• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

The behaviour of US police officers

Status
Not open for further replies.
ponderingturtle said:
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.
Click to expand...

I think that's the important point on the issue also. Tactics that will produce lethal shootings are going to save innocent lives in police mistakes. If the police were capable of discerning between weapons and cell phones accurately it would be much less important, and training them to do so better doesn't seem to be effective.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
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
Click to expand...

That's interesting but my question was specifically about non-lethal use of guns, which was offered in opposition to the idea of "shooting the center of mass".
 
Training is not the issue. If you're the kind of person who's going to kneel on a man's neck for a length of a Looney Toons short after he's already dead from you kneeling on his neck all because nobody specifically told you not to do that, you shouldn't be a cop.
 
Last edited:
ponderingturtle said:
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.
Click to expand...
When I say, "in this case", I mean cases like it as well. The problem is people arguing any case, all or none, no case is different, yada yada.

There are times, and this was one of them, that the situation made it possible to have put 4 rounds into the girl's very large lower body.

There are other situations that are similar, especially when suspects are wielding a knife.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
If you include arms and hands you are arguing a straw man.
Click to expand...

What are you even talking about? You talked about shooting legs and I made a point about the larger issue of trying to hit limbs, which includes legs. It seems like you're trying to find a technicality to avoid admitting to being wrong.

As for your snip: you snipped quite a bit that wasn't "personal". Telling you that you don't understand a particular word is not an attakc. Yet another way to avoid the points.
 
dirtywick said:
I think that's the important point on the issue also. Tactics that will produce lethal shootings are going to save innocent lives in police mistakes. If the police were capable of discerning between weapons and cell phones accurately it would be much less important, and training them to do so better doesn't seem to be effective.
Click to expand...
Could be that training is not addressing one big issue and that is cops are convinced young black men are all carrying guns and they intend to shoot them.

Two cases in point, one lethal one not:

The guy who was standing outside his car and the cop told the man to present his ID. When the guy turned to get it out of the car the cop shot him. This was one time thank goodness it was not four to the chest.

Another was the man sitting in the passenger seat who told the cop he had a permitted weapon. The man said it was in the glove box and slowly went to retrieve it. Had that been a white man it's almost 100% certain the cop would not have shot the man.

So training is not addressing the problem, it's not that training will never work.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Training is not the issue. If you're the kind of person who's going to kneel on a man's neck for a length of a Looney Toons short after he's already dead from you kneeling on his neck all because nobody specifically told you not to do that, you shouldn't be a cop.
Click to expand...

Good example.

Training won't work to solve that problem.
 
IMO many people particularly in the US are enamoured with guns and therefor look for reason to use them in many situations that don't call for them. This ranges from things like using them as non-lethal weapons to use them as threats to obtain compliance to "defending" yourself by shooting first against that isn't actively trying to shoot you.

If you MUST use a gun shooting for the center of mass is the right thing to do, but this means the gun should not even leave the holster unless shooting for the center of mass is justified. US police procedures have the first part down, the second, not so much.
 
Belz... said:
That's interesting but my question was specifically about non-lethal use of guns, which was offered in opposition to the idea of "shooting the center of mass".
Click to expand...

46 rounds hit people of which 31 caused injury needing hospital treatment and 7 people were killed

seems pretty none lethal to me.

Germany is one of the countries that trains none lethal shooting where it is the best option.

A lethal shot is the very last option.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So there was no way for the cop to see the kid's hands going up?
Click to expand...

He asked for the kid to drop the weapon and raise his hands. He only saw the latter and so concluded that the kid had not complied.

Skeptic Ginger said:
That's a sucky conclusion. How could any fleeing suspect overcome that?
Click to expand...

They cannot, and that's why so many people are killed by the police in the US. :(

If you're a fleeing suspect, your goose is probably already cooked. If you appear non-white then the probability is probably very high.
 
Belz... said:
That doesn't tell me where they were hit or if the officers enacted the methods you described.
Click to expand...

Well, those methods are standard training and required by law.
Every shooting is subject to enquiry.
I suppose more detailed figures are available case by case but I am not going to spend hours looking for them.
In Denmark there was aa government enquiry in to police use of firearms in 2006 after four people were killed in police shootings in one year.
It's taken pretty seriously as is the training.

In the UK a report has to be made every time a weapon is used even if that is just pointing it at someone.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Well, those methods are standard training and required by law.
Every shooting is subject to enquiry.
I suppose more detailed figures are available case by case but I am not going to spend hours looking for them.
In Denmark there was aa government enquiry in to police use of firearms in 2006 after four people were killed in police shootings in one year.
It's taken pretty seriously as is the training.

In the UK a report has to be made every time a weapon is used even if that is just pointing it at someone.
Click to expand...

Fair enough but without hard numbers I can't judge whether this idea is actually applied as you stated.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Training is not the issue. If you're the kind of person who's going to kneel on a man's neck for a length of a Looney Toons short after he's already dead from you kneeling on his neck all because nobody specifically told you not to do that, you shouldn't be a cop.
Click to expand...

No amount of training it going to make 'shooting the gun out of the suspect hand" a viable tactic. It'slike expecting a major league Baseball player to bat 500 all the time.It just is not going to happen.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
46 rounds hit people of which 31 caused injury needing hospital treatment and 7 people were killed

seems pretty none lethal to me.
Click to expand...

Bah we can beat that. There were 102 bullet holes in a pick up truck delivering newspapers, injuring two women and killing no one. And that is just one shooting.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Bah we can beat that. There were 102 bullet holes in a pick up truck delivering newspapers, injuring two women and killing no one. And that is just one shooting.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah I remember that one. So two cops empty their mags in a truck and each reloads twice emptying those mags into the truck. TBF it was a pickup truck that the suspect was in (wrong color, make and model), and TBF there were two human beings inside it (they were Latino women the suspect was a black male), and TBF the officers were severely punished (lol ohh no). But kill on site orders are fine for suspected cop killers. Their job is dangerous so they shouldn't face punishment for shooting first and asking questions later.

And that was just one of 3 incidents where someone was shot at or rammed by a cop car because they had "reason to believe" the suspect was inside.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom