I'm from the southern US, which is historically more conservative than the rest of the country. I'm not in any way claiming that the following viewpoints are universal and accepted in this region, but a large enough portion of the population holds these viewpoints, preventing further progress:

1) Anyone who gets shot by cops must have done something to warrant being shot. Even for people who get shot during traffic stops, that person did something to get pulled over in the first place. If they had a criminal record in the past, even if they didn't commit an offense during the situation where they were killed, there's a good chance they would have offended again, and this preemptive killing probably prevented a future crime.

2) In the case of this swatting incident, the blame lies 100% on the person who made the false police report. No false report, no shooting. The cop had reason to believe based on the report that the man who emerged from the door claimed to have a gun and had killed in the last hour, so it was plausible to believe he may try to retaliate and the appropriate force was used. No time for fact checking during an active shooter situation. "Shoot first, ask questions later" is considered an appropriate way for the police to deal with criminals.

Obviously there are numerous refutations, and that isn't lost on people. Many people will justify it by saying that regardless of the circumstances, the police put their lives on the line every day, so that gives them a pass when they make mistakes. Many people would view your suggestions as weakening the police, and the militarization of US police is viewed by many as making us safer, not less safe.

Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the statistics of people with guns there it makes sense.

You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.

April from all that I hope they will prosecute the idiot swatter to set an example. This ain't no games you do for fun.

-The problem, at least in some cases, is that you may get confusing, if not direct contradictory orders.

Say, if one officer yells 'Put your hands up' whereas another yells 'Get down, get down' - sure, keeping your wits about you, you could get your hands up, then kneel and get down - however, you are probably stressed as hell (being at gunpoint hopefully not being an everyday occurrence), and stressed people make mistakes.

Being frightened is NOT a condition which carries the death penalty. Police officers are the professional party in encounters like this. They should act like it - and receive training in how Joe Q. Public is likely to react when having a gun pointed at him.

(Heck, it might even be justified to have a masked instructor crash a class at the police academy and holding them at gunpoint for a few seconds (better make it a class where the cadets are not armed!) - with any luck, the brighter ones will remember how scared they were and cut civilians they encounter later a little slack for being scared s--tless.

I have no doubt the police is trained. I have no doubt they did not draw because they wanted to have a party. They most likely thought they were in serious danger.

Let's do the Devils advocate. You are the cop standing there. You are almost certain he will pull a gun on you or your colleague. What would you do?

I don't think it will be solved by having an actor join their class. It's statistics and interpretation of it mostly.

-Fair question. IMHO there will be situations where the police are justified in firing on suspects. I just think that bar is currently (apparently) way too low - and that much can be done BEFORE a situation goes as far as the one in the parent story.

I would expect that SOP at 911 dispatch when receiving a call like the one triggering this death would be to seek more information as the team dispatched; why didn't they call the neighbours? Why didn't they call the house the call supposedly originated from? Why didn't they floodlight the entrance to the house as they ordered the victim to come out? He wouldn't see a thing with a couple of lights in his face, and it wouldn't matter one iota whether he had a gun or not.

My point isn't that police never are justified in exerting violence on us; my point is that they could do a lot more to avoid ending up in situations where deadly force is the only apparent solution in the first place.

I hope I didn't dodge your question.

Growing up, in my civics classes, we were taught that police were no more privileged than an ordinary citizen. It was WW2 Europe where your papers were required. If you were being bullied by a cop, you can stand up for yourself and be shown to be right by the justice system.

Of course, even as a kid, I knew this was self-delusion. I have always distrusted police and treated them as super powerful combatants who weren't targeting me, but would put me in their crosshairs if they didn't personally like something about me.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if an offense only warrants 40 hours of public service, it's probably not serious enough for a cop to use their firearm.

Oh no, children saying rude things? So long civilization, it was good while it lasted.

If we're talking about the Dutch police, they actually seem to do a pretty great job with patience and professionalism from what I remember when I lived there (for about 2 years).

Regarding mostly fictious: we have national television reporting our first aid/response units are being assaulted on their jobs. We have police officers on trial for arresting people who didn't comply simple questions (no crossing orders). We have the generic public joking about public service. Mostly fictious is not what I would call it. The image of our national police is not great. I would say we could have a bit more of the US respect and they can have a bit of our control. Then again, no proof so hard to fight either way.

P.S. I knew I should jot have taken a 13 yo example :(.

