To Protect and to Serve...

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#2,627
"This is what baseless paranoia about officer safety does. Cops are being trained to think they are in constant, mortal danger, that they are fighting a war, that the enemy is everywhere. It's not true. Police officers are safer today than any time in the last century." - Skeptical Libertarian's commentary on the article

From the article:

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

As the tally of fatal police shootings rises, law enforcement watchdogs say it is time to treat deadly force as a potentially serious public safety problem.
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Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides | The Salt Lake Tribune
 
#2,628
#2,628
n_huffhines said:
Not sure where I stand on this one. 911 caller said the gun was "probably fake" and police are claiming dispatch failed to relay that part of the message. If it is dispatch's fault, they should be the ones on leave. The gun looks real and if the kid did start pulling it out of his belt then I can't blame the cops*.

*assuming they didn't fire 30 bullets.

12-Year-Old Boy Carrying Replica Gun Dies After Cleveland Officer Shoots : The Two-Way : NPR
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I'm not sure it would make a difference even if the dispatcher had said it might be fake, or the caller thought it was fake. The officers don't have the luxury of entertaining that doubt up the last fraction of a second.

More likely than not the caller did not want to cause any undue alarm and so said "it might be fake" or even "probably fake." Because no one wants to believe a 12 or a 13 year old is waiving around a real gun.

I have dealt with cases involving the exact scenario where a kid alters a toy gun to make it look real, and the result is tragic.
 
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#2,629
#2,629
lawgator1 said:
I'm not sure it would make a difference even if the dispatcher had said it might be fake, or the caller thought it was fake. The officers don't have the luxury of entertaining that doubt up the last fraction of a second.

More likely than not the caller did not want to cause any undue alarm and so said "it might be fake" or even "probably fake." Because no one wants to believe a 12 or a 13 year old is waiving around a real gun.

I have dealt with cases involving the exact scenario where a kid alters a toy gun to make it look real, and the result is tragic.
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Or maybe she realizes that 99% of 12 year olds that wave guns around are doing so with a toy gun.
 
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#2,631
#2,631
n_huffhines said:
Or maybe she realizes that 99% of 12 year olds that wave guns around are doing so with a toy gun.
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Could be that, yes. But of those toy guns, 99 % have the orange tip.

I'm not saying the kid understood the problem created by that. I'm saying the police don't know.

If they approach the kid with guns out and tell him to put his hands up or some such instruction, and let's say the kid panics and reaches for the toy to show them hey, this is a toy, or to drop it because he's scared, the problem again is that the police officers have a tiny fraction of a second to assess that and react if he a) drops what turns out later to be a toy gun, or b) shoots one of them in the face.
 
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#2,632
#2,632
Funny story (that I've told here before) but my friend brought my little brother's toy gun (orange tipped) to an after-game school dance. He had innocent intentions...this was before Columbine, we just didn't think about it. Some other kid ended up with the gun at some point and lliterally got body-slammed by the cops.

He got off easy
 
#2,634
#2,634
n_huffhines said:
"This is what baseless paranoia about officer safety does. Cops are being trained to think they are in constant, mortal danger, that they are fighting a war, that the enemy is everywhere. It's not true. Police officers are safer today than any time in the last century." - Skeptical Libertarian's commentary on the article

From the article:

Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides | The Salt Lake Tribune
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I don't want to lose sight of this conversing about the Cleveland case. This is a much more important discussion, IMO.
 
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#2,636
#2,636
n_huffhines said:
I don't want to lose sight of this conversing about the Cleveland case. This is a much more important discussion, IMO.
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The mistake in your quote is that the police are trained to worry that they are in danger, not to think that they are. Big difference.

The vast, vast majority of the time that law enforcement weapons are drawn, or are close to being drawn, end unremarkably. You only hear about the bad ones.
 
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#2,637
#2,637
lawgator1 said:
The mistake in your quote is that the police are trained to worry that they are in danger, not to think that they are. Big difference.

The vast, vast majority of the time that law enforcement weapons are drawn, or are close to being drawn, end unremarkably. You only hear about the bad ones.
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When you're more likely to be killed by cops than gang-bangers and drug dealers, there is something wrong with the system. Call it worry or call it think. It doesn't make a difference to the people that are dead.
 
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#2,638
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n_huffhines said:
I don't want to lose sight of this conversing about the Cleveland case. This is a much more important discussion, IMO.
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The article fails to mention the details behind the deaths. It's difficult to draw an informed conclusion without this information.

Would you agree that LEO's respond to life threatening situations frequently? Would you also agree that the UT LEO's responded to more than 13 potentially deadly encounters in one year? The problem with picking out a sliver of data and running with it is it makes the writer appear lazy and biased.
 
#2,640
#2,640
From 1982 to 2012 15 cops have been killed in Utah. That's one every other year. If they killed 13 civilians YTD, some of which I know are completely innocent/harmless (not to mention all the dogs, no-knock raids where babies get flash-banged, etc.) then at this rate it's 26 dead civilians for every dead cop. There seems to be a disconnect between how potentially deadly these encounters really are to law enforcement.

POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN UTAH STATISTICS | Utah Law Enforcement Memorial
 
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n_huffhines said:
From 1982 to 2012 15 cops have been killed in Utah. That's one every other year. If they killed 13 civilians YTD, some of which I know are completely innocent/harmless (not to mention all the dogs, no-knock raids where babies get flash-banged, etc.) then at this rate it's 26 dead civilians for every dead cop. There seems to be a disconnect between how potentially deadly these encounters really are to law enforcement.

POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN UTAH STATISTICS | Utah Law Enforcement Memorial
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It still does not answer the question regarding the situations around the homicides. According to the article only one shooting was ruled as unjustified by a prosecuter and that one was overturned by a judge. So, how you know cops killed innocent people is interesting.

Also, this theory that cops must first put their lives in jeopardy before acting is asinine and stuff seen in the movies. Officers have the ability to to be proactive when it comes to their safety, just like you. Would you wait for someone to shoot at you before returning fire? Your opinions are biased because of your beliefs and ignorance of real life situations. It's not your fault, you've never experienced a situation like this and I hope you never have to..
 
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#2,643
#2,643
tim said:
Also, this theory that cops must first put their lives in jeopardy before acting is asinine and stuff seen in the movies. Officers have the ability to to be proactive when it comes to their safety, just like you. Would you wait for someone to shoot at you before returning fire? Your opinions are biased because of your beliefs and ignorance of real life situations. It's not your fault, you've never experienced a situation like this and I hope you never have to..
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You're retired, right? Thank God.
 
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#2,644
#2,644
tim said:
It still does not answer the question regarding the situations around the homicides. According to the article only one shooting was ruled as unjustified by a prosecuter and that one was overturned by a judge. So, how you know cops killed innocent people is interesting.

Also, this theory that cops must first put their lives in jeopardy before acting is asinine and stuff seen in the movies. Officers have the ability to to be proactive when it comes to their safety, just like you. Would you wait for someone to shoot at you before returning fire? Your opinions are biased because of your beliefs and ignorance of real life situations. It's not your fault, you've never experienced a situation like this and I hope you never have to..
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Everyone should have the right to self defense. That means that if a cop threatens me with bodily harm I should be able defend myself with deadly force if necessary. Unfortunately, if I were to do that I'd spend a long time in prison or get the death penalty even if I hadn't done anything illegal up to that point. The same would not happen if the roles were reversed. It's past time to make everyone play by the same rules.

And again, I'm not anti-police. I believe we need them, but I do think they need better training and should have better policies in place to hold them accountable when they are out of line.
 
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#2,645
#2,645
davethevol said:
Everyone should have the right to self defense. That means that if a cop threatens me with bodily harm I should be able defend myself with deadly force if necessary. Unfortunately, if I were to do that I'd spend a long time in prison or get the death penalty even if I hadn't done anything illegal up to that point. The same would not happen if the roles were reversed. It's past time to make everyone play by the same rules.

And again, I'm not anti-police. I believe we need them, but I do think they need better training and should have better policies in place to hold them accountable when they are out of line.
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When they're out of line they get arrested and/or fired. Not sure what you mean by defending yourself if a cop threatens you without doing anything illegal. Once they act beyond their legal capacity they are no longer any different than a criminal. The rules are and always have been the same.
 
#2,646
#2,646
tim said:
When they're out of line they get arrested and/or fired. Not sure what you mean by defending yourself if a cop threatens you without doing anything illegal. Once they act beyond their legal capacity they are no longer any different than a criminal. The rules are and always have been the same.
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What about the no-knock warrants where SWAT teams invade the wrong residence and kill innocent home owners? Those guys never get charged with first degree murder, 2nd degree murder, or even manslaughter. If a home owner were to return fire in one of those situations and shoot an officer then he'd be at the very least charged with assault on an officer with a deadly weapon.

The laws should be the same across the board. If a police officer shoots someones dog, no big deal. If someone hurts a police dog, it's a whole other story.

There is a clear double standard and it needs to end.
 
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#2,647
#2,647
davethevol said:
What about the no-knock warrants where SWAT teams invade the wrong residence and kill innocent home owners? Those guys never get charged with first degree murder, 2nd degree murder, or even manslaughter. If a home owner were to return fire in one of those situations and shoot an officer then he'd be at the very least charged with assault on an officer with a deadly weapon.

The laws should be the same across the board. If a police officer shoots someones dog, no big deal. If someone hurts a police dog, it's a whole other story.

There is a clear double standard and it needs to end.
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In that situation it is doubtful anyone would be arrested for shooting a cop. As for the question about no knock sws and shooting occupants inside I will say it should be handled, and usually is, like the Ferguson incident. The real problem is determining whether or not a mistake occurred or there was intent. Even with cases where mistakes occur, prosecution can still go forward.

There is no double standard.
 
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#2,648
#2,648
n_huffhines said:
When you're more likely to be killed by cops than gang-bangers and drug dealers, there is something wrong with the system. Call it worry or call it think. It doesn't make a difference to the people that are dead.
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you are dealing with pure numbers here, which weights the argument your way. Normal people deal with cops much more often than they would a 'bad guy'. Cops deal with citizens all day long, easily could be 20-100 people in a day (depends on the cop's assignment). and as has been pointed out this isn't the high society of the citizens. proportionally I would be highly shocked if the interaction to death ratio was any where close when comparing Cop to 'bad guy'. basically what you are saying is that you feel safer around 'bad guys' than cops. if that is remotely what you are saying there is something wrong with you.
 
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