thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 34,605
Another unarmed black man shot
- Thread starter Puppycow
- Start date
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
It's also been said already and also seems to bear repeating.
What is it the cops are scared about?
The danger of their occupation?
They aren't even near the top of dangerous occupations. How are construction workers not scared? Garbage collectors? Their jobs are significantly riskier.
Maybe the cops need to hang out with some carpenters and garbage collectors and find out how they manage to face the debilitating fear of going to work every day.
Without even being able to use abusing and killing innocents as a stress outlet.
Coz getting shot sucks?
I'm sorry. There's just too much hyperbole in your post for me to bother.
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
What hyperbole? Do you even know what that word means?
Use your own Google-Fu. Look up a list of the most dangerous occupations.
No hyperbole in anything I wrote in that post. Simple, unadorned fact.
sadhatter
Philosopher
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2009
- Messages
- 8,694
Your point seems to boil down to an eye for an eye, do you really think that justifying behavior that is only going to make matters worse is helping?
If oru problem is how black people are viewed, accepting them acting in a fashion that would confirm this is only going to make matters worse.
Thermal
August Member
Other professions may have more casualties, but 2 by 4s and trash cans are rarely trying to kill their handlers, the injuries tend to be due to handler error. A cop's fear comes from a conscious intent to harm them, not accidents.
The last 2 sentences.
I do. I used my Google Fu.
I didn't make any argument that policing was more dangerous than anything else.
See Mostly Dead's post for clarification.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Why is that relevant? It doesn't change the odds.
If the cop can't handle the level of danger inherent in the occupation they need to choose a different one, not subject the public to their phobias.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Those were conjecture. Offering a possible solution to the problem you described.
No. You were trying to justify their reprehensible behavior by suggesting that their fear of danger could somehow make it seem more reasonable.
Accepting that level of danger is a choice they made. They don't seem to be able to handle that choice well, in spite of their highly vaunted "training".
Maybe they are in the wrong occupation.
Yeah. He didn't do that very well, either.
I was a roofer before my spine had other ideas. I did it for over 10 years. Every day I risked death from obvious means. I never fell off a roof, or ladder. My risks were obvious and predictable.
Humans are anything but.
Thermal
August Member
How an injury is likely to occur changes the level of stress. Accidents happen in construction, but they are presumably not homicidal in nature. Piles of wood don't shoot back or desire to kill. If the cop does not act aggressively in a conflict situation, he/she is very likely to be hurt or killed, and a cop would probably suffer injuries or death far more if they didn't brandish their weapons.
Active duty military also have lower casualty rates than construction workers, but if they weren't shooting back or attacking I think you would agree that the rates would be much higher?
Excuse me? I'm sure you've mistaken me for someone else. Justify reprehensible behaviour? I'll leave alone the argument over whether that's hyperbolic or not, and go straight to outright denial of any such thing.
I offered an opinion on why some cops might be scared. You go ahead and qualify that any way you see fit, but it is simply my opinion on a possible factor.
This, sir, is hyperbole.
Thermal
August Member
Yes, but reacting to active threats is vastly different from dealing with passive threats.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
And the level of occupational danger is unchanged by that.
Belz...
Fiend God
First of all, it'd be nice to have a website that doesn't drip clickbait from it. Second, I'm sure there are white supremacists working at Starbucks, too, but is it a significant number?
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
And they are doing it badly.
Cop groupies are quick to point out that the relative frequency of such incidents out of all cop encounters is extremely small.
I don't disagree with that. It is also evidence that many cops are capable of handling the stress and not letting their fear rule their reactions.
The ones who are not capable of that or don't care to be should be in a different line of work.
And the ones who cover for those that can't handle the job at the sacrifice of the welfare of civilians need to be in another line of work, too.
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
We are comparing cops to soldiers in combat?
Their daily beats are war zones?
This is nothing more than romanticizing the job. There's enough of that on TV. It is exactly this sort of attitude and its unquestioned acceptance which has created the problems we are discussing in these threads.
Thermal
August Member
Enthusiastically agreed. Quick anecdote: I was pulled over recently, cop on the drivers side talking normally, young cop on the passenger side literally crouching and his hand hovering over his weapon. I am expecting to read about Officer Scooter in the near future.
Thermal
August Member
Of course not. We are comparing construction accidents and the like to actual conflict, and yes sometimes combative jobs. As noted, piles of lumber don't shoot at you.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
They don't need to. The likelihood of injury or death is what it is. The occupation is only a way of gauging what that likelihood is.
If someone can't cope with the danger level which is part of the occupation of cop then they should find an occupation that they can handle. Not left to take it out on someone who has the misfortune to be in front of their sights when they lose it.