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The behaviour of US police officers

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MTS, contractor to pay $5.5M to family of San Diego man who died in custody in 2019
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https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2021-04-19/mts-contractor-to-pay-5-5m-to-family-of-san-diego-man-who-died-in-custody-in-2019

Angel Hernandez, a mentally ill man, was killed by San Diego MTS security guards who placed him in a face-down restraint, knees on his back and neck, for over 6 minutes.

The city has released the video of the October 2019 incident. The video shows Hernandez struggling while handcuffed face-down and his breathing becoming more belabored before he loses consciousness and dies. No person has been charged for the murder of Hernandez.

This killing, which preceeds the murder of Floyd, is nearly a direct duplicate. Hernandez suffered cardiac arrest during a prolonged, face-down restraint by police. The video clearly shows him struggling to breathe before eventually slipping into unconsciousness, and the security guards still maintained the dangerous hold.
 
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gnome said:
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.
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That requires they have non lethal options as readily available as their guns.
 
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.
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It must be frustrating, you seem to have ignored the posts listing all the countries who do not train cops to always shoot to kill.

Belz... said:
Do you still doubt climate change, though?
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Talk about resorting to posting nonsense.:rolleyes:

Belz... said:
Face it:
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:sdl:
Belz... said:
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.
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There are some cases. This was one of them. The girl had a large body mass, the cop was very close and he shot accurately enough to miss the other girl who was right there. If that cop was worried about missing he shouldn't have shot at all because he could have easily shot the wrong girl.

Belz... said:
Stop arguing this point. You are wrong.
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:dl:
 
The Don said:
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From the policeman's perspective he didn't see a weapon drop and saw hands move and concluded that he should shoot. ...
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So there was no way for the cop to see the kid's hands going up?

That's a sucky conclusion. How could any fleeing suspect overcome that?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Which they will then get confused as to which is which...
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It would appear that for the USA police - who seem to be easily confused and quite forgetful - that the best remedy would to make their handguns pink and frilly and make the Tasers all black and sleek and make them make a big “gun” noise, that way they can still pretend they are on a MARSOC mission in enemy territory without “accidentally” gunning down people.
 
Belz... said:
It's not my opinion. It's the opinion of most trained police forces.

So how successful are those "many" forces at shooting limbs and not hitting an artery?
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Give up. You are wrong. :rolleyes:

First off, the whole 'could hit an artery nonsense' is easily refuted: Hit center mass and it's a fatality. Hit a leg and maybe (though not all that likely) it is a fatality. See the problem with your artery argument?

Also you keep talking about hitting "limbs" because you like to argue the straw man that we are talking about shooting the gun out of a hand like in the movies. Not one person in the discussion is talking about hitting an arm or a hand. No one is arguing every cop in every situation can shoot with such precision as to hit something other than center mass.
 
Belz... said:
No, don't put words in my mouth.

How about you answer my question instead?
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Well, they must not be hitting that many femoral arteries as the lethality of police shootings in the United States in 2014 were 18 time as lethal as in Denmark and 100 times more deadly than in Finland.

Figures for deadly shootings by police in Europe are difficult
to extrapolate because compared to the USA they are much lower.
For example in Denmark in 2014 53 rounds were discharged of which 17 were warning shots and two people were killed.

In Germany 133 rounds were fired, 65 were warning shots, 46 rounds hit people of which 31 caused injury needing hospital treatment and 7 people were killed.

Some research and figures here

https://theconversation.com/why-do-american-cops-kill-so-many-compared-to-european-cops-49696
 
Again Europe is just better than the US. That's the always the argument. So it works both ways.

Americans are just too stupid to shoot to wound. Go with that.
 
Bikewer said:
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.
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I know that, I was lamenting no non-lethal options were available.
Bikewer said:
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”.
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You have been trained to use the shoot to kill is the only option. Of course that is what you know.

I don't think the cop who killed the teen did anything wrong according to his training.

What I am saying is the police in the US need to revisit the 'shoot to kill or don't shoot' training and resulting mentality.
 
Okay everyone in this thread raise your non-firing hand if you've actually shot a weapon.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It must be frustrating, you seem to have ignored the posts listing all the countries who do not train cops to always shoot to kill.
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I've already addressed that by asking for statistics showing that it is an effective strategy i.e. that it actually works in the field. The response has been a deafening silence and some snarky anti-American comment.

Talk about resorting to posting nonsense.
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Edited for rule 0 and rule 12.


There are some cases. This was one of them. The girl had a large body mass, the cop was very close and he shot accurately enough to miss the other girl who was right there. If that cop was worried about missing he shouldn't have shot at all because he could have easily shot the wrong girl.
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That's pretty stupid. If there's cause to shoot, you shoot the center of mass in order to minimise risk and maximise your chances of doing what you're setting out to do. You can't then argue that not shooting and letting the crime occur would minimise risk.

:dl:
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Straw man.

I'll repeat it for the nth time: in this case. Not in every case ever.
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No cop here has done anything but defend both shootings.

This thread is not about just that one case, there has been rather a lot of shootings discussed in this thread including the shooting of the 13 year old while he was obeying police instructions.
 
JoeMorgue said:
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Americans are just too stupid to shoot to wound. Go with that.
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Has nothing to do with it. The issue is US cops need a paradigm shift. Until that happens, and it's going to take a hell of a lot of work to do, cops here will continue with the mantra they have already embedded in their brains that there are only two options: shoot to kill or don't shoot.

We can't even get forum members in this discussion to let go of that mantra.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Give up. You are wrong.
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Edited by zooterkin: 
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Edited for rule 0 and rule 12.


First off, the whole 'could hit an artery nonsense' is easily refuted: Hit center mass and it's a fatality. Hit a leg and maybe (though not all that likely) it is a fatality. See the problem with your artery argument?
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And again you're missing the point of the argument (and stop calling it nonsense.
Edited by zooterkin: 
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). The point is that if you're going for the limbs, you are creating a host of potential issues while not significiantly reducing the odds of crippling injuries or death.

You're also wrong that hitting the center of mass is a fatality. It can be.

Also you keep talking about hitting "limbs" because you like to argue the straw man that we are talking about shooting the gun out of a hand like in the movies.
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No, I said "limbs", which includes arms and legs. You are reaching.

Not one person in the discussion is talking about hitting an arm or a hand.
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Then what the hell did you mean by hitting the legs if you're objecting to the word "limbs"?
 
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