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Man shot reaching for license.
- Thread starter 3506string
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We're on the same page! Maybe different parts of the page, but definitely on the same page.
I didn't know about these body cams. They sound like a great idea.
I am no more at ease with police officers here in France or in the UK than I am with them in the US. It's always "yes sir, no sir, thank you sir may I have another". Ok - here the likelihood that they are packing heat is less but they can still make your life very unpleasant for very little. Even if I know my "rights", I also know I can avoid a significant amount of crap by being completely deferential.
And I know that this isn't the time and place for a discussion on gun control and how widespread firearms are in the US, but it is true that in Europe a cop will be much less likely to believe that you are packing. And that will likely make them less nervous. Which can't be a bad thing.
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The fact is that it's very dangerous to be a cop today. It's also a fact that some people who become cops, should not, for various reasons. Basing the danger of a job simply by yearly fatalities is naive. Law enforcement has averaged around 130 deaths/year for a few years now. The profession has also averaged almost 58,000 assaults/year, with roughly 15,000 injuries/year. Almost every call is an unknown, in reality, and now criminals are now starting to more frequently use ambush techniques to lure in and then kill first responding officers, medics and firefighters. So yes, more crab fishermen may get killed per year, but it's not because the crabs are actively trying to kill the fishermen.
As far as the video in question, yes, it looks bad. There may also be more to it than is being reported. On the other hand, he was fired and charged with a felony, so maybe there isn't.
As far as the video in question, yes, it looks bad. There may also be more to it than is being reported. On the other hand, he was fired and charged with a felony, so maybe there isn't.
I am certain it does to an extent... I do exactly the same thing.. and at night I turn on my interior lights and I have taught my 17 year old son to do the same thing. Not much is more scary than a nervous fool with a gun.
Most cops just want to do the job well. My daughter is married to one. However.. there is something wrong with this dynamic we see repeated over and over...
Here's a solution. Install a thumb print reader in every car, wired to a USB port in the rear bumper. When shaky cop stops car, they draw down on the occupants of the car, then plug in to the USB port while first the driver and then the occupants in clockwise rotation, place their thumb on the reader. If there are no wants or warrants, then a citation is electronically recorded and the ticket mailed, if there are any wanted people in the car, then SWAT is called to clear the car and take the wanted individual in to custody. If any of the vehicle occupants make any move at all the cop just opens fire and kills everyone in the car.
They would after all deserve to be shot if they failed to follow the compulsorily traffic stop procedures they learn in the required classes on the subject.
They would after all deserve to be shot if they failed to follow the compulsorily traffic stop procedures they learn in the required classes on the subject.
Perhaps giving every patrolcar a private Fairchild Republic A10-II Thunderbolt as escort would work...
Yes, Milwaukee - like many large cities - has some crime.
Almost certainly LESS crime than in the past, but still a good bit of crime.
...and your link points out exactly what I'm saying - look at all the folks killed, and none cops. It's a much more dangerous profession than sitting behind a desk like I do - but it's a much safer profession than being a taxi driver, a convenience store clerk, a roofer, a garbage man, a farmer, or a logger.
No, it really isn't. Much LESS dangerous than it has been at any time in the last 50 years.
I would argue the best metric is fatality rate and injury rate. Neither puts police work as a very dangerous profession.
Yes. Which makes it about the 20th most deadly occupation.... with an average pay an average of about 2x the rest of the top 20.
So it's in the top 20 most dangerous professions, but it isn't dangerous?? I hate to tell you, but it's plenty dangerous. So, just because someone commits a violent felony, but not against a cop, the cop is safe when attempting to take that suspect into custody?
Wow, I bow to your logic
Correct.
Very few professions are truly dangerous anymore....and they're pretty much all getting significantly safer.
National overall occupational fatality rate: 3.5/100K
Police officer fatality rate in Wisconsin (2013): 7.5/100K
Commercial Fishers 127.3
Logging Workers 104.0
Airline Pilots and Flight Engineers 56.1
Refuse & Recyclable Material Workers 36.4
Roofers 34.1
Structural Iron and Steel Workers 30.3
Helpers, Construction Trades 26.8
Farmers and Ranchers 26.1
Driver/Sales Workers & Truck Drivers 24.5
Taxi Drivers and Chauffeurs 19.7
Grounds Maintenance Workers 16.9
Maintenance & Repair Workers, General 15.8
Construction Laborers 15.7
Landscaping Services 15.6
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil & Gas Extraction 15.2
Construction Equipment Operators 12.1
Athletes, Coaches, Umpires 10.3
Rail Transportation Workers 9.5
Someone working at the local golf course as grounds crew is more likely to die on the job... is being a groundskeeper at the local pitch-n-putt "plenty dangerous"? If you want to argue that ALL those jobs are "plenty dangerous", that is at least logically consistent - but I can't agree.
A woman in the USA has a higher chance of getting breast cancer in any given year (about 1 in 10,000) than a Wisconsin cop does of dying on the job (about 1 in 15,000).
