# Under what circumstances should a cop shooting someone be justified? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-what-circumstances-should-a-cop-shooting-someone-be-justified/919153 "2020-08-27T14:54:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 302
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-what-circumstances-should-a-cop-shooting-someone-be-justified/919153/302 "2020-09-03T18:35:43Z")
> [@MikeF](#): > > I’m late to this thread, didn’t take the time to read every post and am not sure who exactly said what. but here goes: That was evident. > [@MikeF](#): > > To those who say to, literally, do away with the police – what do you propose? When a guy steals your car from you at gunpoint, what is your next move? Or when you hear the neighbor beating the tar out of his wife or kids? How about the neighbor beating the tar out of **your** wife or kids? Laws are meaningless if there isn’t a way to enforce them. The naiveté around such a proposal is staggering. I’ll answer around all the straw that you are bailing here. Right now, if a guy steals your car at gunpoint, what is your next move? Did the police prevent it, did they protect you from the gun? What are the chances that you actually get it back? Your next move is to file a police report for insurance purposes, and that person needs a pen, not a gun. > [@MikeF](#): > > Or when you hear the neighbor beating the tar out of his wife or kids? Sounds like a call to CPS would be in order. We had a very recent story about a person that was upset about the noise in their neighboring apartment, and they claimed that it was domestic abuse in order to get the cops there sooner. The cops ended up shooting the guy when he came to the door, and made his significant other watch as he gasped his last breathes. > [@MikeF](#): > > How about the neighbor beating the tar out of **your** wife or kids? I’m always hearing that you shouldn’t rely on the cops for protection. In most places, the neighbor will be able to keep beating on your wife and kids for quite a while, maybe a couple hours, before a cop arrives to take a report. > [@MikeF](#): > > The naiveté around such a proposal is staggering. As is the idea that such a proposal has been given. > [@MikeF](#): > > You want to turn over “non-law enforcement” tasks to someone else? Great! Most cops would be more than happy to have someone else respond to barking dog complaints, parking disputes, car crashes, landlord- tenant problems and medical calls. All you have to do is find, train and pay that someone else to be available 24 hours a day. You could probably reduce police staffing through attrition, if nothing else. Exactly, you just described exactly what we mean by “Defund the police.” > [@MikeF](#): > > To the idea that there has to have been found, after the fact, an actual and not merely perceived threat, before an officer can use force – good luck with that. A threat, like an someone pointing a modified airsoft gun at the cop or a civilian, that’s a pretty decent looking threat, even if it turns out not to be. A threat, like a person reaching into their car when asked for their driver’s license? Not so much. > [@MikeF](#): > > To say the cops should actually wait until the other guys fires the first shot before he can shoot is completely unrealistic Once again, more straw than substance, but I would say that, if it means that occasionally a criminal manages to get a shot off first, then yes, it is a risk that the officer’s should take, rather than to shoot anyone that might possibly have a weapon. To the rest of the straw you have piled on, no, because no one has actually said any of that. except this part: > [@MikeF](#): > > It sounds as though you are O.K. with risking the lives of police and that suspect safety should come first. Why? Why does an officer’s life deserve less priority than a suspect’s? Yes, because a suspect is innocent until proven guilty. Just because someone is a suspect does not mean that they have actually done anything worthy of arrest, much less death. There is a difference between a suspect and an active threat. A suspect is someone who may match the description of someone who stole a candy bar from the drug store, and yes, their safety should come ahead of that of the officer’s. They may not even be the thief, much less a threat. The officer is the one who is creating the dangerous situation in that case, and so should bear the greater danger from it. Someone who actually has a weapon and is using it is not a suspect, they are an active threat, and should be dealt with by the least lethal means at the cops’ disposal to end the threat. Sometimes the least lethal means will end up being lethal, sadly. > [@MikeF](#): > > Does anyone really believe that there is more crime in a given area because there are more police to find it? Yes, absolutely. That is the entire point behind proactive policing. Now, if you take that away, does it even things out? Probably not, as poverty does tend to increase crime, and so the more impoverished areas probably do have higher crime. But, by going out and looking to find someone to arrest for something, you are going to find something to arrest them for. We had a guy that was shot recently where the crime that he was stopped for was improperly riding a bicycle. Tell me the last time that happened in a middle class neighborhood to a white person that lived there? How many stop and frisks went down in the suburbs, rather than near low income housing? If you are stopping and frisking people in one area, and not in another, you are going to find more people holding onto contraband in the areas that you are stopping and frisking them then in the places that you are not. > [@MikeF](#): > > If 80% of the calls for service come from the 12th District, doesn’t it make sense to deploy 80% of your manpower there? Its common sense that you don’t deploy resources where they are not needed. 80% of the calls are not coming from those areas. Most of the people in those areas know very well not to call the police, as the police will just make things worse. > [@MikeF](#): > > Finally (for now), a cop can’t simply say “I thought he was going for a gun” and be cleared in a shooting. Correct, he has to write a long winded narrative, at the end of which, he says, “I thought he was going for a gun”. Of course he is going to claim he felt his life was in danger, and create a narrative that justifies it. Any movement can be construed as a deadly threat. > [@MikeF](#): > > If you haven’t already, read Graham v Connor cited above. Yeah, it calls for a reasonableness standard, which is reasonable. But, it is interpreted by the cop’s peers and colleagues, so has become more and more unreasonable to anyone who is not a part of the blue brotherhood. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/under-what-circumstances-should-a-cop-shooting-someone-be-justified/919153)._