# Why are police so quick to kill?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 30, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689 "2017-05-30T00:48:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/201 "2017-07-18T15:10:56Z")
Until I saw the dates of the earlier posts, I thought this whole thread was about the Australian woman. To be clear, she didn’t approach the police car to complain about an assault, she was the one who had called 911 to report what sounded like a sexual assault in the alley. When the police car arrived she went out in her pajamas and approached the police car presumably to give more information about what she had heard. So one of the officers shot and killed her.
Neither of the two officers had turned on their body cameras though they were supposed to. Three days later, still no comment from the police department.
[Story here.](http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/us/minneapolis-woman-shooting-what-we-know/index.html) This is going to be a hard one to defend. I’m trying to think how a young woman in pajamas could possibly have looked like a lethal threat to cops responding to a sexual assault call.
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### Author:  [@Hocus\_Pocus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hocus_Pocus)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/202 "2017-07-18T15:34:10Z")
If I understand it correctly, the officer(s) weren’t out of their vehicle yet. That might explain why the cameras weren’t on yet.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/203 "2017-07-18T16:29:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Until I saw the dates of the earlier posts, I thought this whole thread was about the Australian woman. To be clear, she didn’t approach the police car to complain about an assault, she was the one who had called 911 to report what sounded like a sexual assault in the alley. When the police car arrived she went out in her pajamas and approached the police car presumably to give more information about what she had heard. So one of the officers shot and killed her.
>
> Neither of the two officers had turned on their body cameras though they were supposed to. Three days later, still no comment from the police department.
>
> [Story here.](http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/us/minneapolis-woman-shooting-what-we-know/index.html) This is going to be a hard one to defend. I’m trying to think how a young woman in pajamas could possibly have looked like a lethal threat to cops responding to a sexual assault call.
I agree that this shooting looks bad. I’ve heard various theories (one common one was that it might have been a negligent discharge, which now seems debunked by news that multiple shots were fired). The current one seems to be that perhaps in the darkness, Officer Noor mistook her cellular phone, which may have been in her hand, for a weapon, and feared for his life and fired. Personally, I think that sounds like a fucking asinine reaction to “something in her hand”, given the rest of the context, but it is the best explanation of ‘how [she] could possibly have looked like a lethal threat’ that I’ve heard.
Also, on a side note, I don’t believe there is any evidence that the call was about “sexual” assault. Perhaps I’ve missed a tidbit of news somewhere though.
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### Author:  [@de\_facto\_lies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/de_facto_lies)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/204 "2017-07-18T16:43:03Z")
I have a hard time believing it was any sort of accident considering everything I have read claims that the officer that shot her was the passenger. Which means he had to take his gun out of his holster while sitting, lean it over his driver, and shoot her in the abdomen. The officer driving the vehicle didn’t take her as a threat so why would the passenger feel the need to shoot over and in the face of his partner? I’d be pissed if someone discharged a gun that close to me in a vehicle.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/205 "2017-07-18T16:44:54Z")
> [@Steophan](#):
>
> You are, in every point you make here, wrong. The standard of evidence needed to convict a cop is the same as to convict everyone else, and a video of a cop shooting someone without good reason would meet that standard. What we actually have are videos of cops shooting people _with_ good reason, as decided by the only authority that matters, the legal system.
You think that the video shows good reason to shoot Terence Crutcher or Philando Castile?
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/206 "2017-07-18T16:45:14Z")
Officers should not have the ability to turn their cameras off. The cameras shouldn’t even be _capable_ of being turned off. I want them wearing the camera on their damned foreheads.
.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/207 "2017-07-18T16:49:56Z")
From the CNN article I cited, “_Ruszczyk called 911 on Saturday night to report a possible sexual assault in an alley near her home, her fiancé said Monday_”. CNN may have that wrong, of course, but whether she had reported a “sexual” assault or some other kind doesn’t seem particularly relevant anyway to the tragedy that unfolded afterwards.
