Under what circumstances should a cop shooting someone be justified?

Great Debates
141

That’s it. That’s what drives it. The rest of the world’s developed societies have managed to exist quite happily without have a huge proportion of civilians carrying guns - in some cases encouraged to do so by community elected officials.

OK - that’s what your society has agreed to. But just some of the consequences of that include:

A massively higher murder rate amongst civilians.
A genuine concern amongst police that any encounter with the public may involve guns which leads to the police reaching for their guns as a first resort in any confrontation - even a routine traffic stop.

If you want to lower the number of murders and police shootings in the USA, you need to first remove the fetishisation about gun ownership before you can make any real progress.

142

OK, how about this? Police and their advocates frequently say that what’s most important to the cop is to be able to go home alive at the end of the night. So let’s follow through on that idea.

Suppose a cop kills someone on the job. He’s going to say that it was necessary, because he was in a situation where his life was under threat. Well, if he doesn’t have the skills to keep himself out of such situations, as a police officer, then we can’t in good conscience keep sending him out on the streets to risk his life. We should send him home, alive, since that’s what’s important to him.

In other words, if you kill someone on the job, you’re off the police force. If the killing is found to be justified, then you still get your pension and whatever severance terms are in your contract, but you’re still off the force.

Now, some might argue that this will have undesired consequences, like decreasing the number of necessary shootings. I maintain that it would not. If you put any sane person in a position where their choices are to save their own life or to keep their job, they will always choose saving their own life. If shooting is truly the only way for a cop to stay alive (the criterion under which shooting is justified), they’ll still shoot, and so the number of justified shootings should remain unchanged.

This measure would, however, significantly decrease the number of unjustified shootings, both by causing officers to think twice about whether shooting is really necessary, and by removing those officers from the force who are overinclined to shoot.

143

They are either a hero who has gone through the trauma of taking another person’s life in the defense of others, and so should retire with a full pension.

Or they are a criminal who has murdered someone, and so should retire to a prison cell.

144

Didn’t work out so well for the 17 dead kids in the Parkland shooting.

145

The issue in Parkland wasn’t a cop who was reluctant to shoot; it was a cop who didn’t even want to enter the scene at all. Maybe, if he was present, he could have done something nonlethal to end the threat. But we’ll never know, because he wasn’t.

146

Or, if he had gone in, shot the shooter, then he’d be a hero, and shouldn’t have to put himself into such dangerous situations again.

No, you are correct, it was not his career that he was concerned about in not engaging the active shooter.

147

In the defense of LEOs here, keep in mind that other countries have lower rates of gun ownership. I am among the loudest of critics when it comes to police procedures, tactics, and trainings, but at the same time, there is an existential threat that officers here deal with that you don’t find everywhere else.

Personally, as much as I sympathize with some of the victims of police brutality, I confess to having less sympathy when suspects willfully refuse to comply and become aggressive toward officers when stopped. Jacob Blake probably wouldn’t have been shot if he had complied. Rayshard Brooks would probably be alive had he not fallen asleep while intoxicated at a Wendy’s drive through and then violently resisted arrest, taking the officer’s taser no less.

148

We really ought to have, as part of general education curriculum, how to submit to police authority and arrest.

And make it for everyone. Every student has to go through the procedure of being arrested. Every student needs to learn to intently listen to and instantly obey any and all, even conflicting demands. They need to learn to overcome their own fight or flight instinct when being confronted by someone who wants to take away their freedom by use of force and violence.

They need to learn that, even if they are entirely in the right, that they need to submit to the authority of the one who insists that they have the authority.

Probably needs to start in kindergarten, or at least by first grade.

I would suggest no knock raids on the classrooms. Officers would only be armed with blanks, of course, and tasers would be turned down, pepper spray diluted.

Role-play out some scenarios where a student is just doing their own thing, minding their own business, when cops come busting in. Make sure that they learn to react to that appropriately.

Have cruisers pull up on the playground in the middle of recess, so that the students learn how to not run from scary men chasing them with guns.

If it is necessary for our populace to be able to submit instantly and fully to someone demanding respect for their authority, then it is something that should be taught ahead of time, not something that is learned “on the job” as it were.

149

Obviously the no-knock raids are bullshit, and there’s a lot to criticize modern police conduct for. I wouldn’t stop at the police either; I’m critical of municipal governments that use the law to collect revenue, and I’m critical of prosecutors and courts that punish people for nonviolent offenses. It’s all part of the same rot.

But all of that aside, even as a privileged white guy, I think some degree of deference toward a guy who carries a gun and wears a badge, is just common sense. Like it or not, he’s an authority figure and he represents the law and its power. That doesn’t give him the right to shove a nightstick up my ass, but it’s a bad idea to mouth off to an officer and it’s a really, really bad idea to refuse to comply with lawful requests to put your hands behind your back or whatever you are temporarily asked to do. If you don’t like what the officer says or does, you can file complaints. You can vote. You can sue. But being a dick is a bad option. I’ve lived and traveled around the world, and I no of absolutely no place on earth where being a smart ass to a cop works out too well.

150

So instead of defunding the police, you should increase funding.

151

Right, and we need to teach the populace that.

