’s been months, and even after nitpicking every damn thing, the worst that can be found is that one of the cops said something insensitive about hitting said looney with a car. I’ve tried disarming people with magic markers as well. You have to get a little lucky to get inside the attack without getting a sharpie shoved in your gut but a taser can shoot someone from across the street, from behind a car door (which might not be bulletproof but is probably knife proof). Its not the comment that bothers me, its the actually trying to run someone over with a car that bothers me. I might be wrong but that seems extreme for a knife when you have four guys with guns and tasers. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9603 "2016-10-07T01:55:01Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Sorry to jump in on a conversation I’m not a part of, but so far you’ve identified only one person who thought the tasering wasn’t justified, and you’re not responding to them. Why don’t we let Csarcazm tell us if he thinks the tasering was justified. So czarcasm, was the tasering justified or not? Because if he was justifed, then what the fuck are you arguing about? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9604 "2016-10-07T01:57:22Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > How convenient for the police. As convenient as how you ascribe things to other people and then declare them facts. You are a fucking retard if you can’t see the sarcasm in that post. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9605 "2016-10-07T04:28:47Z")
This probably deserves its own thread but I’ll put it here. A very troubling article on the Chicago PD [Code of Silence](https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/in-the-chicago-police-department-if-the-bosses-say-it-didnt-happen-it-didnt-happen/). We can’t get body cameras soon enough. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9606 "2016-10-07T04:30:29Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why don’t we let Csarcazm tell us if he thinks the tasering was justified. > > So czarcasm, was the tasering justified or not? > > Because if he was justifed, then what the fuck are you arguing about? I have no idea what the idiot who can’t spell my name the same way two times in a row is blathering about, since I haven’t commented at all about tasering. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9607 "2016-10-07T05:43:13Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you think the police are any less trustworthy than the average citizen? Isn’t this the crux of the debate? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9608 "2016-10-07T07:15:56Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No its not like measles. There are a couple dozen shootings being highlighted and half of them are justifiable… How very reassuring. Only half, then, are unjustifiable? Why, whatever are these people complaining about? > [@](#): > > …Some scholars have concluded that there is not a bias against blacks in police shootings. Some others have concluded differently. Quite differently. For instance: > **[What the Data Really Says About Police and Racial Bias](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias)** > > Eighteen academic studies, legal rulings, and media investigations shed light on the issue roiling America. **WHAT THE DATA REALLY SAYS ABOUT POLICE AND RACIAL BIAS** Just one: > [@](#): > > …The Department of Justice’s investigation into the behavior of police in Ferguson, Missouri, found … “Officers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority,” the report’s authors wrote. “They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence.”… (emphasis added) At the very least, the issue is nowhere nearly so settled or so reassuring as you imply. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9609 "2016-10-07T11:13:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No its not like measles. There are a couple dozen shootings being highlighted and half of them are justifiable. > > There is a problem with cops covering for each other and there is a problem with police departments refusing to implement body cams that are being paid for by federal grants and there is a problem with insufficient training and counseling but this big fat problem is largely a perception that may or may not be backed up by statistics. There _are_ no statistics. Even experts and federal guys who \*want \*to track this stuff can’t. Nobody in the US can tell you how many police shootings have happened last month, let alone how many were maybe not on the up-and-up. That’s kind of a big part of the issue. And no, it’s not innocent - the HHS knows exactly how many cases of the measles there have been, for comparison. To the single digit. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9610 "2016-10-07T16:32:45Z")
This article might be interesting for the police apologists–I’m not naming anyone, but why do their user names always start with “S”? [Operation Smoke and Mirrors](https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/in-the-chicago-police-department-if-the-bosses-say-it-didnt-happen-it-didnt-happen/) > [@](#): > > “I call it Operation Smoke and Mirrors,” she said at the time. “If four bosses in the department say it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.” > > While the term “code of silence” evokes something essential — the coerced silence of police officers who observe but do not report abuses by their fellow officers — it is, in some respects, a misnomer, a euphemism. The practices to which it refers are less a matter of silence than of tightly orchestrated lying and various means used to maintain narrative control. > > Today, in the wake of the political upheaval in Chicago precipitated by the Laquan McDonald case, the CPD has lost control of the narrative. This creates space for Shannon Spalding’s voice finally to be heard. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9611 "2016-10-07T16:45:35Z")