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### Author:  [@Hocus\_Pocus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hocus_Pocus)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/208 "2017-07-18T16:54:11Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Officer Noor mistook her cellular phone, which may have been in her hand, for a weapon, and feared for his life and fired. Personally, I think that sounds like a fucking asinine reaction to “something in her hand”, given the rest of the context, but it is the best explanation of ‘how [she] could possibly have looked like a lethal threat’ that I’ve heard.
I wouldn’t call it a “fucking asinine reaction.” - Officer Miosotis Familia
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/209 "2017-07-18T16:56:53Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> From the CNN article I cited, “_Ruszczyk called 911 on Saturday night to report a possible sexual assault in an alley near her home, her fiancé said Monday_”. CNN may have that wrong, of course, but whether she had reported a “sexual” assault or some other kind doesn’t seem particularly relevant anyway to the tragedy that unfolded afterwards.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that. And I agree, the nature of the assault called in doesn’t really factor into whether or not Officer Noor was justified in shooting her.
[The radio traffic](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/justine-damond-minneapolis-police-shooting-transcript/8719212) had this from the dispatcher:
> [@](#):
>
> Squad 530 to 50, 24 Washburn Avenue South — female screaming behind the building.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/210 "2017-07-18T17:00:31Z")
> [@Hocus\_Pocus](#):
>
> I wouldn’t call it a “fucking asinine reaction.” - Officer Miosotis Familia
What does that have to do with what I posted? Was she shot by a cell phone? Was she shot because she hesitated, unsure if the object in the shooter’s hand was a cell phone or a gun?
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/211 "2017-07-18T17:02:19Z")
> [@Hocus\_Pocus](#):
>
> I wouldn’t call it a “fucking asinine reaction.” - Officer Miosotis Familia
Okay, so occasionally police get shot in the line of duty, therefore mistaking a cell phone (or a toy truck, or a wallet) for a gun and killing someone is fine… how many times? Personally, I’d say “zero”, and that cops should be held accountable for acts like that in exactly the same way you or I would be - i.e. “that was not justified self-defense, that was a rash and cowardly act of murder”.
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### Author:  [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/212 "2017-07-18T17:12:57Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> You think that the video shows good reason to shoot Terence Crutcher or Philando Castile?
My opinion is irrelevant. I _know_, not think, that the juries decided the cops were not guilty. So, the videos cannot, as a matter of fact, show that they killed for no good reason, otherwise they would be in prison.
You are looking at the videos and thinking that because it shows something that _might_ be a killing without good reason, it _must_ be such a killing. That’s not how the law, or for that matter logic, works.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/213 "2017-07-18T17:16:06Z")
> [@Hocus\_Pocus](#):
>
> I wouldn’t call it a “fucking asinine reaction.” - Officer Miosotis Familia
She was an NYPD officer killed on duty while filling out paperwork in her car. She was shot by a man having a severe psychotic episode. There was zero confrontation. Aside from the bullet, there was no interaction between them whatsoever. WHAT THE FUCK does this have to do with anything?
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/214 "2017-07-18T17:32:27Z")
> [@Steophan](#):
>
> My opinion is irrelevant. I _know_, not think, that the juries decided the cops were not guilty. So, the videos cannot, as a matter of fact, show that they killed for no good reason, otherwise they would be in prison.
>
> You are looking at the videos and thinking that because it shows something that _might_ be a killing without good reason, it _must_ be such a killing. That’s not how the law, or for that matter logic, works.
My entire point is that the jury was dead wrong. On both counts. In both cases, the video clearly showed an _unjustified_ shooting. When you’re trying to defend the position that it was justified, simply appealing to the jury misses the point. Yeah, on one hand, the juries decided the cops were not guilty. On the _other_ hand, we have direct video evidence showing these cops murdering people. So… Yeah.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/215 "2017-07-18T17:52:27Z")
In a discussion that’s 100% strictly about law, murder has an exact legal meaning. I don’t sense this discussion is 100% strictly about law, and therefore it can be reasonable to use broader meanings of the word which extend beyond just the legal aspect. I think plenty of slave-owners who killed or caused-to-be-killed some of their slaves are morally culpable of murder, even if they weren’t legally convicted of murder.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/216 "2017-07-18T17:55:14Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> Okay, so occasionally police get shot in the line of duty, therefore mistaking a cell phone (or a toy truck, or a wallet) for a gun and killing someone is fine… how many times? Personally, I’d say “zero”, _and that cops should be held accountable for acts like that in exactly the same way you or I would be_ - i.e. “that was not justified self-defense, that was a rash and cowardly act of murder”.
