Yes they can. They took an oath to do just that. Thats why we give them a parade when they take a bullet.
Wait. Seriously. You have claimed that “Tamir Rice was not a law abiding citizen”. What law did he break?
Many people lament the “millitarization” of police forces. Attitudes like this imply that there is an expectation for police officers to fight like soldiers. Even soldiers have some discretion WRT to suicidal orders. No police officer is required to get killed trying to protect you or save your ass. Police officers are trained and equipped to be better prepared to deal with emergency situations, they are not part of some kind of expendable organization lined up to take bullets for you. Police officers do not swear to take a bullet for anyone under any conditions. We give them parades and medals when they do because it is above and beyond the call of duty, not an expectation of it.
Cite for the “oath” all police officers that requires them to forfeit their right to self-defense in exchange for a posthumous parade?
Asked and answered upthread.
Nope.
The police have the unfortunate habit of decrying every effort to contain them within the constitution and protect the civil rights of WE CITIZENS as “making it harder for them to do their jobs”. My only answer to that kind of whining is “Then find another job”.
Smapti,
As I, unlike you, am not a dishonest, disingenuous sack of shit, I’ll just go through these cases in detail, just so you can try to support your original premise that “A law-abiding civilian has absolutely no cause or justification to be afraid of the police in any location where they have a right to be”. So, let’s start with the first two.
Kathryn Johnston, who according to you “Shot first, whereafter the police had the fair right to shoot back.”:
"Three officers had entered her home in what was later described as a ‘botched’ drug raid. Officers cut off burglar bars and broke down her door using a no-knock warrant. Police said Johnston fired at them and they fired in response; she fired one shot out the door over the officers’ heads and they fired 39 shots, five or six of which hit her. None of the officers were injured by her gunfire, but Johnston was killed by the officers. Police injuries were later attributed to “friendly fire” from each other’s weapons.
One of the officers planted marijuana in Johnston’s house after the shooting. Later investigations found that the paperwork stating that drugs present at Johnston’s house, which had been the basis for the raid, had been falsified. The officers later admitted to having lied when they submitted cocaine as evidence claiming that they had bought it at Johnston’s house. Three officers were tried for manslaughter and other charges surrounding falsification and were sentenced to ten, six, and five years."
Accelyne Williams, who according to you died of natural causes.
"Mr. Williams spent 40 years preaching throughout the Caribbean. The last moments of his life are described in graphic detail in the two reports.
After a team of police officers wearing helmets, fatigues and boots sledgehammered through his front door brandishing shotguns and 9-millimeter Glock pistols, Mr. Williams ran into a bedroom and locked the door behind him. The police broke through the bedroom door and tried to put him in handcuffs, shouting, “Boston police!” and “Get down on the floor!”
It took three police officers to handcuff the preacher, who was 5 feet 7 1/2 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. “He was flailing his hands,” one officer told the District Attorney’s investigators. “As he was being laid down on the floor, he was still struggling.”
With two officers holding his arms and a third pinning his legs, the police bound Mr. Williams’s hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs.
After going through the rest of the apartment to see if it was secure, the police noticed that Mr. Williams was vomiting. They called for an ambulance, which is routinely a block and a half away from raid sites, and then cut the cuffs from his wrists and rolled him onto his side. One officer “observed a loud exhale of air and the fluttering of his cheeks and lips,” the police report says. Williams suffered a heart attack and died."
So let’s start with these two, and your original claim that “A law-abiding civilian has absolutely no cause or justification to be afraid of the police in any location where they have a right to be.” So which was it? Were they not law abiding, or where they in a location where they had no right to be.
And please believe me. Every time you evade the answer (and of course you will, because you’re a reprehensible piece of shit) I will just bring you back to the same question I posed above. And then we’ll go through the rest of the list.
Just remind me. Where do you live?
I think it’s the UK … or maybe Canada. Can’t recall and may be mixing up folks.
I’m not sure I’d bother debating with Stephie on this anymore, unless it’s generally recreational in nature. It’s not a matter of fighting ignorance at this point; Stephie isn’t ignorant, but however often pretends to be. Like The Donald, and however many billion other folks on the planet, the ego in question is too fragile to admit possible error in judgment.
