Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread

[septimus]

I saw a particularly intelligent post in another thread:

@MandaJo

I tend to agree that it’s very bad practice to ever threaten with a gun. If you have a gun and think you are in danger for your life and it’s the only way to protect yourself, you shoot. If you have a gun, but do not think your life is in danger, you do other stuff–call 911 and lock your bedroom door, go out the back door, whatever.

But there’s no point in threatening with a gun. It’s pointless escalation, because now the other person is afraid they might die, and scared people do stupid things.

If someone is genuinely in a corner and has no way of knowing what’s going on (like they wake up with a stranger in their bedroom, for example), I don’t think they have to warn anyone. But if someone is in their own bedroom, hears someone downstairs, gets out their gun and goes to confront them instead of calling 911, and then shoots them after a warning, that’s wrong. It never had to come to that.

How does this apply to “encounters between law-enforcement and civilians”? We have ample demonstration that some cops do not properly assess and avoid personal danger.
A very clear example is the Tamir Rice killing.:
Why couldn’t the cops have kept their guns holstered and made at least a token effort to hail the victim from several tens of yards away? The victim’s “weapon” was holstered and most insane psychopaths are not quick-draw sure-shots.

If one assumes that the cops in the Rice killing were thinking rationally, we must conclude they gave little weight to the victim’s survival.