And this is the part that the apologists ignore or wave away with legal theory instead of the reality of how these cases really turn out.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/217 "2017-07-18T17:56:58Z")
> [@Steophan](#):
>
> My opinion is irrelevant. I _know_, not think, that the juries decided the cops were not guilty. _So, the videos cannot, as a matter of fact, show that they killed for no good reason, otherwise they would be in prison._
And my point above is proven.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/218 "2017-07-18T18:46:37Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> And this is the part that the apologists ignore or wave away with legal theory instead of the reality of how these cases really turn out.
It also ignores the various issues that come up in cases like this. [Jurors are extremely biased in favor of police officers](http://abcnews.go.com/US/jurors-reluctant-convict-police-cases-officer-involved-deaths/story?id=44008416).
“What we see time and time again is that jurors are very reluctant to second-guess the split-second life-or-death decisions that a police officer makes,” said Stinson, who began studying police-involved incidents in 2005.
Jurors are “unwilling to conclude that an on-duty police officer could be a murderer,” Stinson said.
Among officers charged in the U.S. in 2010 with misconduct – which encompasses a number of areas including excessive force (including fatal excessive force), sexual misconduct and assault – 33 percent were convicted, according to the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project. In the general population between 2002 and 2006, the equivalent was 68 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Or that the law encourages this bias:
The law, which applies nationwide, is “pretty clear” that police officers are to be judged by “different standards,” said Sunny Hostin, senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC News. Officers are judged, not in hindsight, but by “what a reasonable officer at the scene would have done,” she said.
“I think [the jurors] sometimes give that police officer the benefit of the doubt” because they are “trained to shoot if they are in danger,” Hostin said.
“Jurors understand that police officers have a very difficult job,” she said. “They put their lives on the line every day to protect us. They have a hard time convicting someone whose job is to protect and serve.”
It’s _not_ that simple.
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### Author:  [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/219 "2017-07-18T19:10:33Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> My entire point is that the jury was dead wrong. On both counts.
Nope, that’s not how this works. The jury found reason to doubt their guilt, that’s not something they _can_ be wrong about. It is quite literally meaningless to say they were wrong.
> [@](#):
>
> In both cases, the video clearly showed an _unjustified_ shooting.
That is false.
> [@](#):
>
> When you’re trying to defend the position that it was justified, simply appealing to the jury misses the point. Yeah, on one hand, the juries decided the cops were not guilty. On the _other_ hand, we have direct video evidence showing these cops murdering people. So… Yeah.
No, appealing to the jury is the _only_ way to determine it, as they are the ones who determine what the facts of the case are. Factually, the videos do not prove murder (or at present, any other crime). You are provably wrong here, and no amount of claiming otherwise will change that, any more than claiming black is white will change anything.
You could, if you feel that the law is wrong and that such killings should not in future be justified campaign to change the law. Hopefully you will fail, as the right to self defence and the right to presumption of innocence are more important than your desire to get vengeance on the police for not doing their job exactly the way you would like them to.
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### Author:  [@Hocus\_Pocus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hocus_Pocus)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-police-so-quick-to-kill/787689/220 "2017-07-18T19:14:53Z")
BPC;
Let us know when other witnesses are subject to background investigations, including going back to a person’s childhood to receive the same level of credibility as that of a police officer.
Let us know when other witnesses have undergone polygraph examinations to receive the same level of credibility as that of a police officer.
Let us know when other witnesses have had to go through psychological testing & an intereview to receive the same level of credibility as that of a police officer.
The extra credibility that officers are given isn’t just given. It was earned.
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