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Savannahmann

(3,891 posts)
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 09:02 AM Apr 2013

Deadly force, and the police

I think I am, if only barely, able to explain the thing that has been bothering me for days, and weeks now. Deadly force. That was the term we used to use to describe when a police officer fired his/her weapon in the line of duty. We for so long considered it the last resort. I am well aware that life is nothing like TV, and I'm in for a lot of hostility for posting it, but the thing is this. The Adam 12 Episode "It all happened so fast" is the way it used to be. The police officer was questioned for hours, sometimes days, about discharging his weapon. We the citizenry expected that kind of diligence to make sure that the officer was justified in firing his weapon.

Something happened. We have become a nation where any questions about the police are out of bounds. When people start asking questions, about if the police were justified, or over-reacted in a situation, we are roundly blasted for not understanding.

I understand. Deadly force should be your last resort action. When you pull that trigger, there is no taking it back, there is no do-overs. There is only the question as to how accurate your aim is, and how lucky the target of the deadly force may be. My point is that deadly force should not be the first response, it should be the last response. The police should error on the side of caution, but is that side of caution where we are? I'm not saying that we should fry the cops, I'm saying we should have a conversation about the status quo. In high school debate, we were told the status quo is the mess we are in now. Is all this paramilitary equipment the new normal?

I watched an episode of a TV show Son's of Guns. In it they were converting an old British armored car for the New Orleans Police Department. They included a .30 Caliber machine gun in the tank for the police. Is that excessive? Is that the kind of firepower we want our police to have? We the citizens make up the nation. We the citizens should be allowed, and encouraged to get involved in the policy decisions of our Government.

That is what I am questioning, the ideals behind many of my posts. Are we too militarized? Do we really want our police to be a paramilitary force? Are we becoming too trigger happy? Are we exercising the diligence that should be undertaken when an officer exercises that last option, deadly force? Or have we made this joke all too real?

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9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Deadly force, and the police (Original Post) Savannahmann Apr 2013 OP
People on DU question motives of babylonsister Apr 2013 #1
Police often have unsuitable weapons for their job, frankly. MineralMan Apr 2013 #2
Honestly, I wondered about a lot of things. Savannahmann Apr 2013 #4
Considering that police MISS an average of 66-75% of their shots, Lurks Often Apr 2013 #6
The ideal is one shot, one kill FarCenter Apr 2013 #3
Police have a difficult job Lurks Often Apr 2013 #5
But they aren't charged most of the time. Savannahmann Apr 2013 #7
I agree more should be charged, Lurks Often Apr 2013 #9
People bash cops on DU all the time! Where have you been!?! Rex Apr 2013 #8

babylonsister

(170,964 posts)
1. People on DU question motives of
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 09:12 AM
Apr 2013

law enforcement all the time. Do a search for tasers; you'll see. Or pick an event that happened and search. Cops are not roundly loved for the most part; it's a case by case basic from what I'm seeing.

Are we too militarized? Maybe, but this country has gone off the deep end; it's not the world I grew up in.

MineralMan

(146,192 posts)
2. Police often have unsuitable weapons for their job, frankly.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 09:33 AM
Apr 2013

Military style weapons aren't really appropriate for the police, since innocent people are generally around.

I remember a very strange feeling I got many years ago while watching Nixon's first inauguration. I can't find a photo of this now, but a machine gun was set up below the podium at that inauguration. I don't know if it was a .30 caliber or .50 caliber machine gun, but there it was, ready to fire...but on what?

A machine gun is not designed for precision shooting. It is designed to fire a barrage of bullets. Aiming is general, not specific. As the inauguration occurred, a crowd of people was in the firing pattern of that machine gun. Had someone fired a shot from the crowd at Nixon, I wondered what the machine gunner was supposed to do? The answer is obvious. The only action the gunner could take would be to fire in the general direction of where the shot was believed to have originated. Since it would not be aimed at a specific target, multiple rounds would be fired, at whatever rate that machine gun fired.

The result would not be to kill the shooter, but to shoot multiple people in the vicinity of the shooter, in hopes that one of the bullets would find the shooter.

A machine gun to protect the newly-elected President from a crowd there to witness an inauguration? That has always symbolized the excess of force that has come to be SOP for police in the US. It makes no sense at all.

 

Savannahmann

(3,891 posts)
4. Honestly, I wondered about a lot of things.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 11:12 AM
Apr 2013

The High Capacity magazine bans that were enacted in Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts. All of the exempted the Police from the limits that we wanted imposed on everyone else. Because the Police NEED those assault rifles. Because the Police NEED those high capacity magazines, and apparently they are special. But do the police really NEED those assault rifles? Do the Police really NEED those high capacity magazines with fifteen or more rounds of ammunition? How often do the police find themselves faced with dozens of armed people where the deadly force we are talking about is the only option? In every shooting we have talked about, from Newton to Dormer in California. In every shooting the police vastly outnumbered the baddies. Yet we are told that the Police NEED thirty round magazines in their machine guns. We're told that the police NEED high capacity magazines for their duty weapons.

That's the question I am asking, is this what we the people who pay for all this and suffer the consequences when police make a mistake think the police really need?

The Dorner search in California. The police shot up two innocent pick up trucks. Two of them with innocent people inside. Why haven't we heard about what happened to the cops? Why haven't we had a discussion on the justification of those shootings? What action triggered the belief in the police that deadly force was not the best option, but the only reasonable action available?

