No, I expect the cops to fight back using ordinary guns or accurate rifles, and only if they can guarantee that the bullets aren’t of such a high calibre that they pose a risk to non-targets. This is a civilian urban area and a densely populated one at that. The Police chose to use dynamite dropped from a helicopter, a substance that doesn’t belong outside of a quarry or a warzone, and I’m dubious that US law authorises the use of such methods- hence the scandal of there being no investigation or conviction for what happened. Do you advocate 60 innocent households losing their homes to Police detonated fires because they happened live in the same street as criminals? Would you be willing to suffer burn marks on your person because the perps & the police outsourced their battle scars onto you? Because the 1985 MOVE Bombing was something I would expect from a drug addled Vietnam vet with a license to kill, it has virtually nothing in common with everyday cases of Police excessive force such as (possibly) the Ferguson MO. Which is a roundabout way of going back to the OP, the little I’ve heard of Ferguson suggests the man was killed by an ordinary service weapon so doesn’t have much relevance to the topic of police militarisation.
Violent crime in the US has gone down, not up, so there is no indication of a rising level of aggressiveness that would push the police to match it.
I am not clear on what you meant by “worse”. I assume you aren’t saying that single-action firearms are worse than semi-auto. Did you mean fully automatic weapons? If so, could you provide a cite of some sort that “everybody and his dog” possess fully automatic weapons and use them against the police?
This is not agreed on.
The police allegedly did not connect Brown with the robbery until he saw that Brown had the cigarillos allegedly stolen from the store. So you are correct that the officer did not connect Brown with the robbery when he saw Brown and his companion blocking traffic, but did connect him almost immediately after that.
So far, the only facts that I am aware of that are established with any kind of certainty are:
[ul][li]Brown stole the cigars and assaulted the clerk a few minutes earlier. (IIRC Brown’s companion and his lawyer both stipulated to this.)[/li][li]Somebody struck the officer in the face. (IIRC there are medical records of an orbital fracture suffered by the arresting officer).[/li][li]Brown was not shot in the back.[/ul][/li]Apart from that, we have conflicting accounts of everything.
Regards,
Shodan
Violent crime has generally gone down in recent decades all over the western world, mainly because of demographics. That has nothing to do with this discussion. I’ve never claimed that guns “cause” crime, I’ve claimed that guns make violent behaviors far more deadly than they otherwise would be, and they do so pretty much in direct proportion to their numbers.
What I’m saying is that when the population is heavily armed and guns are as common as toothbrushes, police can expect to be shot at and will be equipped and trained accordingly. This is hardly a controversial observation. And police need to have weapons that are at least as good as what the average lunatic can buy down at the corner gun shop.
Of course it has to do with the discussion. You claimed that there was a rising level of aggressiveness in addition to a rising level of crime committed by “worse” weapons than semi-automatics. We have already seen that there is no evidence of such rising levels of aggression, and you have not provided a cite that crimes committed with “worse” weapons are common or rising significantly.
That’s nice. Since I never said you did, I am not sure why you would deny it, nor why you would enclose a word in quotes as if I had used it.
Regards,
Shodan
RickJay - you are correct. No one is forced to become a cop. If it is viewed as simply too dangerous then one can seek other employment. That said, when you task someone with doing a job you may want to let them them decide which tools are best suited for the work, particularly when it comes their safety. Are you going to hire a iron worker and then tell him you don’t like he harness he is using? Sure, you are paying him and have the final say in that you can say, “Do it my way. If you don’t like it, seek work elsewhere.” Dead iron workers are just the price of building skyscrapers, right?
Like it or not, patrol rifles are an absolute necessity in today’s world. Two deputies dead in West Memphis at the hands of a 16 year old with an AK 47. The Newtown killer armed with an AR 15. The Aurora killer with an AR 15. The Pittsburgh killer of three cops with an AK 47. The North Hollywood bank robbery with fully automatic AKs. The list goes on. A Navy SEAL with a handgun is no match for someone even moderately proficient with a rifle. The cops didn’t start the arms race, they just responded to what they were facing.
It doesn’t matter how commonly or uncommonly these types of weapons are employed by criminals. It only has to happen once to you and if you are under-equipped it may cost you and others their lives.
To be clear I don’t automatically side with the police but, having “been there, done that” I find that the general public doesn’t really understand he reality of police work. Especially what happens in use-of-force encounters. They base their beliefs on what Hollywood puts out, which is 90% bullshit.
There are plenty of bad cops out there. Just as there are plenty bad journalists, elected officials, lawyers, doctors, etc. Just don’t paint them all with the same brush. The vast majority of cops do their best at a very difficult job.
As a side effect, I wonder if, perhaps in the next few years, a white cop will be killed by a black assailant because he hesitated to shoot his assailant for fear of a “Ferguson” or “Trayvon” media incident.
Trayvon Martin was killed two and a half years ago. Are you aware of any such incidents since then?
Stop bothering us with the facts!
No, but the Ferguson and Trayvon incidents add up for cumulative effect. And the past doesn’t necessarily predict the future.
If you do a search, you might be shocked to find out that this is not the first death of an unarmed black guy since 2012. And of course Trayvon Martin was not killed by a cop. Even if he had been, that wouldn’t have made him the first.
