A police officer is allowed to "panic and fear for their life" and shoot me as a result. I, as a private citizen, am expected to remain cool, calm and composed in the face of multiple guns in my face.
Even more mundane things: if I break a law, "ignorance is no excuse". When cops arrest photographers for shooting in public spaces, I have literally heard government officials explain it away as "We cannot expect our police officers to be constitutional lawyers".
If police do not know the law, then they should not be allowed to enforce it.
I have no expectation that the average police officer "knows the law", but that same problem should not be used against civilians.
It does stand, however, that an officer should be reprimanded for trying to enforce a law where they don't know the law.
I see that a little like someone yelling "let's abolish gravity" without stopping to consider: "what continues to exist if gravity no longer applies?"
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fen...
Have you seen that scene from the demonstration in Salt Lake City, where MAGA-man pointed a hunting bow at demonstrators? He was taken down and handed over to law enforcement unharmed. The bystanders displayed extraordinary restraint, no doubt because everything was filmed, and anyone who used deadly force would be harassed for the rest of their lives.
We'd like to see that same standard applied to cops.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kutv.com/amp/news/local/slc-pro...
We're talking apples and oranges, HarryHirsh, and I don't think you're willing to view this discussion in good faith. Good day.
In my world, "chasing someone with a large sword" sounds like initiating a fight, no? Is the complaint that... he lost it? Because it seems clear that he started it.
A meta point: this is why you need to stay away from sites like The Blaze. The guy with the lethal weapon was "beaten", but it's the protestors who were "violent".
This comment and others like it reminds me of this gem right here: https://twitter.com/Whateverlmao/status/1267132165935923201/...
It thinks he was a total fuckwit.
Violent crime is a scourge on America, with 15,292 homicides last year, not including non fatal shootings and/or other violent crime. As part of their job, police officers are called to deal with hardened criminals. There is a high level of risk involved. Can we stop for a second and be a tad grateful to the people that keep our neighborhoods reasonably safe?
'You've got a split second to decide whether the suspect is reaching for a gun or not. Make a mistake one way and we'll send condolences to your family, make a mistake another way and we'll throw you in jail for two decades. Make the right choice, and we'll throw another one your way next week'. Who in their right mind would take that kind of a deal? And if nobody in their right mind would do, who's going to keep the tough guys from imposing their own rule at gun point?
There are justified situations, and there are grey areas.
And then there are situations whereby a man will have his hands on the top of his head, be kneeling still in the street. And he'll be shot 8+ times by the police.
I can be entirely grateful to the police who do an honorable job. And to those in uniform who condemn egregious injustices by their own. They are doing honorable, good work.
I can simultaneously have a depth of derision and anger for those who see a badge, a uniform, and a gun as an excuse to exercise their latent psychological weaknesses, aggression, etc.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/01/08/most-dangero...
They likely picked the most dangerous ones.
Anyway this is an idiotic bullshit argument in the context of George Floyd. The man was on the ground, unarmed with four police there. That police officer wasn't being asked to put his life on the line, so what you're saying is irrelevant.
To be fair, that officer was both fired and was arrested + charged, which in my understanding means neither the (mayor? department?) and the prosecutor do not think qualified immunity is merited in this case.
It does drive us to the important point: where is the threshold where qualified immunity is forfeited?
I don't know much about it, but taking "qualified immunity", which is evaluated by prosecutors and DAs, and moving it to a police organization (expecting police to police the police) doesn't sound like an improvement.
Perhaps it would work if it was coupled with some sort of a complete overhaul in the culture of policing, but I don't see how the "culture" changes from the outside.
I'm more interested in hearing level-headed proposals.
Let judges decide what lawsuits are frivolous.
> You've got a split second to decide whether the suspect is reaching for a gun or not.
What are your goal posts for this excuse?
For example: what would an officer have to do to you or your family to make you turn on the officer's actions and demand accountability? It's important to remember that officers frequently demand to see something from your wallet or phone (both of which are located around your belt, where you might have a gun stored).
Also ironic is that police are completely capable of restraining themselves when other officers have guns and when white men carry guns into a state capitol. It's not simply the presence of a gun that police are reacting to.
> make a mistake another way and we'll throw you in jail for two decades.
This is literally the law for civilians. I don't see how you can expect an officer to enforce a law that they, themselves, are not willing to be subject to.
Personally, I think the only question is how much good faith should we give officers in questionable cases of use of force.