But has our love of the police blinded us to the faults that appear to be systemic?

 

Lurks Often

(5,455 posts)
6. Considering that police MISS an average of 66-75% of their shots,
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 11:29 AM
Apr 2013

it would seem they do in fact need large magazines. The vast majority of rifles used by the patrol officers and their supervisors are semi-automatic and the hit percentage generally goes up when using a rifle compared to a handgun. They switched to rifles from shotguns because the shotgun is less accurate, kicks more and is very much harder to use with the smaller statured police officers.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
3. The ideal is one shot, one kill
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 10:07 AM
Apr 2013

They should go back to using shotguns with buckshot and armor piercing slugs.

 

Lurks Often

(5,455 posts)
5. Police have a difficult job
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 11:18 AM
Apr 2013

We expect them to make life and death decisions, often with limited information and in a VERY limited time frame, sometimes in under a second. We expect them to get it right every single time and when they don't, we usually criticize them and think they should be sued, fired or charged with a crime. The vast majority of police officers want to make the right decision, but what they want even more is to go home at the end of their shift, so they are not going to unduly risk their lives.

They spend their days being disliked and hated by 90% of the people they interact with, from the person getting the speeding ticket to the violent criminal they just arrested.

Yes there are bad cops and the bad cops SHOULD be sued, fired or charged with a crime, but the political leaders need to start holding the police chiefs and other upper management within the police departments responsible for their behavior.

 

Savannahmann

(3,891 posts)
7. But they aren't charged most of the time.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 05:25 PM
Apr 2013

Examples, everyone here loves examples, and demands them. Fine. How many cops drive by you wearing their seatbelt? Oh I know, they have to be prepared for a foot pursuit, yet each year a couple dozen die from automobile accidents where they are not wearing that seatbelt. Others are run over when they are on the side of the road, because they are wearing dark blue or black clothing and are not visible.

Read this. Then tell me that police are charged with crimes. Had it been a civilian, in the same circumstances, the charge would have been animal cruelty. If someone had somehow fiddled with the car to make it impossible to save the dog, it would have been murder of a police officer in many states. But because he was a cop, he was not charged. I do understand that it was decided not to pair him with another dog, and I'm sure the dog appreciates that.

Now, I am not upset that he cared about his family. All I am saying is that he was notified of the emergency, and certainly called on the radio to take his unit out of service for a family emergency. During that radio call shouldn't he have said. "Oh by the way my K9 is in the back, have someone come to the hospital and take him to the Kennel?"

But no charges were filed. In fact the Deputy Chief of police said that the officer felt terrible about the death of the dog. Would they have said the same had it been a civilian?

The police who fired more than 100 rounds at a pick up truck that was the wrong make, model, and color during the Christopher Dorner hunt were never charged with a crime. So police can, and have, fired more than 100 rounds at innocent people, and are not even given a slap on the wrist? Is this the nation we want? Is this the idea of fairness we want to teach our children?

Yes it is a high stress job, and mistakes might not result in their deaths or injuries. As was demonstrated in the Dorner case far too graphically. It can and is a very costly mistake for the victim of the cops error. When the costs are that high, we should hold the police to a higher standard, because they are put on a pedestal of sorts.

The Juries, and courts always take the police statements and testimony and give it greater weight than other testimony. Seriously, go to the court house one day, sit and watch the traffic cases go by. At the end of the day, you will be able to recognize routine lies from the police as easily as if they were hooked to a lie detector machine.

One example that jumped out at me. (Note I was not in court for this. I was waiting to plead my case before a judge but not for this charge.) An officer testified in seven driving under the influence of marijuana cases in a row. In each case, he claimed that the symptoms of the suspect gave him probable cause to request a drug test. He listed every single symptom in every case. Now, symptoms are not check the block items. You may have some, and not others. Look on any medical website, and you will see that it says clearly that some symptoms may not be present in all people. The cop literally looked at the ceiling as he rattled off the symptoms from memory.

Now, did the suspects test positive? Yes. Were they all convicted? No. One was let go because the cop, faced with his own report, admitted he had read the wrong Miranda card to the juvenile offender. If a lawyer hadn't pointed that out, the kid would have been convicted, by a cop that I had already started to question his honesty.

Life is not like TV. On TV cops break rules all the time to get the bad guy. We write that the character played by the actor shows dedication to justice. Why should we let the cops break the rules in real life, like they break them on TV?

 

Lurks Often

(5,455 posts)
9. I agree more should be charged,
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 07:33 PM
Apr 2013

but who do you blame?
Why doesn't the district attorney bring charges?
Why doesn't the mayor fire the police chief?
Why doesn't the police chief fire the police officer? (Police unions do a VERY good job of preventing officers from being fired or even disciplined).
Why doesn't the state attorney general file charges?

What do you when the rank & file police strike back by doing only the barest minimum to avoid being disciplined and stop actively enforcing the laws?

Everyone of those police officers that shot up the 2 pick up trucks during the Dorner debacle should be fired and their police certification revoked AT A MINIMUM.

Things are broken and I don't see any good answers.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
8. People bash cops on DU all the time! Where have you been!?!
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 05:31 PM
Apr 2013

If you think this site is pro-law enforcement 'anything they do is fine'...then you are mistaken. You just need to go and actually look at the threads. At least one a day if not more.

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