It would be nice to believe that is is a tipping point and that there will be less of this kind of violence in the future. I think it’s plausible that this will affect the trend of hyper-arming the police. In reality, lots of unarmed black guys (and sometimes women) are killed the the police, including plenty who’ve been killed in the last 2 1/2 years. I’m not aware that the Martin killing had any effect. If there was an effect, it didn’t help John Crawford, for instance. So it’s sort of hard to believe it’ll have an effect in the future. The speculation is kind of absurd. Cops seem to be pretty quick on the trigger in general these days, the idea that they’ll get particularly gunshy with black guys is hard to swallow.
No, the drop in violent crime over the past decades has about as much to do with this discussion as the weather, yet this is at least the second or third time that you and/or others have brought up “falling crime rate” in defense of guns, presumably because it’s the only argument you’ve got. And it’s utterly not the point. The point is that any act of violence – a robbery, a vindictive assault, a crime of passion, even a suicide – is much more likely to result in a fatality when a gun is involved.
Please point out where I ever said anything about “rising levels of aggression”. You misunderstood me. What I’m saying is that when you’re policing in an environment in which deadly firearms are readily available to every citizen and every random lunatic, the police have to step up their level of aggression in terms of how they use firearms – for example, drawing their pistols at almost any perceived threat, including (shockingly often) at traffic stops, an offense for which, in another country, an officer might be seriously disciplined or fired. And drawing your gun is one step away from using it, as just happened in Ferguson – not once, but twice.
I’ve seen many traffic stops at the North Little Rock PD radar traps near home, and I have never seen a cop drawn his weapon. Even with the guy who ran from them. 
And the tubby gray haired motorcycle cop is an asshole.
Have you ever seen it?
Oh, fuck the military. The "militarization"of the police has been ongoing since 9/11. Ferguson is only a signpost. I get tired of hearing about all those American “heros” who joined-up for looking for a job. They used to be called soldiers. Now they’re just mercenaries sent off to protect American corporate interests and to wage holy war against the Islamic Zealots.
It was the only thing Dubya ever got right; “We are engaged in a holy war”. (9-12-2001) He was never heard to say that a second time.
I learned the above lesson about guns when I was 9. I killed a bleujay just because I could. I decided I’d never kill again, on the spot. So far, so good.
A quick Google will reveal numerous incidents, some of which were videocammed and it looked like they were used to doing this routinely – i.e.- gun comes out first, then they assess the situation. I’m not saying it happens all the time, but it sure seems to happen more often than it should, which – barring an actual known threat – should basically be never. One cop even acknowledged – after he was disciplined for pointing a gun at a teenage girl during a traffic stop – that he was reacting to having recently had a fellow officer shot to death. Which is exactly my point.
Also: the immediate cause of this uproar is a police officer shooting and killing an unarmed man. I don’t think too many police will die because they hesitate to shoot unarmed people.
That pretty well sucks.
Do you have links for these “Google is my friend?”
Thanks.
This is the one I was describing:
Here are some others:
http://www.policemag.com/videos/channel/patrol/2010/08/speeding-motorcyclist-records-trooper-s-off-duty-gun-draw.aspx
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/13/dashcam-shows-deputy-shooting-70-year-old-man-at-traffic-stop-but-what-cop-did-next-might-be-the-biggest-shock/
But this is why police are justifiably skittish:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/police-on-scene-of-officer-involved-shooting-in-bo/ngNtm/
As I said earlier, when any lunatic that breathes can buy a semi-automatic pistol or an assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine, police are likely to get shot at by said lunatics, and they govern themselves accordingly.
Thanks, Wolfpup.
I am surprised.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s what is on the mind of an officer on the cusp of using deadly force. “Gee, I wonder if there will be negative publicity if I kill this person.”
I’d say it’s equally likely a white cop will be shot by a terrified black person carrying a legal handgun who presents a plausible defense that he was in fear of his life. It’s going to happen sooner or later.
To use the example of the poor Kelly Thomas (a white man, but the situation works for illustration) who was threatening no one and just sitting down when a cop told him point blank he was going to beat him up, had Thomas been carrying a gun, what’s to stop him from drawing it and killing the cop at that moment? His case for self defense would have been pretty solid. He was being threatened with grievous bodily harm. He had clear reason to believe that threat was not an idle one. He had not attacked or threatened the cop, Manny Ramos, in any way.
Or how about Officer Go Fuck Yourself?
He walks up to a man going about his business, points an automatic weapon at him, and says “I will fucking kill you.” Had that man been carrying a gun, he could quite plausibly have drawn and killed the officer - well, assuming the officer was really slow on the trigger - and claimed in court that he was in imminent fear of his life. Why not? I would add that it appears to me Missouri does include a duty to retreat in its self defense laws, but one could plausibly argue that they felt they could not retreat froma man with an automatic weapons standing just five feet away ; it’d be hard to outrun those bullets. Sooner or later this is going to happen and someone will die who didn’t need to. If the police are intent on escalating the baseline level of violence of their interaction with the public, then it will escalate, and at some point someone is going to be in a situation where they are frightened of a cop going off the handle, and they’re going to kill him, and the jury will say “Not Guilty,” and that is not going to make things better.
I’ll tell you this; if I was a black guy living in a place like St. Louis I’d be scared of cops, and I’d get a legal carry permit as soon as it could be arranged. Most cops are good people but it is inescapably the fact that black people are harassed and mistreated to an extent a lot of white folks really do not comprehend.