> Who in their right mind would take that kind of a deal?
I think every public school teacher in America asks themselves that question every week, but it's still one of the most common professions. People weigh their personal values against the value of their job.
> And if nobody in their right mind would do, who's going to keep the tough guys from imposing their own rule at gun point?
Logical fallacy. The people that are currently officers wouldn't suddenly vanish from the face of the Earth. We would still have private security and parents and teachers and neighbors and business owners and good samaritans.
Police officers are generally very strong proponents of the 2A, whose lobbies love to repeat the mantra "When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away". Without police, the average person would step up and defend themselves more than they do now. Game theory.
I think the biggest problem with US policing in the US is that there are always people who post what you did. It's not a balanced evaluation of what would actually happen if there were more reasonable accountability on police actions but rather "do whatever police unions want because otherwise morale will fall and chaos will reign". Maybe you should consider the morale of the people who see police in their neighborhoods and houses as the same people who are "imposing their own rule at gun point".
You also got fingerprinted (and probably DNA tested) and your mugshot was publicly distributed and those actions aren't undone.
[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/31/opinion/minnesota-pro...
You cannot say: "Here's a gun, go into that house, physically get that guy to come out, dead or alive, but - if you do it just a little bit wrong, and you kill him the wrong way, you're going to jail forever"
The laws absolutely have to be different for police because we (and that includes you) are compelling them into situations of possible extreme violence, and in some case, constant low level aggression and toxicity.
Officers have to be held to account, but that account is definitely a different.
The argument however, completely misses the point - what matters more is a) the extreme high level of baseline violence in communities which necessitates all sorts of precautions otherwise unnecessary b) guns everywhere and c) just a general attitude towards over-policing and obvious unfamiliarity with the exact nature of how people should be apprehended or not. For example, the fact that 3 officers were on camera while 1 of them was kneeling on someone's neck AND they were knowingly being filmed, means that 'de-facto' it was allowed, ie they felt there would be no repercussions, in which case, the police chief should be out to dry first.
The problem is mass violence, pervasive weaponry and over-aggressive policing - most other things are secondary, if you solve the core problems, much if it goes away.
Surely in most other jurisdictions, like Canada, UK, Germany, Japan etc. the police are treated differently under the law and somehow it works out.
Police have immunity because many cops come from military backgrounds, have operated in chaotic urban and rural environments and know how fragile life is, so they formed a union to protect their interests and skins from the legislative, judicial, executive branches and the public, all of whom from time to time looks for the easiest party to scapegoat; the police.
The public, and you especially, need to understand cops are not gun-wielding process-following soldier robots, they are human beings. If the milwaukee cop saved 100 lives in his career and takes one by accident and there are riots, that's one hell of a double standard to set. The first step to a root cause analysis is taking the officer to a padded room for a thorough psych evaluation.
When you end up with a SWAT Raid of someone's house that goes wrong and their chihwuawua gets shot, that's half the story. A lot of the time the reason you only hear half of the story is to protect someone. A lot of the story is, the population is not as intelligent or well-to-do as the hackernews demographic; to a military strategist, shows of force are an essential mechanism for gaining compliance, and they are probably right about that to an extent.
You have a demographic that is not doing themselves any favors; rioting, assaulting people, looting businesses, burning buildings. This is not a civil way to handle the situation. What I find very interesting this time around is the willingness of the public, especially young kids, to take up arms and defend their neighbors businesses and back up the police. That there is the start of something.
Also; the idea that any cop would have "saved 100 lives in his career" is ludicrous. But even if it were true, it would not justify allowing them to murder without consequence.
In actuality, the pattern we see with Derek Chauvin is more common; 18 complaints on his official record, involvement with 3 police shootings, and never any consequences beyond a reprimand. Until he just casually crushes a dude to death, and people like you are _still_ arguing there shouldn't be consequences.
Beyond that, the police should be held to a higher standard because we as a society acknowledge that they are trained well enough to walk around with guns and the ability to deprive people of their freedom (even those who are innocent - if you're locked in a cell and later not charged, you don't get that time you spent in a cell back). We should be able to charge Chauvin with first degree murder despite a lack of premeditation, because he was trained to know not to do precisely what he did. If I kneel on a guy's neck and kill him unintentionally it's manslaughter, but if a cop does it, it should be worse because that cop should be expected to know that doing so is not an acceptable form of restraint.