It’s important to understand though how the (rest of) US thinks about situations like these. Throwing. Your arms up and declaring the moral high ground instead of being a apart of pragmatic conversations reminds me of the stance R.M.S would take on things.

Can I just point out the irony of saying there's no reasoning with 'those people' because of identity politics.

However it gets a bit iffy when you accuse a certain group of people of identity politics.

Admittedly people who hold that opinion might adhere to a 'conservative identity' but the gp was specifically describing people who engaged in categorical dismissal of of political proposal, so it's legitimate to say they can't be reasoned with because categorical dismissals are an example of a genetic fallacy.

Done something like being poor, minority or both?

I've recently read a nice piece (Vox IIRC) on authoritarian personalities and I think this is the new norm.

A decade ago I would have just written that type of comment as trolling, but now it's a different world.

People genuinely hold this cryptofascist beliefs.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a...

However, all races should be equally concerned with police executions. This isn't the land of Judge Dredd. We still have the 5th and 14th amendments.

1) Damond must have done something unusual or stupid to cause the officer to fire on her, making it her fault, because what officer would be threatened by a Pretty White Woman?

2) As mentioned above, officers make mistakes, and this is a terrible tragedy, but they put their lives on the line every day and they were trying to do the right thing, so we can't punish them for this.

3) This is one of the "rare" cases of actual police brutality and the cop deserves to go to jail for murder.

Number of guns is a contributor to the difference, yes, but a more direct measure might be number of officers killed. The first source I find (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_Service) says that 10 Norwegian police officers have been killed since 1945, or something like 0.14 per year. The US figure (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36826297) is something like 50 per year, though that's actually way down since the 80's. Running with those numbers and dividing by population today, the US has almost six times as many officer deaths per capita. And that's an average; there are many places where it's as safe as Norway, and some places where it's a hundred times more dangerous.

Actually, they don't spend a lot of time doing gun practice which is a problem. Police firearms training budgets are lacking in most states. They also don't do a lot (if at all) training to deal with dogs unless their has been public outrage. A growing separation from the community they police is also a factor.

SWAT is a whole different problem. The overuse of SWAT to do the simple things like serve warrants and the whole war on drugs has been a disaster. Its isn't the populace with guns, its the lack of real training, a cover everyone's butt attitude, and a percentage of people on a power trip. Look at the incident with the nurse in Utah. No guns just CYA[1].

1) http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/health/nurse-arrested-police-p...

In any case, i don’t think the number of guns per capita explains the difference in gun crime rates between the two.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per...

Being from #10 on that list, the type, quality and "outings" of guns matters a lot. In France, "owned guns" are either sport or hunting weapons, seeing one outside of hunting season basically does not happen and they're regulated:

* single-shot (per barrel) smooth bore long guns must be registered (for hunting or sports), buying requires showing an ID and either a hunting or a sports license (from an accredited gun club)

* air guns beyond 20j and various types of long runs replace the registering by a declaration (a more complex procedure)

* various more powerful and smaller weapons (including handguns) have to be authorised before they can be bought, for sports or defence (mostly professional). Amongst other concerns the would-be owner must have a clean criminal record, show a clean bill of health (physical & psych) under 1 month old and demonstrate ownership of a safe

* automatic, high-capacity (30 for long guns and 20 for handguns) and very-high caliber (>= 20mm) is forbidden

Guns must be disabled or under lock when not heading to, coming back from, or performing the activity they're used for.

I expect Norway, Finland, Canada or Germany are very similar: though specifics probably vary, weapons ownership is most likely regulated and generally restricted to hunting and sports (the licensed, olympics-able "Shooting Sports" kind, not the "I went at the range to play with a minigun" kind).

Otherwise, you can buy pretty much anything non-automatic when you have a hunting or sports license. Neither is hard to obtain. The circulation is regulated but still quite simple. You can even sell a gun over post with cash on delivery.

Additionally, it was no secret who was a member of the home guard, so there were numerous cases of homes being burglarised for the AG3 stored there; the weapon was then used for further crimes, like bank robberies.

Now, weapons are stored at the home guard's places of assembly in case of mobilization.

