St. Louis Vs. The Police IV: Now It Gets Real!

I don't have a more formulated opinion than Eric garner wasn't likely to walk up and kill two cops without provocation, his death motivated someone else to. The teen in st. Louis wasn't likely to burn a dozen buildings, but his death incited riots.

You never know the possible outcomes in the moment, and I don't think it's a good precedent to set, to take lives with limited information based on assumptions of worst case scenarios.

Also, I should point out, that modern stun guns are effective up to 20, and even 30 feet away as a method with non-lethal intentions of subduing a suspect, however, there are inherent he body risks with that as well, particularly for someone who happens to be holding a semi-automatic weapon. A sudden electric discharge would make the body convulse, which in a worst case scenario, means the finger clamps down on the trigger, or the kid slams head first into asphalt, or pavement, resulting in accidental death.

What are the requirements of using deadly force?

On the extremely limited basis of the news coverage, the kid was carrying a dangerous ranged weapon, was ordered to drop it, and didn't. Cops don't generally wear bulletproof vests in their day-to-day work, so they'd need to be suicidal not to feel threatened by a resistant suspect carrying a semi-automatic handgun.

Don't misunderstand me: I think plenty of cops are criminals with a badge and blue clothes, to say nothing of power-tripping authoritarians. But when an armed conflict seems imminent, I'm not going to step up to take the first bullet.

One could just as easily argue that they already harbored the intention to do so, and simply wanted a "righteous" excuse for murder, since its an overly explosive reaction to kill those unrelated to the situation.

Same thing applies to burning or razing buildings of innocent people, and looting their goods. People simply had the intent to do so, but waited until someone could make a "justified" claim that would hurt the innocent unrelated to the situation.

Both of those were unarmed situations, though. This is a case of facing an obviously armed suspect.

I wouldn't advocate "shoot first" as the response to every interaction between police and suspect, that's insane.

Every uniformed police officer wears chest and back armor as part of their uniform.

Yeah... actually, they don't.

I'll raise my hand and say that I could easily be wrong on assuming they aren't armored. Can you point to a citation? I don't interact with the police much and have had no opportunity to feel under their clothes, but the rotund traffic cops and patrolmen I see in my city sure don't look like they're packing any more armor than 60 lbs. of belly fat provides.

Running away from cops doesn't equal running away from cops with a gun. There are so many possibilities, you really don't want to let someone armed with a Tec 9 run away when you're a cop. What if he takes an hostage on the way? What if he kills people with his weapon before getting caught? They can't afford that.

I think that varies by city... Here in Chicago all uniformed CPD officers wear body armor. Outside of this city though I can't really say anything for that though.

I'm sure that someone can find the exact criteria, but I'd imagine it is something like:
But my intent isn't particularly to cast doubt as to whether or not the use of deadly force could be considered authorized in this matter.

It's to point out that even whenever we have these(which is unfortunately fairly often), people seem to make the argument that the officer could have just shot them in the leg, or in some other "non-lethal" area.

If stopping them by "non-lethal" methods was feasible, the gun should not be the tool by which to do it.

The ones where I live do. Para-militarization of police forces in the US has had quite the impact on the day to day uniform. But where I live might be a special case. I have the Pinal county Sheriffs who deals with cartels on one end and the MCSO who likes to display their tank on the other end.

I don't believe anyone would, but what if he had a cell phone in his hand? What if he hadn't wrecked a car and didn't know he was the suspect? What if years of seeing his friends arrested or gunned down made him fear for his life at the sight of a police officer?

I know that a police officer has a family and shouldn't be called upon to give their life simply to satisfy doubt, but a level of trust should exist and doesn't. Diffusing the situation rather than escalating it should always be the goal.

It really varies from city to city, even as far down the ladder as precinct to precinct.

Uniformed Officers in Canada, rarely use body armor, except for man hunts, volatile situations, and tactical situations that require them.

All Police officers though, are required to have a vest at the ready, despite leaving very critical points open to penetration, though I would wager the design is based primarily on the fact that even known career criminals will go for a direct body shot (chest cavity is the most highly protected area on most vests) than for keyhole shots in the armor, or even head shots.

That said, a vest is little consolation to an officer staring at someone who a semi-automatic weapon in their hands.

Ok, I was misinterpreting what you meant, then. Thanks for clarifying; that makes plenty of sense.

Even though trust has to exist on both sides.

Disoriented as he may be, hearing the blaring roar of "DROP YOUR WEAPON!" even in the case that it might be a cell phone, drop the *** cell phone and follow instructions.

Although if "years of seeing his friends arrested or gunned down" made him fear police officers, I would personally smack him and tell him to rethink his friendships, and what ultimately lead to that outcome.

Contrary to popular belief, the police are not out to get you. At least, not as a whole. That's just some conspiracy level *** in order to make an argument hold weight that it doesn't have.

