That guy on drugs could stab you, you could pull a car over and that person could have a gun, you could go to stop domestic violence and get attacked.
Police brutality goes up proportionately with violent crime in their area. In other words, the more police deal with very dangerous people all the time and the more their reactions become more aggressive to everyone.
It is no excuse for murder like what happened with Floyd, but there is a reason we don't send social workers out to domestic violence calls or drug calls...
Plus citizens have the right to own guns (which I am ever thankful for now with rioting breaking out across the country). Unarmed Not Police would be a joke.
I've also called 911 in the past when my house was burglarized, two men on a highway got into a fist fight after one's car hit the other, and once when a man was wandering into the middle of the highway trying to get himself run over. You could limit the number of guns but there are real issues that I think you'd want a well-equpied force for.
That's sort of the point. That's a situation that may require both an armed officer and a social worker. it's not to say that there is no situation that would require it in a heavily armed nation like the US but frequently it does not. In fact many would say sending heavily armed officers where it does not require it can escalate things, and affects how these officers view and police their communities.
The important point is that the structure of decision making inside the police is totally messed up. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail …
So the leadership has to come from somewhere else, basically.
One huge obstacle I still see is that US police basically completely gambled away trust inside the communities. They have to build up trust and are unwilling or unable to do that. That’s tragic. One way to change that would be to tip the balance way in favor of anyone not in the police, e.g. the police having to be right in fact when they apply violence to a problem (i.e. if they shoot the person they are suspecting of having a gun better have a gun or else they go to prison).
This would obviously lead to less effective policing, but that might be needed to lead to a change of strategy by the police. Because if you have to be right in fact you will act differently.
This is actually a symptom of a much larger problem: the US defunded public mental health institutions years ago, and many people that are a danger to themselves and others became homeless. When you defund the very institutions designed to help these people, and militarize the police, you get the expected outcome: mentally ill people getting shot for "resisting arrest."
That don't need to be armed with firearms. That's overkill (literally overkill, unfortunately) for community policing. They could have batons. Firearms should be restricted to specialists deployed only when needed for a specifically authorised task.
You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. 43 states are "shall-issue" and allow residents to conceal carry a firearm after completing required training and submitting an application.
But most policing tasks don't involve interactions with people looking to fight to the death. Do people really react to being stopped for speeding by starting a firefight? Is that genuinely a routine concern?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo...
In the US they've got loaded and cocked guns on their waist belts ready to use in a second.
Note that when I was in a literal warzone I didn't even always keep my rifle cocked.
Can we at least agree that off-duty police officers working as security guards at a hospital or elsewhere should not under any circumstance carry a weapon (other than perhaps a stick or something) while on non-police duty?
> Soon, from inside the room, there was shouting, sounds of a scuffle and a loud pop. During an altercation, two off-duty Houston police officers, moonlighting as security guards, had shocked Mr. Pean with a Taser, fired a bullet into his chest, then handcuffed him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/hospital-guns-mental-h...
> Mr. Pean said he was informed of the dismissal of the assault charges against him in a phone call to New York, where he is finishing college. He said he was relieved but remained deeply disturbed by his experience, noting that his family spent more than $100,000 in his defense. “If I was someone else, I could have ended up in jail,” he said.
> After the incident, federal health officials conducted an emergency investigation and faulted the hospital for the shooting, saying that St. Joseph had created “immediate jeopardy to the health and safety of its patients” and ordered that it restrict use of weapons and provide more training in dealing with mentally ill patients.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/alan-pean-hospital-gun...
In addition, perhaps if a police officer is not "on duty", felony assault charges should not be possible. This may sound harsh but imagine a bus driver goes on a walk and someone hits him on the head with a stick. Does that carry felony assault charges as well?
I think many people are saying a police officer's testimony should be void in a court of law if they do not have other evidence (in which case the evidence can stand on its own without the officer's testimony).
My mother was a nurse and had guns drawn in the hospital by opposing members of a gang there to inspect someone who was shot.