Also, while I agree that it is no problem obtaining a hunting rifle or a shotgun (passing the test isn't THAT hard), a handgun is more complicated:

a) You need to have a clean criminal record, and be more than 21 years of age. Also, the local police must approve - say, it is (theoretically, at least) possible to be turned down even with no record if the local police do not think you are suited to own a weapon - say, if you regularly binge drink, are known locally as a trouble-maker or whatever.

b) You must have completed a safety course at an approved gun club. Typically 3-4 nights, intended to learn you how to handle the gun safely, know and follow shooting range regulations &c.

c) You must be an active member of an approved gun club, and must have been so for at least six months prior to applying for a purchase permit. Active basically means turning up at club events and shooting with one of the club's weapons until you have your own.

d) Yout licence may be revoked if you no longer have a need to own a weapon - say, if you stop showing up at club nights and let your membership lapse. Also, any problems with the law? Better take a good, hard look at that licence, because it will be revoked as soon as they get around to it.

e) You normally only get a permit for one weapon, unless you can lay credible claim to being a collector (in which case even more training and vetting is mandatory).

For deer during hunting season, though, Norway is a place best avoided.

I don't think it is any coincidence that most of the violent gun-laden media you consumed as a child was American.

Killing is a* fundamental problem-solving strategy in American culture (both domestically consumed and exported). And the overwhelming most common method of killing is a gun. This is why it is very rare to find a film or TV show with any kind of action/adventure/thriller/crime/mystery plot without guns, usually on the poster.

When this is true in other countries, it is usually because they are intentionally aping American media.

I think it has never occurred to most Americans that there is any alternative to 'kill the bad guys'.

* On reflection it is probably 'the' fundamental problem-solving strategy in American media.

Keep in mind that most people in the U.S. care about issues like this in an abstract way. They think that improvements should be made, but when, say, the time comes to vote they won't bother taking 10 minutes to see where their representatives stand on this issue and vote accordingly. If you ask people who they voted for the day after a primary, most will have a hard time even recalling the names in the downballot races, let alone what the positions were. The people who do tend to vote for these positions tend to be extremely focused on particular policies - they only care if the politician supports or opposes some obscure regulation that benefits them personally.

So in the end you really are talking about a very small number of activists and groups that are trying to bring about change, and they're fighting against entrenched groups opposed to said change - or more often than not, just general political inertia (why rock the boat if most voters don't care?).

There has been traction in the effort to get more body cameras, though, so there have been some improvements. But there doesn't yet seem to be enough people who care and act accordingly to bring about the big changes that are needed.

IMO this is backward. Representatives should choose their issues by the voice of the people, or people should vote on issues and the appropriate candidate suggested automatically.

We will always get suboptimal results when people are forced to commingle their opinions on everything from science to security into a single binary choice.

Even still, though, it's a small number of people who bother collecting the signatures and informing people about the initiative. The vast majority of people are extremely disengaged and won't bother working on changing things.

But there should be better training but that will probably only happen if juries start to decide that "being fearful for your life" is not a sufficient defense.

It will probably introduce new problems, such as even more unnecessary use of force. It addresses absolutely none of the cultural or institutional problems. But it may also save lives and better maintain justice. A family of a person wrongly tazed has been afforded more justice than a family of a person wrongly shot and killed.

People who hold out for either a panacea or nothing will be unsatisfied. But if we can at least separate incapacitation from lethality, we may be able to save lives while still satisfying the cultural and institutional lust for violence.

Because indulging such impulses is a good way to get them to proliferate. I see your approach is to treat them as matters of fact and try to redirect them towards some less-lethal-than-guns solution for mutual benefit, but this is just going to give you more of what you don't want.

Right now a police officer in my area is typically equipped with:

baton; taser; pepper spray; knife; handgun

shotgun (in the car); flashlights (high powered, doubles as a club in a pinch)

5 weapons, with others in reserve, is already a lot to carry. Indeed, it's partly because of this proliferation of weapons (and all the training and liability issues that go with them) that many police are under-trained in physical combat (this from undercover and head-of-training officers I've known, whose opinion I'm inclined to take at face value).

So you've got heavily armed individuals who are trained/socialized to maintain a somewhat irrationally elevated perception of danger and most of their training if focused on using weapons to induce coercion. This is a bad combination. not just for the job and the public, but for the police themselves. I know a former police officer who doesn't keep any weapons in the house, but who's also paranoid about crime because he's been rtained to think about all the bad things that could happen to the point that he's afraid to hire someone to clean his house because they might case it on behalf of burglars or home invaders. This despite the fact that he doesn't own anything especially valuable; he lives in an ordinary suburban home and probably has less stuff than most people.

