They both fired real bullets at real bystanders because of an imagined threat. Neither of them demonstrated judgement sufficient to be trusted with a badge or a gun, much less both.
Considering that a good chunk of police training is “Us VS Them” and “You gotta be quick on the draw if you want to see your wife and kids tonight” I can’t really blame the Acorn guy. He’s a product of the environment he was trained in. Any one of those windows could have a sniper in it. You don’t know who the detained person has backing him up. Kids with bikes can roll up on you and shoot you faster and easier than a squad of gangbangers can do a drive-by. Suspect could have smuggled a pistol with him and gotten loose.
The fact is, we train police to be afraid of everything, and then we give them a gun and send them out into society. This was a predictable result.
Considering that a good chunk of police training is “Us VS Them” and “You gotta be quick on the draw if you want to see your wife and kids tonight” I can’t really blame the Acorn guy.
Every part of that is bad.
Here’s my hot take, and I know it’s not a popular opinion: Blue lives don’t matter. At least, not as much as civilian lives.
Kids with bikes can roll up on you and shoot you. That sucks, but that’s not any sort of justification for the use of force. Being a cop is a dangerous job. It’s why they get badges and guns and training. Criminals don’t want to be caught, and many of them will kill someone to avoid capture.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone over the age of seven.
The entire reason a civilized society should tolerate police at all is that they are protecting lives. Yes, I know that the SCOTUS has declared that “Protect and Serve” is a non-binding bit of marketing, and their real function is protecting capital in a violent economic system. But the stated reason for police existing is ostensibly to keep civilians safe from criminals. It would be stupid to create a police force merely to keep police safe from criminals.
And I’ll bet most police officers would agree with me.
I’ll bet if you asked 100 police officers, “would you risk your life to save a child?” you’d get 99 out of 100 saying yes to that. 99 out of 100, and that last officer is probably that one asshole that nobody wants to work with.
If you were less specific, I bet the number goes down slightly. “Would you risk your life to save a civilian?” The answer should be the same, but I’m a realist and recognize that there might be a small minority that don’t want to.
But those people should be cops. Heroism should be an absolute minimum standard for anyone wanting the job.
But here’s the real problem. I’ll bet, without having any evidence to back it up, that if you asked 100 cops, “would you risk your life for a criminal?” the ratio would reverse, and you’d have a majority saying no.
But criminals are civilians. Police should extend the same levels of altruism and civic duty to every person, even suspected criminals.
Police are not juries or executioners.
Of course police should be empowered to defend themselves. But defense is never pre-emptive.
So if 100 individual kids roll up to 100 individual cops, it is absolutely unacceptable for the police to shoot even one innocent child. It is absolutely unacceptable to mistake one candybar for a gun or a knife. It doesn’t matter if 99 of those kids shoot 99 of those cops, because the one civilian life matters. Ergo, the lives of the police do not.
I’ll give no. 2 a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Your partner starts shooting, the only reasonable training to receive is that you should also be acquiring the same target and shooting.
The whole thing needs to be structured and trained so that you can actually trust your partner to only start shooting if there’s an actual reason. At the end of the day, you’re (the officers) a team, and any team is as good as the shittiest teammate, and those shitty ones need to be held accountable.
Your partner starts shooting, the only reasonable training to receive is that you should also be acquiring the same target and shooting
Yeah, I’m not giving the dude any credit for mag dumping into the car at a non-existent target. Dude could have killed someone because he just started blasting at a random target just because his partner was jumpy.
Second idiot didn’t know about the acorn, he just joined in shooting ‘must be justified’ mentality.
They both fired real bullets at real bystanders because of an imagined threat. Neither of them demonstrated judgement sufficient to be trusted with a badge or a gun, much less both.
Considering that a good chunk of police training is “Us VS Them” and “You gotta be quick on the draw if you want to see your wife and kids tonight” I can’t really blame the Acorn guy. He’s a product of the environment he was trained in. Any one of those windows could have a sniper in it. You don’t know who the detained person has backing him up. Kids with bikes can roll up on you and shoot you faster and easier than a squad of gangbangers can do a drive-by. Suspect could have smuggled a pistol with him and gotten loose.
The fact is, we train police to be afraid of everything, and then we give them a gun and send them out into society. This was a predictable result.
Every part of that is bad.
Here’s my hot take, and I know it’s not a popular opinion: Blue lives don’t matter. At least, not as much as civilian lives.
Kids with bikes can roll up on you and shoot you. That sucks, but that’s not any sort of justification for the use of force. Being a cop is a dangerous job. It’s why they get badges and guns and training. Criminals don’t want to be caught, and many of them will kill someone to avoid capture.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone over the age of seven.
The entire reason a civilized society should tolerate police at all is that they are protecting lives. Yes, I know that the SCOTUS has declared that “Protect and Serve” is a non-binding bit of marketing, and their real function is protecting capital in a violent economic system. But the stated reason for police existing is ostensibly to keep civilians safe from criminals. It would be stupid to create a police force merely to keep police safe from criminals.
And I’ll bet most police officers would agree with me.
I’ll bet if you asked 100 police officers, “would you risk your life to save a child?” you’d get 99 out of 100 saying yes to that. 99 out of 100, and that last officer is probably that one asshole that nobody wants to work with.
If you were less specific, I bet the number goes down slightly. “Would you risk your life to save a civilian?” The answer should be the same, but I’m a realist and recognize that there might be a small minority that don’t want to.
But those people should be cops. Heroism should be an absolute minimum standard for anyone wanting the job.
But here’s the real problem. I’ll bet, without having any evidence to back it up, that if you asked 100 cops, “would you risk your life for a criminal?” the ratio would reverse, and you’d have a majority saying no.
But criminals are civilians. Police should extend the same levels of altruism and civic duty to every person, even suspected criminals.
Police are not juries or executioners.
Of course police should be empowered to defend themselves. But defense is never pre-emptive.
So if 100 individual kids roll up to 100 individual cops, it is absolutely unacceptable for the police to shoot even one innocent child. It is absolutely unacceptable to mistake one candybar for a gun or a knife. It doesn’t matter if 99 of those kids shoot 99 of those cops, because the one civilian life matters. Ergo, the lives of the police do not.
I’ll give no. 2 a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Your partner starts shooting, the only reasonable training to receive is that you should also be acquiring the same target and shooting.
The whole thing needs to be structured and trained so that you can actually trust your partner to only start shooting if there’s an actual reason. At the end of the day, you’re (the officers) a team, and any team is as good as the shittiest teammate, and those shitty ones need to be held accountable.
Yeah, I’m not giving the dude any credit for mag dumping into the car at a non-existent target. Dude could have killed someone because he just started blasting at a random target just because his partner was jumpy.