At work Friday we were discussing the continuing Dateline segments devoted to stings of internet predators. I happened to mention “I wonder why one of them hasn’t gunned down the camera crew and bait person yet?” And we got onto the subject of resisting arrest, or lack thereof. I wonder why it’s as rare as it is for suspects to pull a gun and try to take out as many people as they can? Granted it’s usually suicidal, but considering how many stupid, coked up or crazy people commit violent crimes, you’d think it would be much more common. Certainly the police take the possibility extremely seriously.
Because they’re cowards?
Not that I think they should go down gunning, of course. But an internet predator preys on people who are young or otherwise weaker than he. When faced with ‘stronger’ people, and in numbers, he folds.
Isn’t your title backwards? So many people go down without a fight, not so few.
Unless I’m completely confused. I often am.
You’re never really in trouble until you start running from the cops. Or shooting at them.
As for why more people don’t commit suicide by cop, perhaps not as many criminals are coked up or crazy as you suggest.
Yeah…that’s why :rolleyes:
The answer to your question is that the punishment for 90% of the crimes is less than death or life in prison. Not to mention that you still have a chance to beat the rap in court or plea bargain to a lesser charge.
Maybe because Dateline focuses on guys who like underage girls? I don’t see that as being a particularly dangerous or violent demographic. Morally dangerous maybe, but not really physically.
Yes, I am fully aware I’m going to get flamed for posting this opinion in less than 20 minutes, but I stand by it.
Read the post after that one. :rolleyes:
Because avoiding spending some years in prison, or less, is not worth killing someone to get out of? Because being charged with resisting arrest, or assault on a police officer, is often a worse crime than the one one is being arrested for.
Personally, I don’t understand why so many fight about it. “It’s a fair cop.”
I’m always, and I mean always bewildered by those who throw the term coward about with fights with police. People who get in a fight, or shootout, with cops are called cowardly. How is it cowardly to get in a gunfight with those who can shoot back?
And, on preview, your followup post may be accurate, but it’s irrelevant. It’s not the the arrestee is faced with stonger people, but that the consequences of fighting the police are so much worse.
I don’t think it’s irrelevant. I think that avoiding stronger opponents is basic to this type of criminal. Of course going down fighting will increase the penalties. I think that some predators think about that. But I think that being in a weaker position is also a factor.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
Moderator, could you please edit title? Reason: stupidity
I, obviously, disagree. I’m still not clear on why you feel this way.
Personally, every time I’ve been arrested (twice - once convicted and once aquitted of possesion of pot), I’ve cooperated completely. One is submitting to the authority of the state. What in the world would it have gained me to go down fighting?
Yeah OK.
Title changed, replacing the word “few” with “many”.
I’ll add, as a side note, that I spent some number of nights in jail in my hitch-hiking days when I was not actually arrested. When the cop in Las Cruces, or Fort Smith, or where ever picks me up for being on their streets at night, why should I fight? Fighting will gain me time in jail; not fighting will gain me breakfast in the morning and cut me loose. It’s a no-brainer.
You may recall the North Hollywood Bank robbery in 1997. Those guys went down shooting. But then, bank robbery is a different sort of crime from possession of marijuana. A person predisposed to commit a violent crime is, I think, more likely to fight than a person who commits a non-violent crime.
Rape is a violent crime. But it’s not bank robbery. A rapist tends to prey upon those he perceives as weaker than he. So when confronted by a superior force he is either not inclined to fight (since he cannot win – i.e., he figures it out), or his predisposition to the type of crime he commits makes him less likely to go down swinging (i.e., the thought of resisting with violence does not occur to him). Of course I’m speaking broadly; people are different. Internet predators tend, in what I think is the common perception, to prey on the young. They can dominate a child or an adolescent better than they can an adult. So I think that they are probably less likely to fight than, say, a rapist who attacks adults.
It’s sort of like a bully. He’s vicious when he is dominating weeker people, but often folds when confronted by a stronger force.
Anyway, that’s my opinion. If you disagree, you disagree.
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that Chris Hansen is a ninja. Any pedophile would know that to challenge Hansen-san would be insane. He would inflict lethal death – the worst kind of death – before a weapon could even be drawn.
Like others have said if you “went down fighting” you are going to be screwed beyond belief by all the extra charges whereas if you cooperate it won’t be as bad. I’m always amazed by the morons you see on episodes of Cops, that had they simply cooperated instead of ran from the cops or put up a violent struggle would have been out of jail the next day or at least have gotten a much lighter sentence.
Even more baffling are the ones they occasionally show who aren’t even being detained—either friends of the suspect or just bystanders, not directly involved, who are warned by the cops to back off and threatened with arrest if they continue to interfere—who insist on confronting the police until they, too, are thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
While I think “COPS” is often laughable in its saintlike portrayal of the police, it’s hard to feel sympathy for the idiot who won’t rest until he’s in the back of a patrol car.
Oh yeah abosolutely. Another thing I notice is that a large part of the time people on tv shows like that end up going to jail because they don’t know their own rights. The cop will ask to search their car but phrase it in such a way that it sounds like a demand. And the clueless person who knows they have something illegal let them search the damn car! What the hell are you thinking?
I think this is a bit like the other thread wondering why more presidential assassination attempts aren’t made. BECAUSE YOU GET IN ALL MANNER OF HURT is the main reason, I suspect. A Uruguayan friend of mine says that his countrymen have a saying, “A crazy man never chops off his own balls.” In other words, even in the depths of blind rage, most people’s self-preservation instincts are intact.
I’ve been arrested once. In the police wagon on the way to the station, I remembered the words of the same Uruguayan friend (a law student). He told me that “(Some huge percentage) of people get convicted because of their own words. Say nothing.”
So when I got to the cop shop and was processed, I politely declined an interview. But apart from that, I cooperated fully, even to the point of assisting them when their fingerprint machine went tits up. My cooperation was noted in writing by the police, and the judge was informed. I walked out of that court room with my life in pretty good shape. Now, if I’d been a belligerent fuckoff to the cops, it might have been a different story.