I also didn't mean to suggest anything about increasing the total amount of equipment carried by an officer. Are you suggesting that proliferation of a greater total number of weapons is a likely practical outcome? Variety coincides with proliferation, or something to that effect?

In most (northern) European countries the response to somebody brandishing a knife would be to set up a perimeter around that person, rather than directly engage them. Only as a last resort would you resort to violence. Instead you try to tire them out.

By comparison, the American police response would be to immediately subdue the person with any force necessary.

It's not just lethality, but it's also not just the way police respond, because it's not one or the the other. If you don't agree that the lethality of the weapon is a significant input to whether or not a dangerous outcome is more likely, we can't have a serious conversation.

Of course the weapon in question is also a variable, but I by far the biggest variable is police behavior in the US, where it seems every situation calls for force escalation and solving the matter at hand with a full-on assault of some sort.

I think you're right that escalating behavior is a significant variable. But I think that's a very tough thing to change. It may be that the low hanging fruit consists in changing the equipment rather than the culture. But I don't disagree with you in the big picture.

Anyway, I'll be careful not to assume your comments are attempting to be responsive to the things they reply to when I see them in the future, to prevent my misunderstanding.

You're leaving witnesses and complicating any potential legal cases in the aftermath.

Thus confusion, inattention, or misunderstanding in the face of commands from a self-identified officer easily can be a lethal situation.

This tragic outcome could have been avoided many times, and in most of those cases, the difference would have been in the behaviour of the police.

Also, there are .50 BMG handguns (and no, I'm not mistakenly referring to .50 AE, I mean .50 BMG). They are stupidly impractical, but they exist. You're making this out to be some mythical projectile when it's really just a bigger bullet. It's not like getting hit by a tank shell.

The real flaw with this scenario is that full body armor required to stop .50 BMG would be so bulky and heavy that you wouldn't be able to move. The imparted momentum isn't the problem, it's stopping the penetration of the round.

It's also worth pointing out that this conversation is pointlessly academic, as .50 BMG has not been used in a murder once. Ever. In the entire history of the United States. Out of over one million gun murders total. It's ridiculously impractical for that purpose.

The M82 has a barrel length of 20 inches (51 cm, .051 meters) and fires a 45 gram bullet that, at the end of that time, is going 900 m/s. Meaning the bullet goes from having zero momentum to 41 Newton-seconds in 1.13 milliseconds. Meaning the shooter feels over that 1.13 millisecond period of ~36,000 Newtons of force on his shoulder. The person getting shot has to make that bullet go from 900 m/s to 0, but he has to do it over say 2 inches of distance or his organs start getting smushed. Meaning he's experiencing, over that 110 microsecond period, ~360,000 Netwons of force. The exact same momentum, but in the shooter's case it's like getting punched and in the shootee's case it's like getting your torso gummed on by a T-rex.

This is why going from 0 to 100 in a car can either be no big deal (if done over 60 seconds) or kill you six ways from sunday (if done in a few milliseconds when you crash into a wall or something).

We're also not getting into the power of a good muzzle break or the weight of the rifle itself, both of which considerably reduce the felt impulse by the shooter. You can look up people rapid-firing 50 cal rifles from the hip on youtube for an illustration of just how much you can tame the recoil of these guns.

Note that you're at ~80 pounds from wearing just two plates to protect most of your chest and back; you'll collapse under the weight by the time you've armored your entire body.

It's simply not enough to stop the bullet at these kinds of impulses, you need something to distribute the force over time as well as space. Cars use crumple zones for this purpose - the time it takes the front to deform is extra seconds over which the momentum change takes place, thereby decreasing the impulse.

Even if we could develop some sort of powered armor that let you carry absurd amounts of armour I don't see how you could really solve this problem. The suit is still going to push back into the wearer's body with the same impulse, and crack bones when it does.

Ultimately, the truth is human beings are just too squishy. #BringOnTheRobots

What does the word "proportionally" mean in this sentence? Because factually, the slug is about half the weight of the BMG round.

>You need significantly more thickness of armor just to stop the .50 BMG at all, by which point you've added so much more mass that you've gone much of the towards solving the higher impulse as well.

You're looking at elephant-stomping-on-you levels of force, and you're trying to say it'll be mitigated somewhat because you have 5 pounds of steel on your chest rather than 2 pounds. You will be a person salsa even if you strapped a kitchen stove to yourself.

