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The behaviour of US police officers

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It's only US cops that can't be trained to shoot more accurately or use less lethal methods it seems.

Are American cops particularly stupid on un-trainable?
 
dirtywick said:
Maybe, but they’re not very good at that. Maybe it’s from training them like soldiers. Aim center mass, fire until the threat is eliminated. Maximize your damage to the target. Hooah.
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Possibly so--my point is if you're going down the road of more training, don't train them to do tricks with guns, train them to make a better choice whether to use the gun.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Gosh golly, the entire field of experts, not a single dissenting voice among them.
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I know it's frustrating to be told you're wrong, but now you're just being ridiculous. Yes, I'm sure there are dissenting voices.

Do you still doubt climate change, though?

Face it:
1) Shooting limbs is extremely hard, and thus dangerous if you're facing a suspect that you think you should shoot.
2) Shooting a limb is very likely to kill the suspect anyway, so shoot the center of mass that's easier to hit.
3) If you miss, you might hit other people.

Stop arguing this point. You are wrong.
 
Belz... said:
I know it's frustrating to be told you're wrong, but now you're just being ridiculous. Yes, I'm sure there are dissenting voices.

Do you still doubt climate change, though?

Face it:
1) Shooting limbs is extremely hard, and thus dangerous if you're facing a suspect that you think you should shoot.
2) Shooting a limb is very likely to kill the suspect anyway, so shoot the center of mass that's easier to hit.
3) If you miss, you might hit other people.

Stop arguing this point. You are wrong.
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Many police forces in Europe disagree with you
 
Craig4 said:
I only saw the body cam but this one was a justified shooting. The boy turned and the officer fired in less than a second. The boy had the weapon through the chase. I'm sure others will disagree.
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Got any response for why cops need to shoot when someone is obeying their orders? Cop ordered him to drop the gun and put his hands up which he did, so the cop shot him as per protocol apparently.

Seems the cop decided he was going to kill the kid before actually shooting the orders to drop the gun and put hands up where just to make the killing easier.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Got any response for why cops need to shoot when someone is obeying their orders? Cop ordered him to drop the gun and put his hands up which he did, so the cop shot him as per protocol apparently.

Seems the cop decided he was going to kill the kid before actually shooting the orders to drop the gun and put hands up where just to make the killing easier.
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I guess the kid didn't follow orders because he didn't drop the gun in a way that the policeman could see. The trouble was that he couldn't have followed orders having discarded the gun previously.

From the policeman's perspective he didn't see a weapon drop and saw hands move and concluded that he should shoot.

Better training may have prevented the killing, then again if the police behave like an occupying force then they're going to do this kind of thing. IMO it's a vicious circle.
 
The Don said:
I guess the kid didn't follow orders because he didn't drop the gun in a way that the policeman could see. The trouble was that he couldn't have followed orders having discarded the gun previously.
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Yep obeying the cops only gets you killed, there really is nothing he could do to prevent the cop killing him, the cop decided to kill and it was going to happen no matter what.
 
The video posted this morning shows the police officer in the Ohio incident shooting the suspect as she was in the act of stabbing another person. Very likely saving the intended victim’s life.
There is NO “less than lethal” device that is capable of stopping such an attack reliably. As pointed out, “bean bag” or “rubber bullet” rounds are normally fired from a specialized shotgun and normally carried by special-response teams.
And they do not work very well. I’ve seen at least two videos where suspects were hit with bean-bag rounds... With no effect whatever.

Almost all of the above verbiage indicates a lack of understanding of the actual physiological and psychological effects of being involved in such a situation.
I’ve written about this before. Under the stress of a shooting situation, officers, regardless of training, tend to suffer tunnel vision, hearing impairment, loss of fine motor control, etc, etc.
“Target fixation” is another effect.... Being unaware of anything but the threat in front of you.

These are well-understood effects and thoroughly studied. Considering this, the likelihood of displaying even-better accuracy needed to shoot at even-smaller “non lethal” targets often goes out the window.
Further, as noted above, those “non lethal” arms and legs contain major arteries.... The femoral artery in particular can result in a very rapid bleed out and is very difficult to treat even with the new issued tourniquets.

And... There are numerous cases of shooting incidents where people have taken “peripheral” hits and continued to fight quite effectively. In some cases.... Not even being aware of being shot until after the incident ceases.

To date... The only known method of alleviating all of the “combat induced stress” is... More combat. Soldiers become inured to these stresses in many cases. They’ve been conditioned. Police officers, who may go an entire career without drawing their gun, do not, regardless of the amount of training.
The copper who can put all his shots in the 10-ring on the range may find himself hard pressed to hit a dangerous suspect at all under combat conditions.
That’s why we are trained to shoot at “center mass”, and to “shoot to stop”.
 
Bikewer said:
Almost all of the above verbiage indicates a lack of understanding of the actual physiological and psychological effects of being involved in such a situation.
I’ve written about this before. Under the stress of a shooting situation, officers, regardless of training, tend to suffer tunnel vision, hearing impairment, loss of fine motor control, etc, etc.
“Target fixation” is another effect.... Being unaware of anything but the threat in front of you.
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Also being unaware of the threat in front of you dropping the gun and throwing their hands up and stopping as you order.


They’ve been conditioned. Police officers, who may go an entire career without drawing their gun
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Given the things we see cops draw their guns for such as a guy buying a candy bar that really really seems unlikely. What have these cops never pulled someone over for driving while black?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
I just posted a link to a place that trains warning shots and shoot the legs.
.....
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From your link:
'Wrinkling his face, he replied, “You don’t think you can hit a leg at a distance of three to six feet?”
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How many U.S. police shootings are at what amounts to almost arm's length? More important, how often do European cops confront suspects who are or may be armed with guns? Or do they routinely shoot suspects armed with knives, bats, wrenches, etc.? Who are they actually shooting?

Also from your link:
He grinned at me, “If he is shooting at you? Well, then we use lethal shots — two to the chest, one to the head.”
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Just like us.
 
The Don said:
I guess the kid didn't follow orders because he didn't drop the gun in a way that the policeman could see. The trouble was that he couldn't have followed orders having discarded the gun previously.

From the policeman's perspective he didn't see a weapon drop and saw hands move and concluded that he should shoot.

Better training may have prevented the killing, then again if the police behave like an occupying force then they're going to do this kind of thing. IMO it's a vicious circle.
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A big part of the problem is that cops are permitted to kill people based on what they guess or suspect: "He reached into his pocket, so he must have had a gun," when the guy was pulling out his wallet. Cops should be trained not to shoot unless/until they actually see a weapon, and they should be punished severely if they guess wrong. If that makes their job a tad more dangerous, tough.

On the other hand, life lesson for civilians: Put your empty hands up before you turn around.
 
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Bob001 said:
A big part of the problem is that cops are permitted to kill people based on what they guess or suspect: "He reached into his pocket, so there must have been a gun," when the guy was pulling out his wallet.
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Hell even that would be a step up from "I ordered the suspect to show me his ID, then shot him when he reached into his pocket because it could have been a gun."
 
Yes but Europe is full of perfect socialist utopias that don't have crime so the comparison is invalid.

"America is a barbaric 3rd world country" works both ways.
 
1. How about we make a law that if the gunned down suspect doesn't have a gun or a knife: automatic grand jury for the police officer. And the prosecuting attorney at the grand jury trial comes from a federal pool, completely outside that city/state.

2. All police consolidated to state police

3. disarm and demilitarize the police. Maybe we can recruit English officers to then train our police on DE-escalation for a change.
 
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