Count me in. Your life is not more valuable than mine because of your profession.
There’s a possibility for police to be shot, a probability for working class Black men to be shot, and a certainty for the family dog to be shot. All in all, given the choice to be a cop, a suspect or a dog, I’d prefer to be a gun manufacturer.
50% increase in officers deaths sounds pretty bad to me.
Yep, I’m totally up for that.
@aceplace57 I’m too blazed to find the links, but Phoenix cops are reporting a high number of hit and run accidents happening to them and are reacting as though it’s an attack. I don’t think that is so, I think that most of those hit and run drivers would have stopped in the past. Now that everyone has been taught that the police are not our friends, the first reaction to an accident with a police vehicle is “Oh, fuck, I’m going to die if I don’t get away.”
There were two motorcycle cops hit and hospitalized last week in separate incidences. There were five other motorcycles hit during the same period of time in the same area. Those drivers didn’t run.
Its cherry picked data. The true story is that the number of officers killed by gunfire has ranged from the mid 30s to the mid 60s each year since at least 2010 with a high of 68 in 2011. 2020 was on the lower side, but not the lowest in the past decade (2013 with 34).
If you’re attacking a police officer then your life is worth less than the officer’s and it’s a choice you made. And that’s equally true of any other person you choose to attack.
How about a young boy playing in a park with a toy gun?
Agreed in that circumstance. However, I am sure you’re aware of the multitude of cases of police shootings that didn’t involve anyone attacking a police officer, or anyone else?
And if an officer attacks you, then his or her life is worth less than yours, and that’s a choice they made.
You mean the airsoft toy that had the identifier removed showing it wasn’t a real gun?
What lesson is learned from that? Don’t point a gun at police and ignore instructions to drop it.
That’s a broad statement to make but generally yes. It’s not a freebie if you have a badge.
We just had a case in Ohio where a man was shot at night and called the police from the middle of the street. They ran him over looking for the house in question. The dispatcher didn’t mention he was in the street. The police are looking for a shooter in the dark.
So, in the category of “People whose lives are worth less than cops,” we have:
People who attack cops
Children who modify their toys
Any whose reflexes aren’t fast enough
Any more you want to add to that list?
A teen having a mental health crisis.
Pregnant women who waited “too long” before pulling over.
A man buying a bb gun in Walmart.
A man legally carrying a firearm.
Are you saying that American police officers are inherently violent thugs who can’t be expected to live up to the same standards as police in other countries? Because if the reason our cops kill so many more people per capita is their violent culture, that culture needs to be changed. There’s no inherent law of nature that says American cops need to resort to violence.
Really, you think that those were all justified shootings? That the life of the cop (which was never in danger), was worth more than the person that they shot and killed?
Not at all. Sorry, the sarcasm clearly didn’t come through.
Oh, okay.
And my bad too, your “avatar” looks a whole lot like Magiver’s, so I took a different take on that post.
In the case of the Tamir Rice shooting, which I believe you are referring to here, he was never given a chance to ignore the instructions, they opened fire as soon as they pulled up on him.
Or living in an apartment a cop mistakes for theirs…
Or sleeping in your own apartment.*
Or selling individual cigarettes.
Or walking down the street holding a walkman that ‘looked like a gun’.
Or having contradictory commands being barked at you by multiple officers, while also being told that if you make a mistake “I will kill you”, then getting shot in the back 5 times from 20 feet away by an AR-15 with the words ‘you’re fucked’ engraved on it. Totes justified.
(FWIW, that’s from memory so I might have some details wrong because I have no interest in ever watching that video again).
*WRT the Breonna Taylor case, I heard someone say ‘well, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time’, to which I glared at him and said “she was asleep in her own apartment, how is that ‘the wrong place’”.