You don't seem to be understanding the magnitude of the forces involved.

the momentum conservation means that the 5 pound of steel would be moving with the speed of 18m/s after full momentum transfer from the 45g bullet hitting it at 900m/s. 5lb at 18m/s - is like somebody would hit you with a frying pan. While painful and dangerous if say into the head, it is still much less so than getting the bullet directly. Even better result would be with a 25 lb steel plate - just 3.6m/s - like somebody would shove an office/kitchen table at you.

Elephant leg say weights 250kg - that would mean that if you have an elephant leg as an armor in front of you, after being hit by a 0.50 bullet with full momentum transfer the leg will be moving at the speed of 0.18m/s - you can just slowly step away from it.

>You don't seem to be understanding the magnitude of the forces involved.

please enlighten us and correct my calculations above.

>the momentum conservation means that the 5 pound of steel would be moving with the speed of 18m/s after full momentum transfer from the 45g bullet hitting it at 900m/s. 5lb at 18m/s - is like somebody would hit you with a frying pan.

The change in momentum over time is what matters, not the momentum itself. As I said above, think of a car. The momentum change on your body from going from 0 to 100 mph is a slight push on your chest....if you spread that momentum change over 60 seconds of steady acceleration. The exact same momentum change, if done over a few milliseconds from say smashing into a brick wall, is probably going to kill you.

I mean this isn't rocket science, it's literally high school physics.

>please enlighten us and correct my calculations above.

I...did the math already? Did you not read it? The momentum change over the distance of 2 inches produces a force of about 360,000 Newton - a 6000 kg elephant just standing on you would produce "only" 60,000 newtons. He needs to be actively trying to stomp your daylights in to get the kind of forces we're talking about.

50 cal is the kind of round that you hit someone in the torso and their arms fly off. It was built to kill vehicles and planes, for people it is absurd overkill.

you're right that the force will be huge, and you're dead wrong about the force effect.

lets say we stop the bullet over the distance of 1cm instead of 2 inches - the stopping force to act upon bullet would be even bigger - 1.8M Newtons (30 elephants!). The same value force will be acting upon our 5lb armor plate. This force will be acting until the bullet stops, ie. for about 0.02 milliseconds. During that time the force would accelerate the armor plate to the speed of 16m/s and the armor plate would travel less than 1mm - only starting to compress the padding under the armor plate. So, 0.02 milliseconds after the bullet impact we have a stopped bullet and the armor plate moving with the speed of 16m/s through the first millimeter of the padding - the situation is no different than being hit by a frying pan.

That's not how impulse propagates. The force carries through the plate, into the person, and does its damage as a compressive wave. Think about seatbelts in a car during a high speed crash - they don't often penetrate the torso of people, but they can and do pop organs through compressive effects if they're worn too high. Yet calculate the momentum of the seat belt at 100 mph and you'll find it's tiny, like a light slap.

But let's assume your analysis is true. Why then does a shotgun slug, with considerably less momentum than the .50 cal and even a frying pan, crack ribs through armor? Why can I put a piece of AR500 steel in front of a watermellow, hit the steel with a .308, and have the watermellon explode despite nothing getting through?

But I'm done. I've explained this same concept 5 different times, and I'm still having to cover basic physics with people too proud to admit their layman's interpretation is wrong. If you think you could survive a .50 with armor, you're welcome to go buy a 1 inch plate from shootsteel.com and an M82 and test if out yourself. Remove one more prideful fool from the gene pool.

That would be true if the plate was pressed hard against the body. A force requires a carrier - a field or a matter. This is why there is padding behind armor. The padding air-gaps the body from the plate. Nothing crosses the air gap during the 0.02ms that the huge force you're talking about is acting between the plate and the bullet. The body isn't aware that something that violent is happening just a few millimeters away. At t=0.02ms the interaction between the bullet and the plate has finished and the plate is flying toward the body with the speed ~16m/s. At that t=0.02ms the plate has so far traveled only for less than 1mm and it will take it ~0.5 milisecond to cross the air gap and to slam into the body at about the same speed of 16m/s. Such slamming is like being hit by a frying pan. Can be pretty damaging if hits a joint or the head. May break a rib. Yet nothing close to being subjected to the force of being stepped on by an elephant or 30 of them.

>Why then does a shotgun slug, with considerably less momentum than the .50 cal and even a frying pan, crack ribs through armor?

