Without in any way defending bad shoots, if I try to look at this objectively I have to wonder if we’re facing a basic human problem here.
If you put people in a situation where under reacting can result in their immediate death, while over reacting may result in some negative consequence, drastic or not, next week or next month or next year, maybe we shouldn’t be all that surprised when they sometimes over react. Add to that the biases that our culture instills in all of us at some level and we have a very difficult problem.
Can they be trained to not be affected (or as affected) by that equation? I don’t know. Maybe someone here knows something about this kind of training and how effective it really is.
Are there psychological types that aren’t affected, or affected less, by that equation, and if there are, is there any accurate way to test for those traits? And if the answers to those two questions are yes and yes, then would we be selecting for psychopaths who may be dangerous for other reasons? I don’t know.
This leads me to wonder if there isn’t some way to avoid that equation altogether. -Warning, wacky scifi speculation coming up.- Suppose we could replace police, at least in some situations, with a much more advanced version of something like a bomb squad robot? Not something autonomous, but something controlled remotely from the safety of a squad car several blocks away, or maybe in the basement of the police station. There are obviously some issues with something like this. Physical distance can lead to emotional distance - making officers less effective in, for example, domestic squabbles, which can be one of the most dangerous situations they face on a daily basis. It could help if they looked, sounded, and moved like a real human but I doubt that it could be as effective as actual physical presence.
It sounds whacky, I know, and it may be a little while before our technology reaches that level, but maybe?
The police use heat-seeking bullets. Black people absorb more heat.
Also, black people tend to have denser bodies. We’re like little black holes. Once a bullet enters a black person’s event horizon, it is inevitable he or she is gonna get shot.
We also have magnetic personalities. Bullets can’t help but to be attracted to us.
I wrote my dissertation on this topic. PM me for citations.
Not all that far. We have telepresense bots, basically an ipad on a segway. Could just have one of those pop out of the trunk at traffic stops, and allow the interaction to happen without the officer ever leaving his car. Use that for “walking the beat” in urban areas. 360 degree vision, low light and infrared capability, and obviously recording all interactions could make them more effective for promoting order than just uniformed men armed with guns wandering about.
The robot has no reason to be in fear, and therefore no reason to ever shoot first. In fact, the robot has no reason to be armed at all. If someone decides to destroy the robot rather than take their citation, then that property damage will be added to their crime docket.
If you have violent or extremely resistant criminals (refuse to show up for court), then police officers with both non-lethal and lethal force and the ability and training to use proper escalation of force to enforce the law can bring the suspect in, or at least eliminate the threat to public safety.
Didn’t call it malicious - just false. And absurd since if the cop wasn’t shooting at the man with the supposed gun, what was he shooting at? A cop shooting at a man with a truck is evil, one shooting at someone with a truck he stupidly thinks has a gun is incompetent, and I’ll pick incompetent over evil any day.
That’s pretty good but I think the bolded section should read: "Once a police officer enters a black person’s event horizon, it is inevitable the black person is gonna get shot.
The sudden gravitational pull on the LEO creates an optical illusion that makes the police office believe that the black person is charging at them.
The incident we are discussing is infuriating, but those of you criticizing Bricker are … well, I’ll just say misguided.
To me it was obvious that he just brought up the hypothetical “if C said A had a gun, and shot A, then I (might) believe A”, just to contrast with what actually happened: C said A had a gun, and so C shot B and when asked why gave an idiotic response.
Thank you. But in the real world of publishing scientific manuscripts after peer reviews (which I’m more than sure some of us go through), I will resubmit with the amended title:
Higher Levels of Epidermal Melanin Predisposes for Acute Lead Toxicity: Case Studies.
The officer saying “I don’t know,” is strong evidence that he did not try to shoot the other man and miss. If he had been aiming for the other man, his response to the question about why he shot the injured man would have been, “I was aiming for the other guy,” or something else along those lines.
Odd that you’re able to clearly see that. Do you have special glasses, and can you send other participants in this thread the address to buy similar glasses?
I can see it, and I say that as someone not ordinarily inclined to defend you or even cut you much slack.
You said you didn’t believe the officer’s explanation for the shooting because it was inconsistent with the facts. You gave an example of a counterfactual situation where you would have been willing to believe the officer, presumably to highlight the difference between what actually happened and what would have needed to have happened to make the officer’s story seem plausible.
What may have been potentially confusing about your original post was that you began by saying the 911 caller reported seeing a man with a gun, which might have primed people to expect the rest of the post to be in support of the police officer’s “I was shooting at the man I thought had a gun” explanation. But it should have quickly become apparent that this was not the case.
This has no relevance to the topic however. Kinsey was the guy whose life was supposedly in danger. Aleddo was under no direct threat even if Rios had been armed with a gun.
In the interest of precision, the victim says the officer said “I don’t know.” Perhaps we should wait for some nonconflicting official statements for another perspective.
It may turn out the officer was simply excitedly asking the man he’d just shot for his identification, but shortly presuming he didn’t have any. “I.D.? No?” If we’re going to indulge hypotheticals, why not that one?