This is government in its purest form.
I would suggest that the fearful people are the ones who agree that shutting down an entire major city for one criminal was appropriate. I think that Boston on Friday was a victim of “if it only saves one person” mentality.
Police with guns are scary? Okay. You know who is scarier than police with guns?
A person who had already killed at least four people, who wounded hundreds more, and whose whereabouts and additional armament were unknown. I expect an apology from the authorities if they inconvienenced me while trying to capture a dangerous criminal; I doubt that criminal would be as accommodating if he happened to choose my crawlspace for his last stand.
Actually, I’m far more likely to be killed by an errant/mistaken police bullet than a terrorist in most cases.
Police with guns aren’t scary. Police with guns pointed at my head, with some pull on an X pound trigger that is almost certainly greater than zero - that’s scary. Particularly police who are super hyped up, and prepared to fire at any time. I know they go through tremendous training, but I also know that cops make mistakes all the time, and I don’t want my cooperation to turn into an accidental homicide.
If the Bomber had taken me hostage, I wouldn’t be answering the door and allowing everyone in. If he was hiding in my house without my knowledge, what is gained by treating me as a dangerous threat?
Only because in “most cases” there are more police than terrorists in any given area. You are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than a terrorist as well.
In an extreme situation (such as the aftermath of a bomb explosion in a civilian area) I understand that the police are obligated to treat everyone, even law-abiding home owning taxpayers like myself, as a “dangerous threat” until prove otherwise.
Understand from where? I never got that memo.
I’m not sure what you are imagining would happen here. If he’s hiding in your house and you don’t know about it, I think you’d probably want them to find out before you stumble across him. If he’s holding you hostage, you might want the police to come.
Oh, and as I am at work and cannot watch a Youtube video with the sound on right now, and so I cannot hear the commentary, but at what times in the linked video do we have guns pointed at anyone’s head? I admit to not studying every frame, but I did not notice any unsafe gun handling by the officers in that video.
I’m going to assume your criteria for #1 being kindness and #2 not kind is your belief that the milk-bringer was non-complicit in #1 but was responsible for #2. That is the only logic I can imagine for you to denigrate the officer in #2, and yes, you did denigrate him by assuming it was his job as a cop to bring milk to people (WTF?) and not protect the public in the case of a bomber on the loose
I’ll make it real easy for you. #1 is kindness. #2 is also kindness, as the officer could simply have told him to get back into the house as they should have done instead of risking people’s lives by going out for food. Instead, he took it upon himself to do this act of kindness and reassure a family even while he was on duty and could have easily blown it off. In fact, it is MORE kind in example #2 because of the uniqueness of the situation and the danger involved, compared to #1 where neighbors would probably have been giving the family donations left and right.
I just have to say that the amount of revulsion against our LEOs is sometimes sickening. No, I have no problems with people being forced evacuated during that period. It was the right thing to do and had the bomber been able-bodied and decided to go down fighting, would probably save more than a few lives. Its easy to imagine a non-bloody Dzhokhar taking a family hostage and telling them to keep quiet and tell the cops to go away had the police procedures been different. Luckily it didn’t come to that, but the police performed admirably in forcing people to safety when some people would have preferred everyone cowering in their homes with a gun
I disagree with the logic here.
(1) Driving out of Watertown would be terrible. If the police let vehicle traffic out of Watertown, then that is a potential route for the suspect to escape. On Friday, no one was allowed to leave Watertown and I think that made sense.
(2) Everyone was safer in their own homes. Frankly, more comfortable too. If I had to go to my local park for the day that would seriously suck. Logistically it’s a nightmare too. What about food? Water? Toilets? I have all those things at home.
(3) When confronting a guy with explosives, creating exposed areas with high concentrations of people is… not a good idea.
So, where were these people headed? I agree with both your points, but I also saw numerous interviews with people who had been evacuated, and were just hanging around the downtown area outside the evacuation zone.
Apologies Sateryn, I took too many strident pills this morning.
There’s not a lot of context there, looks to me like this was a house that police were targeting to actively search, not just the house to house sweeps. There was footage on TV of a guy shooting vid as the police searched his house, and he’s not restrained or even prohibited from filming. He’s just following a few heavily armed cops through his house.
Looks to me like an outlier search posted up as what the normal sweeps were supposedly like.
If it’s in the best interest of the people for them to stay in the house, allow them to make that decision. The police shouldn’t be making a decision about what is safest for each individual. If you submit to the government having unlimited power whenever it sees fit, you are submitting to a system where there are no individual rights, only grants of privilege by the state.
People stayed in their houses voluntarily. It’s not like the rest of the country, you have to be smart to live around there.
Again, I may have missed something as I have not studied the events of last Friday in any great detail, but do we have any record of arrests, threatened arrests, or threats of harm to citizens who chose to disregard the 'shelter in place" request? It may be a moot point, as I admit to not hearing of any such attempts, and the situation may have been resolved too quickly for such things to develop.
They don’t have the information to make an informed decision, therefore one must be made for them
The police and LEOs are the ONLY ones that should be making this decision
All rights are granted by the state. See how well you fare in Somalia demanding people respect your god-given natural human rights. The state gives and enforces rights, and citizens are fine with that even if they don’t want to say it. In fact, citizens have allowed the state to take away certain rights in certain situations such as the one here. The only limit to their power is what the citizens grant them, and there are a lot more of us who felt that a forced evacuation in this situation was right and proper than people like you
LEOs are not the sole arbiter of one’s personal security.
If said homeowners were guilty of impeding police work, or whatever that crime is called, fine. Just say so, and tell why in Constitutional acceptable language
Whatever happened to “better x plus a lot go free than one innocent person be declred guilty.”
Obviously, the terrorists have won. Unceasing camera surveillance is heralded now in NYC “as a precaution.” One shoe bombs, national idiocy at the airports.
I have no doubt there will be many more “explosions in public.” Shall each be followed similarly?
They are on public property in these circumstances. You might have an argument if someone tried to go out in their backyard and someone stopped them. But they didn’t.
Who said any were? No one was accused of anything or charged with anything.
What innocent person was declared guilty? Or again, even accused or charged with anything?
People feel a lot safer when there are cameras. People who aren’t committing crimes anyway. And it wasn’t government cameras that identified these guys, it was citizens with cell phones and private business that installed cameras. Actually it wasn’t any cameras that caught these guys, it was tracking a cell phone after a carjacking that led to them being caught. Catching the little brother was actually due to a homeowner going out in his yard to look at his boat. I don’t recall that guy being arrested or charged with anything.
If there are more explosions I hope they are dealt with this way. What’s your alternative method? Invade the Czech Republic maybe?
What he said