There are three main problems. District attorneys who do not like to charge cops. Police unions protecting cops. And the justice system requires a unanimous jury verdict to convict. This is to protect the accused.
If you think the riots are crazy now, wait until the jury is hung or acquits Floyd because one juror has doubt. Floyd had fentanyl in his system.
The lawyer only needs to convince ONE juror that it wasn’t just Chauvins fault that the fentanyl contributed to it and you can’t know BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that it was all Chauvins fault and boom, he gets off.
This has a reasonable probability of happening. I hope it doesn’t and he convicted. But this is the real second wave I am worried about. More than Covid.
People that don't know the average day don't have any basis to accurately imagine the average day, it's not a useful activity at that point.
The less obvious answer is to stop glorifying violence, including gun violence, war porn, drug kingpin lifestyles, cop/detective lifestyles, and other forms of abusive aggression in the media.
Considering that the US seems to go insane when a nipple appears on TV without a formal invitation, it's really quite strange that you can watch dramatised blood spurting out of fatal high-calibre organ wounds multiple times an hour - if you really want to.
I never ever considered owning a gun in my entire life, but I have one now and not afraid to use it if needed. Several friends have also done the same.
The debate for gun ownership is probably dead for 1 or 2 generations, and I do not want to see a single person blaming anyone about it when I was literally told by the police the other day that I am on my own during the night of looting in NYC.
Anyway, take a two day training course on how to use a gun (not “safety” course), otherwise owning a gun is pretty useless. Also, you need to periodically go to the range, and clean the gun after. And stock pile some ammo when you can - you are not going to be able to get any during any crisis.
Not all Police are armed (see UK). Also, other countries, while armed, seem to use their firearms much less (e.g., the entire country of Germany seems to use fewer bullets than a single US city).
> the entire country of Germany seems to use fewer bullets than a single US city
So perhaps guns are not actually the problem? There's commensurately little crime occurring in Germany, crime is not punished as harshly and criminals are not armed to the same degree.
When somebody is getting arrested in the US, they're looking at years in harsh prisons. They're likely to use any sort of irrational means to avoid or resist getting arrested.
The stats seem to show comparable crime rates across most industrialized countries; see point 7:
* https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/u...
There's just more violence in the US:
Most officers do not carry firearms, but snipers and other firearms carrying officers are generally available at a moments notice. In larger cities they are in roving vehicles.
Not really ‘unarmed’ although not carrying firearms to every situation may be a good policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer...
https://www.dw.com/en/two-german-police-officers-killed-by-f...
If officers don't engage because they are insufficiently equipped, you effectively have less policing. Less policing causes more violence and more deaths.
"Stop and frisk" works:
https://www.npr.org/2012/05/15/152764402/stop-and-frisk-work...
Knife crime in the UK keeps going up...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089
...as a result of literally defunding the police:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/02/criminals-go...
Why pick out a random statistic like knife crime? It sucks, but matters much less than the following statistics:
US has 4 times more intentional homicide rate vs. UK. US has 18 times more murder rate vs. UK.
I think the evidence is quite clear that the UK with police that are less heavily armed have better crime statistics, fewer police deaths, AND fewer civilian deaths caused by police.
When there's a situation that requires guns, they stay put until the police with the guns arrives. Or they become a hero and get stabbed in the process:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/22/police-briti...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49273979
https://news.sky.com/story/police-officer-critical-after-bei...
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/man-charged-stabbing-p...
So, I believe as a public we have been misinformed on how deadly it is to actually be a police officer in the US, and this is somehow used to justify extra-judicial killings of potentially innocent civilians. You certainly don't see loggers and roofers unions talking about how they are the "thin brown line" protecting society from the dangers of uncut trees and leaky roofs.
Job #1 for police is to keep everybody alive, even the criminals. Everything else is secondary. They are not primarily trained "for aggression with weapons", they are trained in deescalation, social resources, helping the community, etc. And contrary to most TV shows and movies, use of a weapon is a rather rare event in a police officer's career.
