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The behaviour of US police officers

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acbytesla said:
That's not how they're trained.
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Training standards are not the same everywhere. The shear number of times US police officers use firearms and\or violence enforce obedience leads me to believe it is taught either formally or informally in many districts.
 
chrispy said:
One of my buddies is a former LAPD officer. He told me that the taser and his sidearm were always worn on different sides of the body, per department rules. So, a right-hander would have their sidearm on their right side and their taser on the left. He also said that they weigh diiferently and have different feels. He said there was no way he could "accidentally" pull his gun when needing his taser and that if someone did they should never have been a LEO in the first place.

ETA: Maybe some of our resident LEOs could weigh in on this?
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It's my understanding that wearing them on opposite sides is common. This doesn't mean muscle memory can't cause you to default to the thing you have trained the most in a stressful situation. IMO drawing the sidearm should be the thing that requires a more conscious effort, but I doubt many US police departments see it that way.

I think this probabaly was an accident. I'm sure all of us have had cases where we mean to do one thing but do another. Unfortunately for all involved this one was in a life critical situation.
 
acbytesla said:
That's not how they're trained. My friend is an FTO. (field training officer). I've done ride alongs with him
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They are taught a lot of things, there is certainly a whole wing of training that is focused on killology and increasing force to gain compliance rapidly. If that was strictly true Dave Grossman would not have much of a career telling cops that the best sex of their lives is after they kill someone.

How often do these very nice people excuse the police for assaulting or killing someone? What is their take on Breonna Taylor and should any of the police gone to prison for that?
 
chrispy said:
One of my buddies is a former LAPD officer. He told me that the taser and his sidearm were always worn on different sides of the body, per department rules. So, a right-hander would have their sidearm on their right side and their taser on the left. He also said that they weigh diiferently and have different feels. He said there was no way he could "accidentally" pull his gun when needing his taser and that if someone did they should never have been a LEO in the first place.

ETA: Maybe some of our resident LEOs could weigh in on this?
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They avoid this thread like the plague.
 
JoeMorgue said:
So a list of things LEO's can't remember.

- Which is their gun and which their taser.
- Which apartment they live in.
- What commands they actually gave suspects.
- That you need oxygen to live.
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At least she wasn't also carrying a mobile.

"If we a pulling this guy over I am just going to ring Dave to say I will be la.., oh ****, I just shot myself in the side of the head."
 
lomiller said:
Training standards are not the same everywhere. The shear number of times US police officers use firearms and\or violence enforce obedience leads me to believe it is taught either formally or informally in many districts.
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They are ALL taught the importance of imposing their authority when it is called for. They are taught how to protect themselves and take someone down and control them.

And you are right that standards somewhat vary from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But I don't think it's the standards that are the problem. It's the people they choose to be police officers and the tribalism that exists among police officers. The job also wears on police officers. They get cynical and some live for the adrenaline.

And some are just stupid.
 
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Yeah until we get 40 pages about how he was no angel and tactical analysis of why he didn't just outrun the bullet.
 
Assuming no further details are forthcoming and she (I think one of the articles identified the shooter as female, if I'm wrong mea culpa) doesn't have a history of this sort of "mistake" then yeah I can live with manslaughter or even involuntary manslaughter.
 
Here's the thing though.

The X-26 Taser weighs about 7 ounces. A loaded Glock 22 about 34 ounces, almost 5 times as much. I can't, yet, find the exact make/model of Taser and Gun that this officer was carrying, but I'm betting the gun didn't feel anything like the Taser and vice versa in heft and weight even if they were ergonomically similar (some Tasers are gun shaped, some are more Star Trek phaser shaped).

That doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake, but it does effect reasonable of a mistake it was.
 
JoeMorgue said:
- Which is their gun and which their taser.
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This is a design problem. The airplane industry learned this back in WW2: airplane controls need distinct shapes for different control functions. And they learned that the hard way.
https://humanisticsystems.com/2018/02/25/human-factors-and-ergonomics-looking-back-to-look-forward/

Tasers should not be shaped like guns. They shouldn't feel like a gun in your hand. And ideally, they shouldn't even use and index finger trigger like a gun either. If a taser was fired with your thumb, for example, then a cop who tried to use their gun as a taser wouldn't even fire the gun. That's how it should be designed.
 
If you confuse a Taser with a Pistol, you should not be a police officer, period. Weight and shape alone should tell you the difference.
Attempts by some to let the officer off the hook here are ridiculous.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yeah until we get 40 pages about how he was no angel and tactical analysis of why he didn't just outrun the bullet.
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And the same people who would let this officer off the hook are the some one who are outraged by that "innocent, patriotic" women who was shot trying to climb over that barricade in storming of the Capitol. The hypocrisy level is truly incredible here.
 
Ziggurat said:
This is a design problem. The airplane industry learned this back in WW2: airplane controls need distinct shapes for different control functions. And they learned that the hard way.
https://humanisticsystems.com/2018/02/25/human-factors-and-ergonomics-looking-back-to-look-forward/

Tasers should not be shaped like guns. They shouldn't feel like a gun in your hand. And ideally, they shouldn't even use and index finger trigger like a gun either. If a taser was fired with your thumb, for example, then a cop who tried to use their gun as a taser wouldn't even fire the gun. That's how it should be designed.
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Does seem a bit stupid.

Even in the mid 1800s they were bright enough to make bottles of poison massively different colours, shapes and having skulls and stuff moulded into them so you knew it was the one you don't drink.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Here's the thing though.

The X-26 Taser weighs about 7 ounces. A loaded Glock 22 about 34 ounces, almost 5 times as much. I can't, yet, find the exact make/model of Taser and Gun that this officer was carrying, but I'm betting the gun didn't feel anything like the Taser and vice versa in heft and weight even if they were ergonomically similar (some Tasers are gun shaped, some are more Star Trek phaser shaped).

That doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake, but it does effect reasonable of a mistake it was.
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Just to be fair, the X2 Taser is listed at 454 grams which is slightly more than 16 ounces. It is a double shot TASER and is the model most commonly carried by police officers. The X26 is a single shot TASER aimed as a home defense weapon.

A fully loaded Glock 17 weighs in at 32.28 oz which I believe is the lightest firearm typically carried by patrol officers.
 
dudalb said:
If you confuse a Taser with a Pistol, you should not be a police officer, period. Weight and shape alone should tell you the difference.
Attempts by some to let the officer off the hook here are ridiculous.
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That may be true, but it doesn't help. Blaming the officer after the fact won't stop it from happening again. Which it will.

Unless you change the design. Weight difference doesn't suffice. The shape is too similar. And the way they are operated is identical. Change that, make them operate differently, and you have a change to seriously reduce the number of times officers fire their gun thinking it's a taser. There's no excuse for not doing that, regardless of officer culpability.

Unless you think having officers accidentally discharge their gun at someone is an effective and worthwhile way to weed out the officers who shouldn't remain on the force.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Here's the thing though.

The X-26 Taser weighs about 7 ounces. A loaded Glock 22 about 34 ounces, almost 5 times as much. I can't, yet, find the exact make/model of Taser and Gun that this officer was carrying, but I'm betting the gun didn't feel anything like the Taser and vice versa in heft and weight even if they were ergonomically similar (some Tasers are gun shaped, some are more Star Trek phaser shaped).

That doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake, but it does effect reasonable of a mistake it was.
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I've got it. All they have to do is make guns polka-dot green and pink and make squeaky sounds when held and moved, while tazers are black and badass and make shotgun noises when used. The pew pew pow pow mentality of the police will do the rest.
 
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