# 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:** 131

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**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900/131 "2026-10-19T20:21:55Z")

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> [@Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-2/958428/2073):
>
> 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.

And you’d bet your life on that gut feel? That seems like an incredibly bad idea to me.

> [@Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-2/958428/2073):
>
> Many, if not most, cops would not take any chance, though, and would have immediately shot him multiple times.

In the specific incident caught on video? I doubt it - there was a guy tackling the gunman before the cop even reacted to the gun at all, and he had his hands on the gunman’s hands, so at that point joining in the tackle would actually be easier than getting a clear shot.

But in the general case, if you point a gun at a police officer, I expect that you will be shot, and I don’t think that’s a huge issue or something. Expecting police officers to let someone point a gun at them just on the off chance that they are bluffing is a ludicrous standard.

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