# Police prioritizing their own personal safety over that of the public

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 16, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900 "2026-10-16T20:24:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 129

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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:** [October 19, 2026, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900/129 "2026-10-19T20:02:18Z")

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> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Wow! If that’s the case, then I don’t blame them for prioritizing their own lives. Did it occur to you that the “waving around gun” might discharge and kill an innocent bystander?
> 
> This is a prime example of how we have gone overboard in putting a criminal’s rights before the rights of the victims and of the people who are supposed to stop them.

So because an innocent bystander _might_ get injured (even though in many, if not the majority, of cases there is nobody else in the vicinity), the police should go ahead and summarily execute them?

Which is essentially the standard practice. Even though officially their training says they are supposed to be using less-lethal options if at all possible.

Here’s an alternative, as noted in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-2/958428/1979).

A shoplifting suspect actually pulled a gun on a police officer. But the loss-prevention officer and the armed police officer managed to immediately disarm and subdue the suspect without shooting him to death.

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fFcg7E9pAZw/maxresdefault.jpg "Bodycam video captures shoplifting suspect pulling a gun on Ohio officer") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFcg7E9pAZw)

As I wrote in [that thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-2/958428/2073):

> [@Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-2/958428/2073):
>
> IOW, he managed to do what many police do not.
> 
> Watching the video, it was fairly evident to me that if the kid was going to shoot, he already would have. Ergo, he probably wasn’t going to shoot, and was [stupidly] trying to intimidate the loss-prevention officer into releasing them. Many, if not most, cops would not take any chance, though, and would have immediately shot him multiple times.
> 
> Kudos to this officer for _not_ doing that. He should serve as an example to other cops.

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