Its nice that Damuri didn’t suffer from auditory exclusion in most of his stressful incidents. But it did happen at least once and studies show that it is the rule, rather than the exception, for most officer-involved in shootings. I don’t know of any studies concerning suspects and auditory exclusion. Perhaps they suffer it, as well. However, when an officer visually perceives a deadly threat directed at him he doesn’t the option of complying/submitting. The criminal suspect does but that’s not how they’ve been thinking up until that point. Sometimes they change their mind and sometimes they don’t. BTW, hysterical deafness, as far as I can tell, is more of a long term deafness usually as the result of some psychological shock. Auditory exclusion is temporary, lasts a matter of seconds and results from acute fear-induced stress. I know using the term “hysterical” commonly invokes visions of some crazed person and maybe that is the intent. It isn’t really accurate, though. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9612 "2016-10-07T17:07:39Z")
> [@MikeF](#): > > I don’t know of any studies concerning suspects and auditory exclusion. Perhaps they suffer it, as well. Or, they’re not available to study because of confounding factors like lead poisoning? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9613 "2016-10-07T18:11:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I have no idea what the idiot who can’t spell my name the same way two times in a row is blathering about, since I haven’t commented at all about tasering. So you can’t even answer the simply question of whether or not the tasering was justified? I think you can, but you don’t want to because it will reveal how pointless your posts have been. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9614 "2016-10-07T18:15:15Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > Isn’t this the crux of the debate? No. there are several people on this board who think that the police shouldn’t be getting special treatment (right up until someone points out that in most of the cases, the police probably met the same standards for using lethal force that everyone else has to meet when they use lethal force). Several people have been getting bent out of shape about whether or not Terence Crutcher was ever actually given an order to stop or get on the ground as half a dozen cops followed him with guns drawn as he approached his car. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9615 "2016-10-07T18:25:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > How very reassuring. Only half, then, are unjustifiable? Why, whatever are these people complaining about? Not half of all police shootings. Half of the police shooting that they are protesting and rioting and looting over. > [@](#): > > Some others have concluded differently. Quite differently. For instance: > > [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias) > > **WHAT THE DATA REALLY SAYS ABOUT POLICE AND RACIAL BIAS** > > Just one: > (emphasis added) > > At the very least, the issue is nowhere nearly so settled or so reassuring as you imply. I’m not implying that is settled. that was the point of bringing up the new study to imply that the common wisdom that there is significant racial disparity between when blacks get shot and when whites get shot might not be as simple as it first appears. I think the EASY argument to make is that blacks get shot more frequently than whites considering their higher rate of getting shot by police. I think that most of the studies cited in your vanity fair article are restating in different ways. I think the new study is remarkable because it is the first study to NOT say that blacks get shot more often. I think blacks probably DO get shot more often, I think cops probably DO have a conscious or subconscious fear of black men that affects their decision making when it comes to use of force. But I think the new study casts some doubt on the common belief that the disparity is as large as we might believe. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9616 "2016-10-07T18:27:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > There _are_ no statistics. Even experts and federal guys who \*want \*to track this stuff can’t. Nobody in the US can tell you how many police shootings have happened last month, let alone how many were maybe not on the up-and-up. > That’s kind of a big part of the issue. And no, it’s not innocent - the HHS knows exactly how many cases of the measles there have been, for comparison. To the single digit. Since the Michael Brown case, we know of pretty much every police killing in this country. Its not self reported, its media compiled data. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9617 "2016-10-07T18:34:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Since the Michael Brown case, we know of pretty much every police killing in this country. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9618 "2016-10-07T18:45:58Z")