Too many people think that they will never have an encounter with the police, or that if they do, that the police will be reasonable and understanding.

When people discover that this guy with a gun and a badge is not on their side, that they are there to instead push people around to assert their authority, too many people react to this revelation in a way that further upsets the officer.

If you live in bear country, you probably have a class on how to interact with bears. You don’t consider them to be reasonable or that they will let you tell your side of the story, you consider them to be dangerous animals that will kill you if you make the wrong move.

Same with police, except we have police everywhere, so every student needs to learn this. They need to learn that some cops are bad people, and that even a good cop on a bad day may choose to take their frustrations out on the people that they are there to protect.

They need to learn that they may endure physical abuse, for no reason at all, and that they just need to endure it, and file a suit that will never see the light of day later.

My dad didn’t learn this. He always sped, and got pulled over all the time. He’d be real shitty with the cop. The cop would often times tell him that he would have gotten a warning rather than a ticket, but for his attitude.

I learned this, and have gotten out of many speeding tickets by being friendly and courteous to the cop.

That is the sort of difference in being a smart ass to a cop should result in, not physical torture and even execution.

152

@k9bfriender obviously your comment is sarcastic, and there are many more significant issues of police training and procedures that need to be addressed. But if private gun ownership is a core value for the majority of Americans, any cop you encounter has to assume a significant probability that you are armed, and that does imply a far more tension-laden relationship between police and the public, far greater potential for tragic outcomes. That is something children should be made aware of.

When I was driving through Arizona in my early 20s on one of my first visits to the U.S. (I’m British) I had a cop pull me over and approach the car with his gun drawn (pointed down) on a deserted highway. I don’t know if the way he acted was reasonable, but eventually he explained that a violent criminal was on the run in the area and a cop had been shot at. But initially I had no idea now to behave - this was the first time I had ever seen someone holding a gun in real life. I was so nervous that I could easily have done something stupid like thinking that it was urgent that I grab my passport from the glove compartment to show him I was a tourist.

153

Yes, maybe, and no.

Per cop, absolutely, they should have better pay and more investment in their recruitment and training.

Per community, over the long term, I think that we will need fewer cops, as the higher quality of the police force actually works to decrease crime, so the police and justice and prison systems should need less money to operate.

Just ending “proactive policing” should probably free up quite a bit of resources that could be better used at actually alleviating the conditions that increase crime. And of course, eliminating proactive policing of the neighborhoods where doing proactive policing results in finding more crime would decrease the crime rate that justifies the use of provocative policing.

154

Some of my post was a bit extreme, in that I don’t think that middle class white suburbanites would ever stand for allowing their children to be treated the same as those in less affluent areas.

But the idea that people should actually understand how to be arrested and how to interact with a cop should absolutely be taught. Also, what rights you do have in an encounter, and how to adequately express those rights.

First time I ever got pulled over, I was nervous as hell, I didn’t really even know what to expect. The cop asked me why I was acting so nervous, which made me more nervous. He asked if he could search my car, and I didn’t even know how to respond. I think I said, “I guess.” I was sweating and trembling and am surprised I didn’t wet myself.

And I was a white middle class kid in a middle class neighborhood with absolutely nothing to hide (other than a bit of a tendency to speed).

He didn’t do a search, and after a bit I got a ticket, which I then had to go explain to my parents.

155

This happens here.

I have not been pulled over in well over a decade, but I know people who have.

One of my employees came in one day, still shitting herself over having a gun pointed at her head by the officer’s partner. One came to the driver’s side window, the other stood behind the car with his gun pointed at her head.

Also an acquaintance of mine relayed the same experience, but he actually thought it was a good idea, and rather than condemn it, praised it.

156

In agreement that this is an outrage and part or a creeping form of authoritarianism that has insidiously worked its way into police departments nationwide.

Even so, it’s fair to point out that individuals can sometimes make matters worse by the way they behave.

157

[quote=“k9bfriender, post:154, topic:919153”] I don’t think that middle class white suburbanites would ever stand for allowing their children to be treated the same as those in less affluent areas.
[/quote]

They wouldn’t, but white America (affluent and even middle class) as a whole has tolerated greater degrees of authoritarianism as a response to perceived drug and gang activity, and terrorism. Politicians have played up the domestic threat level and we’ve more or less gone along with the act.

I saw an article about a recent poll which indicated a drop in collective support of authoritarianism for the first time in over a decade. Maybe just like criminal justice reform efforts, this is the start of a good trend. We as a society have forgotten that free societies have to live with some degree of risk, but at the same time, there are common sense gun control measures that don’t quite to confiscation or bans that would make us all safer and I dare say even freer.

158

For others, just not for themselves.

I bet if you floated my idea as something that inner city primarily black school students would go through, middle class suburbanites would be all for it.

But if you asked them to have their own white kid involved in such a class, they would scream to the rooftops of their little suburbanite homes.

Yeah, it does seem to be the same people that think that we need more guns to make us safer that also justify cops’ itchy trigger fingers based on the number of guns out there.

159

Yikes. Talk about a “police state”. Is that REALLY the kind of country you want to live in?

160

the difference is that cops are sentient human beings who can reason, not unpredictable carnivorous beasts. They should act like it.