Should the Dallas cops have refrained from killing him because of the irony? :dubious:
That’s what I’d expect any reasonably smart robot would do, but we don’t have them yet. Instead we had an innocent machine, controlled by humans from a safe distance away, sent on a suicide mission. 
I get your concerns but I think if you step back and think about it a little bit you’ll realize it doesn’t much apply to policing. A stand off with police and an armed person is fairly rare. One where he absolutely refuses to surrender rarer still. One where they have time to call the bomb squad, load a bomb squad robot up with explosive charges that the squad uses to destroy bombs, and pilot it toward’s a holed up shooter and detonate it will be a very, very rare occurrence.
The thing about the military drone strikes is they’re attacking unsuspecting targets based on intelligence. Those targets are going about their business and coming and going over a period of days or weeks. Police shootings have nowhere near the timeline of that, the vast majority of police shootings the police have to shoot in a matter of seconds. After that, it’s over. I don’t even see the tactical possibility this will be widespread–because it applies to such a niche circumstance.
The Dallas Police Chief basically said this was done because the shooter chose a really good place to hole up, and there was no way to get a police sniper in position without him being directly exposed to fire. This shooter had military training and probably picked the location of his final stand because it gave him solid cover on all sides (including over head.) Most criminals that put themselves in situations like this don’t really know how to plan for potential police snipers on roofs of buildings or 300 yards down the street behind a car, and the cops are always going to choose a sniper over this bomb-robot tactic when available because it’s far, far quicker. The entire time it took to get this bomb robot onto the guy was time he could’ve stepped out and killed more cops with his gun, it’s actually a pretty shitty option and tactically I think it would only make sense to use it rarely.
There’s really no tolerance for law enforcement to start bombing houses where criminals “Might be” or anything like that. The Philadelphia police bombed a house once (the MOVE bombings) and it caused a national outrage–in fact it’s never been repeated since.
You might have noticed that they cops did not kill, hurt or even shoot at anyone else. The guy in question surrendered his gun to them (that he had a gun was reason enough for him to be a suspect) and was soon cleared.
The actual shooter could have surrendered and not gotten killed. He basically committed suicide. And, given that, how did the cops know he wasn’t wearing an explosive vest?
If they had gotten him with a sniper instead of a bomb. we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
I wonder how many of the BLM marchers are going to march in protest about the killing of this guy. I’d be surprised if there were enough to fill a table at Starbucks.
I’ve never understood why “I worry about the militarization of police” has become a codeword for “I’m scared of cops having certain types of equipment.” Police bomb squads have had remote-controlled robots for about 15+ years now. They are invaluable in disarming dangerous devices, because they allow the disarming to be done at no risk to officers.
One of the primary means of disabling an explosive is to actually use a smaller explosive, at a weak point of the bomb, to blow the bomb up without detonating its explosive load. That’s why police forces have, and need these remote controlled robots and the detonating charges. They’ve had them for years, and frankly they aren’t “military” at all. Before we invaded Iraq in 2003 I’d wager police departments were doing more EOD work in a given year than the military did in 10 years. If anything military EOD has at times been informed by police EOD, in certain contexts.
Militarization of police in terms of encouraging overly aggressive training is a real concern, but giving police equipment doesn’t make the “militarized”, inappropriate training does.
This is similar to the complaints about police having Bearcats (armored vehicles–which are essentially defensive, they protect cops from harm, and any private citizen of means can have their car rigged up this way)–and yet a Bearcat was actually used to end the Orlando shooting hostage situation and free people from the building. There’s valid police use for this stuff.
I’ll admit to being too lazy to research DPD use of force protocols, but most do contain some catch all “appropriate force as required to protect the life of the officer or others.”
For example there was a video years ago of a cop booking a suspect into custody. He turned his back on him to key some information into the computer and was brutally attacked. Despite being in the middle of the police station, no one was nearby. It became a true life or death struggle. The cop ended up subduing him by straight up double-hand throttling the guys throat and choking him until he stopped moving.
Most police departments that would be inappropriate use of force ordinarily, but just like private citizens can use extraordinary force when their lives are at stake–so can police. A situation like with Eric Garner, where the otherwise prohibited choke hold was being used simply to gain compliance of an unruly suspect, wouldn’t meet this definition. But if someone was legitimately fighting for their life it typically opens up a lot of options not otherwise there. For example if a cop has “lost a fight” against a superior opponent, is disarmed, the opponent has a knife and is stabbing at him through his vest, and the cop manages to get hands on his knife-arm and uses his other hand to gouge the guy’s eyes out, in most places that will be both legal and appropriate under policy due to the extreme situation.
