Cop pulls gun on 11 year old boy

12AX7 said:
Yes, because the number of kids with dealdy accurate hatchet-throwing skills are on the rise.

:rolleyes:
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Indeed, and the fact that 11 year olds are generally inaccurate with their hatchet throwing means that someone threatened by an imminent 11 year old hatchet throwing scenario should wait and see if the hatchet hits them first, thus confirming 11 year old ninja skills, before responding. After all, what harm can a hatchet thrown by an 11 year old do? Won't it just bounce off your shirt because it was thrown by a child?

Anyway, this is all ludicrous. The suggestion from some posters is that, by virtue of being 11, a child is unable to harm a competent adult in the chaos of a fight, even if armed. The contention of the other side is that circumstances differ from incident to incident and we should not make blanket claims. The amazing thing about this thread is that the relative merits of these two points are being debated as if they were equally sane. They are not.

I know an 11 year old who is tiny for his age. Chances are (though it's not a sure thing) that disarming him of any close combat weapon would be relatively trivial. He's short, he's not strong and he lacks magical ninja training. However, I know another 11 year old who is 5'10", weighs 170lbs (and it's not all fat) and has a surprising level of strength for a pre-pubescent male. If he was armed with a knife and threatening me, i would feel like there was a definite danger to my life. The odds would still be stacked in my favour due to a whole range of factors, but the danger would be far more severe. You see, I lack magical ninja training too.

The discussion about appropriate responses is totally valid and I think everyone shares an instinctive discomfort at the idea of pointing a deadly weapon at a child. That being said, the idea that your age, to the exclusion of all other factors, necessarily is the most important aspect of whether you are capable of harming another human being is silly. In most cases a child is far less dangerous than an adult, not all, so withholding judgement until more facts are known is not an unreasonable position.
 
The Norseman said:
Yes, there is a risk of injury when one is a police officer.
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There is a risk of injury when one works on a construction site, yet still construction workers seek to mitigate risk by wearing safety equipment and following procedures and guidelines. Why is risk mitigation something which is always vilified in police officers?
 
squealpiggy said:
There is a risk of injury when one works on a construction site, yet still construction workers seek to mitigate risk by wearing safety equipment and following procedures and guidelines. Why is risk mitigation something which is always vilified in police officers?
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It's not.

Cops do have passive protection systems like your construction worker's safety equipment -- it's called body armor. Everything else cops have as risk mitigation equipment is active and designed to harm others and cops have certain laws they have to follow regarding use of those active risk mitigation tools.

When cops don't seem to follow the laws that they are governed by, many people will get angry about it. This happens more so when cops don't seem to be punished for it. Whether or not that's true is a different story; I'm talking only about perceptions here.
 
 
 
Bardy said:
Anyway, this is all ludicrous. The suggestion from some posters is that, by virtue of being 11, a child is unable to harm a competent adult in the chaos of a fight, even if armed. The contention of the other side is that circumstances differ from incident to incident and we should not make blanket claims. The amazing thing about this thread is that the relative merits of these two points are being debated as if they were equally sane. They are not.
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Another poster who is too enamored of the discussion in his head to read the thread.

The discussion about appropriate responses is totally valid and I think everyone shares an instinctive discomfort at the idea of pointing a deadly weapon at a child. That being said, the idea that your age, to the exclusion of all other factors, necessarily is the most important aspect of whether you are capable of harming another human being is silly. In most cases a child is far less dangerous than an adult, not all, so withholding judgement until more facts are known is not an unreasonable position.
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Slowly, for the hard of reading: SOP for well trained police officers = continuum of force. Gun at the last stage of the continuum of force. Police, according to the story, went to gun first. No-no. Bad cops. Need better cops.

Simple enough?
 
Megalodon said:
Slowly, for the hard of reading: SOP for well trained police officers = continuum of force. Gun at the last stage of the continuum of force. Police, according to the story, went to gun first. No-no. Bad cops. Need better cops.