As far as I know Canada does not have a version of the 1033 pentagon program.

Tactical gear has been handed out at seriously reduced prices for almost 20 years now. Gear that they used to have to pay out of pocket for or did not have previous access to. This has made money available for more body armor, cameras, etc. Along with increased funds from civil forfitures.

Maybe not in Canada, but in the us, most police are either there for a paycheck or to catch bad guys.

I'm not sure we do either. Although there have been much more police shootings in Canada as well since the whole Ferguson thing - what I do know, is that Uniformed Officers do *have to* have a bulletproof vest ready in their respective sizes. We actually have discount surplus stores that tactical gear to police and citizens alike.

That gets straight to my "stop the disease instead of alleviating the symptoms" point.

When you have maybe 10 seconds total to *** the situation and you know you're looking at a Tec 9, I'm not sure you can defuse resistance except by how these officers did.

I've lived in really bad neighborhoods. I've had the cops bar me from my home because an active shooter was nearby and, similarly, I've had cops pounding on my door in the middle of the night looking for an active shooter. My distaste for the flagrant excesses of the police is tempered by having witnessed what they sometimes face. I'd be very hesitant to compare a car chase with an armed suspect to shaking down an unarmed man on the sidewalk.

This may be a HUGE surprise to you... but so are the popo's in Canada. The ones out for a paycheck generally do traffic stops and radar checks. The ones out to catch the bad guys, well, they tend to be shot at, killed, maimed, belittled, disrespected, and otherwise treated like ***.

Seems like he had some past history with the subject as he called him out by name before even seeing any sort of identification. I'm surprised someone hasn't already uploaded a video of the event. Interested to see how this turns out. inb4justified.

Unfortunately, that sentiment doesn't translate well. Garner posed a threat that justified excessive force because the immediate concern of the officers was to take him into custody as quickly as possible, rather than as safely as possible.

The idea of an armed suspect in a stolen car and an unarmed man on a sidewalk are very different situations is fine, but what about all the situations in between? When is force OK as your first resort? After bullets fly? Before? Suspect had a gun? Had something that looked like a gun? Was big? Looked at me funny?

All hypothetical, of course, but do you trust some random cop's judgment with your life of the lives of your loved ones? I sure don't, based solely on my personal experience.

I should have said street cop, pretty sure every street cop wears body armor while on duty.

How many civilians are killed by police officers in Canada a year?
Do police departments practice civil forfiture at the same rate as the US?
Do police use stingrays to capture bulk communications and the lie about it to Judges, on a nationwide level, claiming NDA's allow them to do so?
Have you had increased use of SWAT teams for non-violent offenses? Do all of your government agencies have their own SWAT teams?
Do you have private prisons?

Out to get you, probably not.

Us vs. Them mentality where civilians are guilty from the beginning and police officers are automatically given the benefit of doubt, very much so.

There is a lack of trust and it has come about from legitimate problems.

Is it not conceivable that different countries with very different legal policies could have very different cultures within their police forces? The massively different population density and social programs couldn't flavor different mentalities?

How much experience do you have as an at-risk teen in a us urban center?

Bad form. If we go by personal experience, none of my family (well, to my knowledge) have resisted arrest. Though, my knowledge isn't perfect and I have one uncle who has spent quite a bit of time in prison for selling drugs, so maybe he has. He's still alive at the moment. But, yeah, personal experience is not an optimal method of judgment.

My thought is to meet threat with threat. Cops are trained in various forms of take-down, as evidenced by their efficiency in killing people without pulling a gun. They have tasers and Mace and other non-lethal options. Unless faced with a handgun or worse (a grenade, for instance), their sidearm should stay holstered in favor of their many other options. Once a gun is on the scene and potentially active, I can't say it's unreasonable not to employ one's own.

But when did I advocate using force as first resort? That didn't even happen in this case. The suspects were pursued, meaning the probability they didn't notice the flashing lights and screaming siren is rather low. I've had cops scream up on me with sirens blaring and have even mistaken that they were coming after me instead of the car ahead of me -- I still pull my *** over and wait. The suspect was told to put his weapon down once he fled the car. He refused.

If the cops had been firing at the fleeing car or had popped the kid the second he jumped out, then this "shoot first" discussion would carry a little more weight.

And I reserve my right to change my mind if it does turn out that they opened fire immediately or anything of that nature.

What is a street cop?

Genuine question here, no irony. The closest I've ever seen to a cop patrolling on foot is a few bike cops when the streets are crowded by a festival or something. I guess I occasionally see them working security detail for something or another. I wouldn't be shocked if the folks running the metal detector at the courthouse are armored, but I've never taken the time to really look when I've been down there.

A majority of them do, or should, but not all.

Street cops are the cops that work the public sectors of their cities, they drive around in squad cars responding to active disturbances, hand out traffic tickets, secure crime scenes, and hope to make detective someday so they don't have to wear those armored uniforms.