# How do you feel about police?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-police/836309
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 30, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-police/836309 "2019-06-30T18:56:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 133

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### Author: ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-police/836309/133 "2019-07-11T13:56:29Z")

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> [@bump](#):
>
> …My point is that it’s a vanishingly tiny chance of actually getting killed at a traffic stop. Certainly not enough of one that requires cops to put their hands by their guns when they’re pulling someone over for an expired registration, or busted tail light.

Police in the U.S. seem to extend this aggressive approach to virtually every interaction they have with the public.

We had a local case where a mentally ill person off of his meds had a knife in his hand while standing in the middle of a field. He refused to drop the knife. The cops had him surrounded, but nobody was within 20-30 feet of him. He posed absolutely no danger to anyone other than himself. After a few minutes of this, the police opened fire on the man and killed him. ☹

I read about cases like this all the time. Police kill a person who poses little or no threat to them or anyone else. The police almost seem to be looking for a reason to use their guns to kill people, and the reason often simply boils down to their authority being questioned (even if it’s because the person is drunk, disturbed, mentally incapacitated, deaf, etc.).

In most interactions with the public, the police seem to have elevated their own personal safety above all other considerations. And for many police officers, if there is any threat, or even a potential threat, or even a theoretical threat, or maybe simply if they decide their instruction aren’t being followed, they deal with the threat the same way: with deadly force.

And they wonder why people fear and distrust them? :dubious:

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