The slug momentum (0.03kg at 540m/s) is 2.5 times less than that of .50 cal (0.045kg at 900m/s), so nothing surprising here, especially if it is through a flexible (i.e. different mode of action) kevlar armor. The steel plate armor we're discussing is much heavier.

>Why can I put a piece of AR500 steel in front of a watermellow, hit the steel with a .308, and have the watermellon explode despite nothing getting through?

Even if the watermelon is air-gapped from the steel, the watermelon still can't sustain being hit with a frying pan ( even with less than a full swing of it). If the steel isn't air-gapped from the watermellon - in this case the watermelon do get the force applied if the steel isn't fixed, or a compression wave by the steel plate vibration if the steel is fixed in place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chZZp-ALV6o

(I looked up the high strength steel armor plates; they do weigh about 5 pounds)

This big chunk of steel stops the bullet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrfskAfPB5s

Bit of a kick though and it pretty obviously isn't practical to strap something of similar strength to your body.

This is no better than a political article as far as bringing out the dark side of people.

https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2016/4/29/the-barr...

Pretty hard to put a muzzle brake on your body armor.

    Livingston said when the door opened, officers gave Finch commands to put his hands up and walk toward them. He complied for a "very short time" and put his hands back down. He raised them again, and then lowered them for a second time, Livingston said.

    "The male then turned towards the officers on the east side of the residence, lowered his hands to the waistband again, then suddenly pulled them back up towards those officers at the east," he said. "The officers on the north side of the street feared the male pulled a weapon from his waistband, retrieved a gun and was in the process of pointing it at the officers to the east. Fearing for those officers’ safety, the officer on the north side fired one round."

It's tragic that it's also something a panicked innocent citizen might do! But that doesn't change the fact that it's a genuinely threatening thing to do.

I think probably the most effective way to solve the problem would be to make people better aware of what makes you appear threatening and non-threatening in a confrontation.

Some of us have been insulated from violence for so long that we don't know what it looks like. We have no reason to know that innocent sudden movements can just like dangerous sudden movements.

I'm not saying the guy's death is his fault. The whole thing is a tragic misunderstanding between good people. But I am saying he could have been educated to prevent it. I don't think it's realistic to ask police to solve the problem at great risk to themselves when regular people can solve it by learning that the best way to avoid misunderstandings and snap reactions is to move slowly and deliberately in any confrontation.

Excellent idea. Let's train/condition 300 million people exactly how they should behave in stressful and life-threatening situations, and put at least part of the blame on them for any deviation from "acceptable" behaviour when put in an unknown situations with guns pointing at them.

It would take far too much time and effort to modify police training and expectations.

Perhaps we should cut funding for some more arts and phys-ed programs in public schools, and start funding "police/violence readiness prep" classes in K-12.

I am not saying the guy's death is his fault. I am saying expecting policemen not to react to certain movements just because they can be innocent is not a realistic expectation to place on them. It is safer for everyone if we all just stay calm, de-escalate, act deliberately, sort things out. Flapping around is a good way to look dangerous, and I just think things would be safer if people understood this.

People cannot reasonably be expected to “stay calm” at a moments notice. That is completely unreasonable.

Moving deliberately and keeping your hands visible around police, particularly if they seem to think you're dangerous, is a good way to stay as safe as you can, and will put them less on edge in the encounter. You want that. In a dangerous situation, you want everyone as calm as possible.

Will it always work? Of course not. Maybe you're drunk or high. Maybe you're insane. Maybe you panicked in spite of yourself. Whatever. Hopefully in that situation one of the other protections will work for you.

Wear ya damn seatbelt. Not because it always works, but because sometimes it's the only thing that saves your life.

Safety is about tradeoffs and incremental improvements, not perfect solutions. If there really is a murderer in the house, we want police to be aggressive. If it's a hoax, we want them to be cautious. But expecting them to magically know which situation it is isn't a practical solution. Making it really obvious that you aren't a tactical threat is a practical way to make the situation safer. ER!

Obviously the whole situation is super dangerous and the blame rests almost entirely with the hoaxer.