> [@MikeF](#): > > Its nice that Damuri didn’t suffer from auditory exclusion in most of his stressful incidents. But it did happen at least once and studies show that it is the rule, rather than the exception, for most officer-involved in shootings. I don’t know of any studies concerning suspects and auditory exclusion. Perhaps they suffer it, as well. However, when an officer visually perceives a deadly threat directed at him he doesn’t the option of complying/submitting. The criminal suspect does but that’s not how they’ve been thinking up until that point. Sometimes they change their mind and sometimes they don’t. And THAT is the problem. I can understand auditory exclusion in a fight or flight scenario. But Officer Shelby had half a dozen officers right next to her. All with guns drawn on an unarmed guy who was practically staggering to his car with his hands in the air. If that level of threat is enough to trigger these instincts, then she probably isn’t the cop you want next to you when things REALLY go sideways. We give cops extraordinary power in order to maintain a civil society. Cops have a virtual monopoly on the use of force when they are NOT being threatened. They can mace, taser and beat suspects into compliance even if their lives are not being threatened. Shouldn’t we select for cops who don’t get so stressed out when they have their gun drawn next to half a dozen fellow officers who ALSO have their gun drawn, all trained on an unarmed guy staggering to his car with his hands in the air? I’m not implying anything about her motives or intentions, I am willing to accept that she didn’t want to kill Terence Crutcher and that she probably thought that her life was in danger (ergo manslaughter rather than murder) but ISTM that this was an unreasonable fear (ergo manslaughter rather than self defense) considering the circumstances and if she was so scared that she went deaf (like I did when I stared out a plane door into 10,000 drop), maybe she shouldn’t be running around with a gun and the authority to use that gun to enforce the law. Similarly, I should probably not be an airborne ranger or any of those special forces that require me to be in control of myself as i jump out of a plane. > [@](#): > > BTW, hysterical deafness, as far as I can tell, is more of a long term deafness usually as the result of some psychological shock. Auditory exclusion is temporary, lasts a matter of seconds and results from acute fear-induced stress. I know using the term “hysterical” commonly invokes visions of some crazed person and maybe that is the intent. It isn’t really accurate, though. Sure, and I can accept that shelby might otherwise be a good officer but isn’t this a disqualifying feature for a police officer? Its not really her life that was in danger in that situation but the fact that she perceived her life to be in danger in that situation to the point of going deaf seems like a disqualifying factor. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9619 "2016-10-07T18:47:26Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Cite? The New York times article on the study that I cited earlier. Kinda like how you can compile every mass shooting in America since sandy hook well before the FBI releases statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9620 "2016-10-08T00:09:29Z")
Yo’, **luci** , I’m only back for a moment (still got chit to do, sorry) but I found an actual ground level video that shows Crutcher reaching for his door shortly before being shot. I hope you have a large monitor for full screen purposes as that’s what you’ll need if you want to actually see him doing this, as the _Times_ for some reason chose that exact moment to darken the screen in order to add some text that could easily have been added at some other point in the video. But despite the fact that several of the thread’s posters have already discussed having seen him do this you would have us believe you remain skeptical, here’s proof: > **[Video: Shooting of Terence Crutcher by Tulsa Police](https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004660026/shooting-of-terence-crutcher-by-tulsa-police.html?smid=pl-share)** > > The Tulsa Police Department released video on Monday of a white police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Okla. And no, **Damuri** , I never said men couldn’t rape boys. **Evil Economist** is a troll who follows me around posting lies about what I said in an effort to goad me into re-arguing the Joe Paterno issue outside its intended thread. Believe him at your own peril. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9621 "2016-10-08T02:15:42Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And no, **Damuri** , I never said men couldn’t rape boys. **Evil Economist** is a troll who follows me around posting lies about what I said in an effort to goad me into re-arguing the Joe Paterno issue outside its intended thread. Believe him at your own peril. I only glanced at that Paterno thread, but I came away with you saying the rape in the shower between Sandusky and a boy wasn’t physically possible, because of the stance or some shit–hence your weird cardboard tube defense! Your opinions are forever tainted, Pedophile and cop apologist! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=480) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=482)