Police certainly are capable of reading a police report. However, knowing that she was erratic at a prior traffic stop is not necessarily going to provoke in them the idea that she may become violent and point a gun at them. "Erratic" does not by definition mean "violent." Many people with mental health issues are "erratic" but very few are violent.
Once again, you're reacting as if they kicked her door in and went in with guns blazing. That's not the case. They attempted to talk her down, right up until she pointed a weapon and threatened to use it.
Secondly, it all really becomes irrelevant the moment she points a weapon at them and threatens to kill them. Whether you are shot by a person with mental issues or a person with no mental issues, the bullets will injure or kill you just as much in either case. You're basically asking the police not to defend themselves in a situation wherein someone a) has the means to injure or kill them, and b) has expressed a willingness or desire to do so. Her probable mental issues, if anything, make her more liable to act impulsively and pull the trigger. If someone points a weapon at a cop, they should expect to get shot. Cops have every right to defend themselves.
And I had an idea you'd mention the survivalist nutters pointing guns at cops. If the cops had shot them, I'd have had no issue with it. Nor would, I suspect, many people here on DU, given that during those standoffs, there were multiple calls on multiple threads for the cops to go in there and clean house. Once again, if you point a weapon at a cop, you should expect to get shot. Given that there were multiple militia nutters involved, it's likely the reason the cops didn't open fire was because it would provoke an enormous bloodbath. However, had they done so, I very much doubt that very many people would deeply mourn the militia nutters. I don't recall outpourings of grief when LaVoy Finicum was killed by police officers.
And exactly who said I'm placing sole blame on this woman? You chastise me for my assumptions about your viewpoint, and then make assumptions about my viewpoint. Mental health care in the United States is atrocious. Education in inner cities is atrocious. Institutional racism and poverty are very real problems. Police training has many concerns that need to be addressed and corrected.
But none of those things are an excuse for pointing a weapon at a police officer and threatening to kill him. The officer is not going to think to himself, "Jeez, it's a real shame that the combination of socio-economic circumstances, plus her mental issues and the injustices she's suffered, have resulted in her being in a frame of mind where she's okay with pointing a gun at me and threatening to kill me. Well, I suppose I can let her shoot me. After all, who cares about my life, or my wife and kids?"
No, the cop is going to think, "Holy shit, she's pointing a gun at me and threatening to kill me, and she's just erratic enough to do it!" And the cop will react as any normal human being would react: in self-defense. The bottom line is that if this young lady had laid the weapon aside and surrendered, she would still be breathing at this moment.
She chose otherwise. I'm sorry that she made that choice, and I do not rejoice that she is dead, but neither am I going to ignore that she made a very real threat to kill another human being. That human being has every right to act in self-defense, whether he or she is a police officer or Joe Citizen.
= new reply since forum marked as read
