This mentality of drawing a gun as a first resort is precisely what’s wrong with the training/mentality of many police forces.
Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident. While on a college road trip in the late '90s in which a South Asian classmate who’s barely 5’4" was driving, our college van was stopped by the Ohio state police on the highway for no apparent reason. Upon stopping, the trooper came out with his gun drawn and ordered her out of the car and questioned her for nearly 45 minutes.
After that, seeing we didn’t violate any laws and thus, there was effectively no reason to stop us in the first place, he grudgingly let us go. Let’s just say that incident didn’t do much to give those of us in the van the impression the police were there to “protect and serve”.
Even though I have generally been protected by white privilege, I have had at least one run-in with a cop that has led me to think, if he treats a middle-class, middle aged white woman this way, how does he treat a black teenager?
I agree with cobrat shooting to wound is mostly the stuff of Hollywood. Most cops can’t shoot that accurately at the range, with a stationary target and all the time in the world to line up each shot. In real world, high stress situations, most police shots don’t even hit the person they’re aiming at.
I agree about the fallacy of the “shoot to wound” thing, as I mentioned earlier, but in this case it would seem that it might well have been feasible to try to shoot out the tires of the car instead of shooting into the passenger compartment. He had a rifle, not a handgun, and apparently wasn’t for away. But clearly avoiding killing someone was not high on his agenda.
There is some new technology out there that is focusing on non-lethal weapons that incapacitate but don’t kill. While it wouldn’t apply in this particular case, these types of weapons could be something law enforcement could carry in addition to their guns.
One weapon I read about is called SALT. It’s a gun that uses compressed air to fire balls filled with a powdered chemical that causes temporary blindness and lung constriction – it’s effective up to a range of 200 feet. This seems to be marketed for home defense right now but I think in some circumstances these sorts of weapons could be useful --especially in cases where the other person does not appear to have a weapon. On the other hand I understand the resistance to this sort of thing because it could potentially compromise a police officer.
A large part of that according to some neighbors and friends who are retired/current LEOs is the lack of adequate and ongoing training in marksmanship with their service weapons due to budget constraints, time, etc.
This was especially noted by those who also served in the military.
They can try, but unless they’ve received the same levels of marksmanship training given to combat-arms soldiers AND received some training in deflection shooting* (shooting fast moving vehicular targets), doubt they’d have succeeded.
This training is usually only given to fighter pilots, anti-aircraft units, special forces types, or elite infantry/combat arms units within the armed forces.
Not training usually given in much depth to regular infantry units…especially in conscript-based armed forces like the US military before 1973 or the ROC(Taiwan) army even in the '50s when live fire training was more frequent/intense than it has been in recent decades because the danger of an invasion from a much larger neighbor was much more imminent back then.
In a different situation a police officer is suing a city and claiming that he was fired for NOT shooting a distraught man that he felt was trying to commit suicide by officer. Other officers felt no such qualms.
This is a related story as in an overzealous cop shoots an unarmed Black man. I remember this case and it was clear she just panicked. She was found not guilty . Why does anyone wonder why fear comes over us whenever a cop is behind us?
^He was under the influence of multiple hallucinogenic drugs and even the dash cam doesn’t show everything. Apparently, he was incoherent and not following the officer’s instructions.
When she shot him he was not resisting nor was he reaching for the “gun” that was never there.
I’ve seen clip after clip of whites charging cops, resisting arrest, brandishing weapons , yet some how they are subdued and taken into custody. Yet an unarmed poc with hands up, or handcuffed gets shot.
The man hadn’t done anything to threaten anyone. She should have been convicted, and she should never work as a police officer again.I hope she realizes that she literally got away with murder.
And please notice that a few moments ago in Times Square an unarmed civilian apprehended the driver who ran riot on the sidewalk and tried to flee after killing one and injuring many. The civilian had the presence of mind to tear away the perpetrator’s shirt to check for weapons. He and others held the perp for the police. Hmmm. He made a split second decision, at grave risk to himself…and didn’t kill anyone. That’s the kind of person we need on the police force.
I think that you are one of those people who always look for something “wrong” with the victim to justify the police shooting. Many people find that comforting. It means that if aren’t “defective” in some way you are safe. Whistling in the dark.
The fact is that if you are white you are probably safe, even if you are a miscreant.
If you are black, you are probably unsafe, even if you are the child of Barack Obama or Bill DeBlasio or Charles Blow or whomever, especially, but not necessarily, if you are male.
I heard Shaun King speak recently and he gave some statistics about police killings of people of color and how very few of them are charged and literally none of them are convicted. (Charleston is a more recent exception except the cop took a plea the second time around). He spoke about how statisticians say this should be impossible - if you have an equation with variables you should have outcomes with variables (paraphrasing badly here). Which means there is “design” somehow, even if it just really bad training. Horrible.