Simple enough?
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Yes, because it shows you have no idea how the force continuum is applied and is proof (as if more were needed) that your opinion on this matter is worth nothing.
 
Grizzly Adams said:
Yes, because it shows you have no idea how the force continuum is applied and is proof (as if more were needed) that your opinion on this matter is worth nothing.
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In your opinion, then, using the story as told at this time, the cop was justified in going right for the gun? Taking into consideration all factors plus the use of force continuum, he decided that he was in serious immanent threat of great bodily harm or death? This cop had no other way of effecting an arrest or disarming the individual in question?
 
The cop could easily have disarmed the child with a baton, though I'm sure the child far prefers the outcome of not having had the bones of his hand shattered.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
The cop could easily have disarmed the child with a baton, though I'm sure the child far prefers the outcome of not having had the bones of his hand shattered.
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That'd be silly because as we all know, cops aren't ninjas with super combat skillz.

Or maybe stern commands or pepper spray, or taser. There are several less-than-lethal (LTL) weapons at a cop's disposal.
 
The Norseman said:
That'd be silly because as we all know, cops aren't ninjas with super combat skillz.

Or maybe stern commands or pepper spray, or taser. There are several less-than-lethal (LTL) weapons at a cop's disposal.
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Indeed, but it seems the gun+stern command ended the situation without any parties suffering injury. Pepper spray might not cause permanent damage, but it will cause short-term damage, same with taser. No one felt pain, that's a good thing.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
Indeed, but it seems the gun+stern command ended the situation without any parties suffering injury. Pepper spray might not cause permanent damage, but it will cause short-term damage, same with taser. No one felt pain, that's a good thing.
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I'd agree except for the cop, as the story is told, did not have reason to draw a pistol in the first place.

Try this out and see where the situation fell:

(click for larger and clearer image)
 
The Norseman said:
In your opinion, then, using the story as told at this time, the cop was justified in going right for the gun?
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Since all we have at this time is one side of the story I won't say whether his force was reasonable or not.

Taking into consideration all factors
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When did these come to light? I haven't seen them.

plus the use of force continuum, he decided that he was in serious immanent threat of great bodily harm or death? This cop had no other way of effecting an arrest or disarming the individual in question?
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This is the wrong question, and any judicial review determining if there was an excessive use of force should never ask it. The issue is never "he could have done this" it is instead "were the officer's actions reasonable under the Graham v. Connor standard?"

The Graham analysis presents three questions:
  1. What was the threat presented at the time force was used?
  2. What was the nature of the crime the officer suspects the individual to have committed?
  3. Was there violence or the threat of violence in resisting an arrest?

We already know fairly well the answer to the second question, and that answer doesn't do anything to bolster the case for a potentially deadly response. We don't know much about the first or the last question, though. Until we do, the question of whether or not a threat to respond with deadly force was reasonable cannot be answered, legally.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
Indeed, but it seems the gun+stern command ended the situation without any parties suffering injury. Pepper spray might not cause permanent damage, but it will cause short-term damage, same with taser. No one felt pain, that's a good thing.
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Everyday parents hold their kids over animal enclosures without anyone getting hurt. It is still a very stupid thing to do.
 
The Norseman said:
It's not.

Cops do have passive protection systems like your construction worker's safety equipment -- it's called body armor.
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Body armour is designed to keep an officer alive in the case of being shot in the torso or stabbed. It is of limited usefulness against an axe.

If officers had impenetrable body armour perhaps they wouldn't need guns at all.

Megalodon said:
Slowly, for the hard of reading: SOP for well trained police officers = continuum of force. Gun at the last stage of the continuum of force.

Simple enough?
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Sure. But you're wrong. The last part of the continuum of force is "deadly force". Not "gun". Drawing a gun in the presence of a deadly weapon (such as a hatchet) falls slightly beyond verbal commands.

Police use of force training about knives and other bladed weapons is quite clear. Don't mess around when it comes to knives.
 
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