The DPD Chief of Police has said he gave the order personally to use the bomb-disposal robot in this way, FWIW. I suspect he has some knowledge of his departmental policy.
Policing isn’t like a supreme court decision. What Dallas does has no bearing on the regulations and laws governing the Houston PD or the NYCPD. It’s all a matter of local laws, local political oversight, and departmental policies which are usually something the local government and the police leadership develop. It’s not like Brown v. Board where the decision has a legally binding effect nationwide.
How many police shootings are legally unjustified versus justified? All evidence we have suggests cops actually bat pretty close to 1.000.
The charges used weren’t that big. I’ve seen pictures of the shooter’s body, it’s intact. He was likely killed from the concussive force of the detonation. But it was nowhere near enough to turn him into “chunks.” If it was ordinance used to disable bombs (and I suspect it was), it also wouldn’t be turning a building into rubble either. You need to dial down your understanding of what this bomb was by a factor of about 1000.
I always find it hilarious that the people who say this was wrong are the same type of people who chastise America for dropping the atomic bomb. They aren’t the ones who had to go in and face the sniper or invade a country. Something tells me if they had to face the dangers their opinion would be different.
That’s what CBS news reported, anyway.
We only need to know the whole story when a cop shoots an unarmed black man.
To be fair, I wasn’t saying whether or not the extrajudicial killing was justifiable or not. I was just laying out a standard I would use.
You’ve always found it hilarious since two days ago?
The Atomic bombings were a bit more than two days ago. Not to mention this isn’t a unique event with Monday morning quarterbacks.
And they were hilarious then?
Not all IEDs are triggered by a timer or a booby trap. The chance of convincing a racist mass murderer to see the light and repent has to be balanced against the chance that he’ll remotely detonate the bomb by phone.
My sympathy is with the now mangled robot. Poor thing.
I was thinking more along the lines:
By using fatal violence against an (apparently contained) black suspect the danger is it could add weight to the original complaint (the police are too quick to kill black suspects) and accordingly it could serve as justification for further violence against the police. The Dallas shooter wasn’t the only one deliberately attacking the police that day.
I am not American so I may have this wrong but isn’t the right of the general public to have guns supposed to ensure the ‘people’ have the means to fight back against an oppressive ‘state’? If so, and if the police are seen as agents of an oppressive state, then the Dallas shooter was exercising his constitutional right.
I hope that isn’t taken as trolling. My personal view is violence is (usually) wrong although incidentally I actually support the death penalty.
However while I condemn the murder of the Dallas policemen I feel unease at using explosives to deal with a potentially problematic suspect. I would have preferred the suspect to be taken alive, fully questioned and then given a proper trial and appropriate sentencing.
Just seen Grumman’s post about the potential for a phone activated bomb. That is a good point. But I remain uneasy about the police using summary execution for expediency.
TCMF-2L
What a…unique…point of view. No, the Dallas shooter was not exercising his constitutional rights, as there is no right to commit mass murder. The Dallas police were not acting as agents of an oppressive state. They actually were there to protect the rights of the protestors to peacefully assemble. I’ll point out again that there were good relations between the police and the crowd. Some of the officers even posed for selfies. Some of the protesters openly and legally carried weapons in a non-threatening manner and were not harassed by police. It was as peaceful a situation as could be ideally hoped for until one misguided person took out his anger in a violent and ultimately suicidal way. He was not about to be taken alive. He expressed his intent to keep killing. He was indiscriminate in his targets. Two of the people he shot were civilians attending the protest. I see nothing expedient about his death. There was no other way that would ensure the safety of the officers and the public at large.
There is a general sense that when police offices are justified in shooting black men, they will frequently act on that justification. When police officers are justified in shooting white men, they frequently try to find another way to resolve the situation.
Maybe its all perception. I don’t know if you can study something like this.
There is also a sense that good police officers cover for the shitty police officers in their ranks. Do the good police officers really not know who the bad apples are? Or are the pressured to protect the bad officers in order to create a buffer for the good officers that might make a mistake?