But with that said, I think it is practical and reasonable to talk about the best way to surrender safely and avoid a misunderstanding in a situation like that. It won't work in every case, but it should generally work and could improve the situation.

the vast majority of people in the US know not to run from bears. They also can identify pikachu on sight. Knowing how to respond to the unexpected appearance of police who think you're a bad guy seems to me at least as useful of a skill. And it's not a difficult concept that requires a great deal of training -- just understand that hands kill (nobody ever draws a gun with their feet, except maybe James Bond), and if you're in a stressful situation, slowly move your hands into totally visible open space (unless you're a cartoon character, you definitely can't draw a gun from midair.) No, this won't prevent 100% of police shootings, but it can prevent an awful lot of them. It's also useful for defusing a lot of other potentially violent situations.

> "and put at least part of the blame on them"

There are two types of blame. There's the "you shouldn't have done that" that you say to the guy who stabbed his neighbor over a fence dispute, and there's the "you shouldn't have done that" that you say when you're watching a zombie movie and someone wanders off alone.

One is about moral culpability, about someone's intent being wrong. And we should NEVER impose that kind of blame on victims.

The other is about risk management, about someone's actions increasing negative outcomes. It's why we have things like debriefings and post-mortems in contexts ranging from military to software development -- learn what factors can lead to negative outcomes, and develop tactics to mitigate them. And we should stop being so afraid of "victim-blaming" that we instinctively balk at this.

A bunch of police showed up at his house and pointed guns at him, and his behaviour is threatening?

I know I've made a fuss about not making sudden moves in tense situations, but if you are going to make a sudden move, definitely avoid doing exactly that.

Yes, that is what they are describing. Because of course they are.

What we don't have is video.

And what we don't have is the other guy's account of what happened – because they killed him.

Sort of like, car drivers do have the ultimate responsibility to not hit people, but it sure is a lot safer if we also tell people to generally stay on the sidewalks.

Policemen are generally going to try to do the right thing, but it's a whole lot easier for them to get it right if, in addition to being innocent, you also act safe.

You don't have a perspective here, you're uncritically adopting theirs, which is designed to present things in a certain way.

'the male' - not a person or a man; dehumanizing language

'turned towards the officers' - probably because he had just noticed their presence; this language implies intent

'the residence' - it's a house; unnecessary abstracting leads to a loss of valuable context

'lowered his hands to the waistband again' - do you wear pants or a skirt? then you have a waistband, and guess what, your hands naturally hang just below wait level; everyone who isn't naked and holding their hands in the air is assumed to be armed with a concealed handgun

'then suddenly pulled them back up towards those officers at the east' - probably because they were telling to put his hands up and most people lift their arms up in front of them rather than to the side as when doing jumping jacks; implies the action was directed at them without evidence

See? It all sounds like delightfully objective, but it's actually selective and subjective. You were manipulated into treating conclusions as if they were evidence.

I think probably the most effective way to solve the problem would be to make people better aware of what makes you appear threatening and non-threatening in a confrontation.

You know police departments consider hands and feet to be 'personal weapons' right? A paranoid person (and police suffer from a degree of professional paranoia) is apt to make irrational assessments of threat factors, and this problem is compounded by a deficit of integrity among some officers and police unions, so that you get police like Michael Slager claiming to be acting out of fear when actually they were shooting someone in the back for running away (fortunately he was convicted of murder, but probably only because he was caught on video).

Some of us have been insulated from violence for so long that we don't know what it looks like.

I'm not. I have a lot of experience with this. If it's alien to you then maybe join a martial arts club or visit a shooting range or whatever would broaden your experience; or don't, if you'd rather not. But insofar as you're not well able to judge this, you should absolutely not be taking the statements of people who have a vested interest at face value because by your own admission, you're not in a good position to assess their claims.

I can't say that the officers acted well or badly here - I wasn't there. All I am saying is that this sounds like a tragic misunderstanding to me. And that people not understanding what real threats look like can lead them to behave in ways they don't realize are dangerous, and that's a real problem, and maybe something we can do something about on the civilian side.

I find it really unlikely that cops kill people for laughs. Does their training make them too high strung and jumpy? I mean, I've seen it, and given the threats they face, I don't really think so.

I do have sympathy for police. I know police officers. I train with some sometimes. I'm not saying there aren't bad ones or that there isn't bad training - I'm just saying that it would be a lot easier for them and the people they interacted with to stay safe if everyone understood what being non-threatening actually looks like, and how to surrender safely. I just hate to see a tragic outcome result from a misunderstanding. And maybe that's not what this is, but it's what it sounds like.