Again, you quote only fatality rates, not injuries. The # of officer assaults is again, on average, 58,000/year. That means actual assaults on law enforcement officers by perps, not accidents or other things. Do you have stats for how these other professions stack up in that regard? How many groundskeepers yearly are punched on the golf course for not mowing the greens correctly? How many fishermen are maliciously attacked by tuna? Have you ever called the local groundskeeper when you heard a noise outside? Next time someone is threatening you or a family member, speed-dial your local lawn-mower.
You also posted earlier that a lot of cops die annually not by criminals, but by car accidents and health issues. I bet the ratio for the other professions is higher in that regard.
Workplace injury numbers largely mirror workplace fatality rates outside a few interesting exceptions (healthcare being one). Police officers certainly suffer more "assaults" (that assault number includes assaults that didn't result in injury) than other industries, but it doesn't move them up the list of workplace fatalities or injuries.
We're talking about how dangerous the job is.
Dangerous: likely to cause death or injury
A job where 1/100 dies by electrocution is equally as dangerous as a job where 1/100 dies being murdered by a criminal. Danger doesn't give style points.
I'll just grab my gun... it takes the cops about 20 minutes to get here.
Mostly true, but it depends... certain other professions also suffer a lot of assault and criminal deaths. Store clerks, bartenders, taxi drivers, paramedics...
Agreed on your last point, and I'm happy you believe in self-protection, as many don't. I also subscribe to that policy
Now, an assault is altogether different in the spectrum. That means that a cop, while doing their job, gets attacked by a criminal (the key phrase being "doing their job"). Their job entails intervening in peoples lives for criminal and non-criminal calls. Someone calls the cops for loud music, and when the cops get there, the person doesn't like being told to turn it down, and a fight ensues. A textbook example of how it happens (complainant doesn't want to risk an altercation with the disruptive person, so they have the cops deal with it). Domestics are one of the most dangerous (truly) calls an officer responds to regularly. Heated arguments that a lot of times escalate prior to officers responding, and then both parties turn on the cops for trying to straighten it out. Weapons are always in a house, and people are naturally more likely to be aggressive in the safety of their home.
We're lucky that there aren't more injuries/deaths, as the numbers don't tell the whole story. A lot of the reason for the slightly lower numbers, is the fact that most cops are trained better than they were even 10 years ago. It's not less dangerous, but procedures and tactics have changed to give an advantage to responding officers.
I agree... every time I hear someone say that I cringe.. as if we were talking about some kind of game not a very well documented factual history.The bottom line in this case is that man should never be allowed to carry a badge and a gun again and do time. Police officers are trained to handle situations like this. ALL police officers are trained. The days of Barney Fife are long gone.. and this guy should have stayed in his car and hit his loudpeaker if he was that nervous. The truck he was pursuing was a pickup .. the truck he stopped was an SUV. This guy was ..is incompetent in the least if not out right criminal and this innocent civillian .. and the police force.. will have to pay. I just hope the man can walk.
Your posts don't worry me a fraction as much as the trigger happy cops in my town. We had six cops shoot a man 18 times in the back here and then the state police investigated and "lost" all the dashcam video prior to 1.5 seconds prior to the start of the shots....
Coincidence?
Or gang murder?
Coincidence?
Or gang murder?
Person A gets killed, while doing their job, by a steel beam tearing loose and falling on their head.
Person B gets killed, while doing their job, due to criminal attack.
In regards to danger they're the exact same spectrum.
Things are just as dangerous as the statistics say they are.
You want to argue that folks doing a civil service deserve more praise for doing an equivalently dangerous job? Sure, I can see that. Want to argue that folks with an identical death/injury rate are doing a "more dangerous job" because it's for the public benefit? You're conflating the "danger" of the job with the choice to engage in civil service.
No matter what the cause - if the rate of death/injury has gone down, the job is less dangerous by definition.
When new training among loggers in log handling and safety equipment usage reduces death/injury rates - logging gets less dangerous.
I will go back on my word, and add that we all need to remember that no one is drafted against her or his will to be a police officer. People freely chose this line of work knowing the possible dangers. As such, it is the responsibility of the officer to be well trained and to assess any situation properly. Any time a person who was not actually threatening an officer is killed by an officer, it is an unforgivable mistake that should not be justified by saying how difficult the job is. No one would accept such an argument from a doctor who killed patients or from a contractor whose shoddy work killed people in his buildings.
I honestly believe that arguments excusing wrongful killings almost always come from people in the demographics least likely to be wrongfully killed by an officer. What is unspoken is the notion that those killed are probably guilty of something and are no good even if they weren't up to no good a the moment they were killed. In that sense, the apologies for the police remind me of book written recently by a doctor who looked into shootings of young black men that were almost automatically classified and drug or gang related. What he found was that most of these young men were simply victims of crimes, mainly robbery, but social prejudice kept law enforcement from seeing them as victims. I will see if I can site a title for that book.
I honestly believe that arguments excusing wrongful killings almost always come from people in the demographics least likely to be wrongfully killed by an officer. What is unspoken is the notion that those killed are probably guilty of something and are no good even if they weren't up to no good a the moment they were killed. In that sense, the apologies for the police remind me of book written recently by a doctor who looked into shootings of young black men that were almost automatically classified and drug or gang related. What he found was that most of these young men were simply victims of crimes, mainly robbery, but social prejudice kept law enforcement from seeing them as victims. I will see if I can site a title for that book.