I’d be satisfied if one could get one of the goofballs to concede that the vast majority of cops … far more than the “majority” (which is probably about 50.001% of cops) that are good at it and suited to the job … do not have anything close to a very dangerous job (except to the extent they are on traffic-related duty). Quite a lot of the danger that the minority of police officers are put in tends to involve a matter of choice in terms of procedure and protocol.
One is far more likely to be seriously injured or die if one is in any of a solid dozen or two other professions, e.g., fisherman, logger or construction worker.
See I have no idea, but I have one hell of a suspicion he hails from a country where the police homicide rates are a fraction of the US, i.e. an undeniable example of a place where the police are not trusted beyond all doubt, which still remains a non-anarchy.
But Steophan is an utter wanker, and most likely lacks the self awareness necessary to see the contrast between his everyday life and the ideology he claims.
It’s in the interest of law abiding people to make it easy for the police to do their job. That five minutes they spend finding out who you are, or following you until you can be bothered to stop for them, is taxpayers money wasted, at minimum. It’s unlikely that the time wasted will lead to the cop not managing to get to somewhere he’s needed in an emergency in any given situation, but if everyone deliberately wasted as much police time as is legal, and cooperated as little as they can get away with, it will happen eventually.
The police work for you. Stop being an idiot and do what you can to help them.
Supposedly so. Now whereabouts is it you live again?
No, I live in a country where homicide is lower than the US in general, and the police are trusted because most people (except anarchists) realise that the only way to ensure your rights are respected is to employ people to stop those who would breach them. The UK, by the way.
It’s simple to change police behaviour - vote for politicians who will change the law to what you believe in, and will see it through. But instead, people here like to bitch, and those who don’t vote engage in violent “protests”.
But Steophan is an utter wanker, and most likely lacks the self awareness necessary to see the contrast between his everyday life and the ideology he claims.
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The only ideology I’m espousing is that respect for law and order, in a democracy, is necessary for a functioning society. Not sure how you think that contrasts with my everyday life, do you think I’m an Occupy idiot in disguise?
A shooting of man who had mental health issues and did not have Smaptis’ Flash like reflexes, in Toronto.
Nope, I think your idiocy is completely undisguised. Look at this sophomoric shite: “stop trusting the police and instead embrace anarchy”. What absolute bollocks. Of course we should not trust the police. No government body deservses implicit trust. They should be subject to scrutiny, and prepared to defend their actions at every turn. Are you really that fucking thick?
And you live in a country that manages to do a decent job of policing its people without routinely shooting its citizens. I note the US has now hit 500 police kills this year. By ratio of population, the UK should have seen 100 so far this year. Care to fill in the actual figure?
There’s a difference between scrutinising them and refusing to allow them to do the job you employed them to do. And no, they should not have to constantly defend themselves, any more than anyone else should have to defend the way they’re doing their job.
No-one here has guns, that’s why. You’ve chosen to allow almost unregulated carry of guns in much of your country, and in practice anyone, anywhere can get one easily. You figure out why there’s a difference… You might as well ask why more people are killed by police driving into them now compared to 100 years ago, the reason will exactly as much the fault of the police as the difference in shootings.
Again, I apologize, I have not been tracking this thread closely because it is FUBAR. Can you point me? I am truly curious why you think Tamir Rice was a criminal.
Except, as everyone here including you knows, no-one is refusing to allow anyone to do their job. Not even close to it. All that people are asking is that the police don’t use a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach, of the sort demonstrated in the myriad of cases listed above. Or more accurately, a “shoot first, realise you fucked up, plant some evidence” approach.
And yes, all government departments with extensive rights to detain or even shoot citizens should constantly be prepared to defend their actions. This is a concept well understood since Roman times, so you should be able to get your head around it.
In short, stop lying, stop playing sophomoric debating games, and stop pretending you’d accept British police treating you in the same way that US police routinely treat people, particularly if they happen to be non-white. Now fuck off and tidy up your room.
Correct.
And we are reconsidering the terms of their employment. Happens all the time in the real world.
What you are considering is a dysfunctional police force that won’t be able to recruit enough people to do the job when they find out they’re expected to die in the line of duty and aren’t allowed to defend themselves or enforce the law against hostile subjects.