I think a lot of people have this really unreasonable standard for police, that they're supposed to know who's good and who's evil, and who's attacking and who's panicking... and man, they're just trying to get the situation under control so it can get sorted out. They aren't God. They aren't even juries and courts. You can't just be innocent, you also gotta act safe. I understand the outrage when innocent people die - I do. I'm just trying to offer a practical way to make the world a safer place. I don't think outrage at police alone is necessarily practical. There are some practical issues when people who don't know what combat looks like wind up in a tense situation, and they're real issues, and being mad at police isn't a great solution alone. All I'm sayin.

For one thing, combat is something that happens between two belligerents. I've been in a lot of fights and I've never, ever, gone off on someone by mistake because it's legally safer to risk a bit of disadvantage than to create a situation where none exists.

I absolutely disagree that we need to 'doing something on the civilian side' to make civilians more accommodating of police anxiety. That's literally the recipe for a police state, and there's good arguments for the proposition that we already inhabit one, it's just that it's benefits and costs are so unevenly distributed and the structure of it so decentralized that it's hard to perceive.

Knowing police officers gives you some xtra insight, as it has me. I suggest you expand your awareness to include information from criminals, attorneys in the criminal justice system, and other participants. Right now you seem to think that because you know some martial arts and some cops you're far enough ahead of the general population that you're half expert already. I think that's more likely knowing one corner of a field and thinking you've seen the whole thing.

I have no idea what you're talking about with a police state. Understanding how to be non-threatening violates no rights of yours, and is a very practical life skill in any physically tense situation.

Look, there are plenty of things that are messed up about the way police function - though nothing that applies to all of them, either good or bad, since police are a local institution. But in general, civil asset forfeiture is very bad, and often a grave injustice. Policemen lying under oath to get a conviction are very bad. Arrest quotas are bad. The high price of justice in the courts is very very very bad. There are bad things, and I am all for working to make them better. But on the other hand, I think police are people who deserve empathy and fair treatment as much as anyone does, and who absolutely deserve the right to protect themselves and work safely as much as is practical. I don't think understanding what that entails and putting them at ease and keeping yourself safer is building a police state. It's just being smart and decent.

Unfortunately in America, what makes you seem threatening is based on the color of your skin.

I am an African American living in a predominantly White county in the south that was made famous 30 years ago nationally for being anti-minority.

While, the county has changed somewhat because of an influx of younger people to the burbs, I still worry when my son starts driving because he is a big tall dude even though he would never hurt a fly, has lived in the burbs all of his life, and his friendship circle is like the cast of a WB show.

In fact, I remember having a really interesting conversation with a friend about this stuff a few years ago. We were talking about the statistic that black people are shot by police at twice the rate white people are. And yet some black people are so afraid of police in a traffic stop, they freak out if they haven't adequately prepared for it, and white people are so unafraid that they're shocked it's perceived as anything other than paperwork by the officer and nothing about it seems even potentially dangerous. I said - the difference between those two views isn't 2x. Black people don't think cops are twice as dangerous as white people... more like infinity x. And I said, either cops are way more dangerous than I was raised to believe, or way less dangerous than you were raised to believe, or both.

Well - I think it's both. I think if you are afraid of police in every encounter, a good reality check is to look up the absolute number of people killed by police anually and figure out how dangerous that really makes them compared to, I don't know, lawnmowers or something. And on the flip side, I think if you think police are really safe, a good reality check is to look at some of the training they do, some of the threats they face, understand how very fast a peaceful situation can turn violent and how easy it is to look like a threat, and understand that you have to be thoughtful and deliberate about everything you do around a cop, particularly in the situations that are most dangerous to them.

He gave me two tickets - one for speeding and one for no insurance. I paid the speeding ticket by phone when I got home and faxed them my insurance card and they dropped the other one.

I can't walk around with a chip on my shoulder expecting the worse out of people when I live in a county where when I show up to my sons school for the first time they immediately know who my stepson is even though we look nothing alike.

But I still tell my son if he's stopped put both hands on the top of the steering wheel, make no sudden movements and always tell the policeman what he is about to do - if he is reaching to grab his wallet, etc. if it's night, turn the inside lights on in the car before he stops and if he is wearing a hoodie because it's cold, take it off.

You got me LOLing with that one.

Cat = Calista Flockhart playing Cat Grant. Cat: All four of you standing there doing nothing. You look like the attractive yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show. Who are you?