Whether police should or should not be armed depends entirely on whether the criminals are or are not armed. Here in New Zealand police have arms, but they are in lock boxes in their cruisers, and only brought out when necessary. Then there is a special "armed offenders squad" which comes in with sniper rifles and such and takes care of hostage situations, mass shooters, etc.
If the current 'abolish the police' sentiment intends to send the message you are expressing, it's not sending it very effectively. My fear is that police will quit/retire in droves and not be easily replaced. That will cause inner city gang activity to increase. As I understand it, there are a small number of powerful remorseless hardened criminals forcing inner city youth into a life of crime via credible threats, and using them as pawns to distance themselves from the day to day criminal activity. The police are the only ones powerful enough to fight this and to protect these kids.
Yes, they often do a shit job at it, and yes, they often are infected with racists and overly aggressive assholes, and even criminals using that position for the power it affords. But I think we'd do better if we focused on finding and weeding out the bad cops, rather than throwing out the entire institution.
I think a similar approach at the community level would be great to see in the US. Rather than fighting the police head-on to try to make them respect our rights as they should (a tall order), we could instead try to make them largely redundant. Of course, there will always be some situations where armed police are necessary, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s less than 1% of the calls they’re currently responding to.
We have a few must reports (rape, lost child, and sexual assault) that we must call in but anecdotally I've rarely heard of a Ranger calling in LEO (law enforcement officer) to handle anything that isn't a gun/weapon or a must report.
But Burning Man has no guns and everyone is there on vacation. It doesn't apply.
Of course, if you just add up all the cases across the country, then you don't need armed police in 99% of case. The problem is that you don't know which one percent does need armed police.
You want police to be able to bring the situation under control as soon as possible, you don't want to wait for people to get stabbed or shot by some guy who couldn't be stopped otherwise.
“The problem is that you don't know which one percent does need armed police.”
Perhaps there are more intelligent ways to triage than treating every situation like a military engagement?
Often the cops showing up with guns drawn is what turns a situation violent.
Anything that a bunch of yuppies do in their leisure time is not representative of anything else. It can not to be used to draw conclusions on what to do about, say, crime in the inner cities.
> Perhaps there are more intelligent ways to triage than treating every situation like a military engagement? > Often the cops showing up with guns drawn is what turns a situation violent.
Cops generally don't draw their guns unless there is a perceived threat. If there is a perceived threat, not having a gun puts cops at a severe disadvantage.
Of course there's the option for cops to just not engage and let the situation play out. There's the option for cops just to not do any policing, to not even show up. That'll reduce victims of police brutality for sure. That's already happening in some areas and all these calls for defunding the police will surely have an impact there.
Yeah and these "perceived threats" include kids with toy guns, unarmed people with their hands up, and people lying on the ground dying.
Many cops have learned, whether through training or culture, to point their guns first and ask questions later, at a huge cost to society. It seems you don't have sympathy for the people affected by this, but many of us do.
I have a lot of sympathy for police too. They have a dangerous and thankless job, and we all rely on them. But my sympathy ends at those who abuse their power, and those who protect the abusers in their midst.
People who would rather kill another human than accept any risk in trying to defuse a situation peacefully don't have what it takes to do this extremely difficult job, and they should look for another line of work.
Yes, unfortunately, those people were perceived as threats and the officers involved weren't taking any chances.
Those are, for the most part, accidents. How many children are run over because people are carelessly driving? Would you ban cars for everyone?
> Many cops have learned, whether through training or culture, to point their guns first and ask questions later, at a huge cost to society.
Yes, many people have had bad training or are just not made for the job. These are still people whose lives are at the frontline and they aren't even paid that well. I don't think the solution is to defund or disarm everyone involved.
> It seems you don't have sympathy for the people affected by this, but many of us do.
This is a disingenuous statement. You have to look beyond some exceptional and sensationalized cases, at the day-to-day reality of policing. If you disarm the police, they will stop policing those areas that are affected by crime the most. Criminals with guns will get free reign. More people will get shot, just not by cops.
More affluent people will not be affected by this, they could have it either way, it wouldn't make a difference. Their sympathy may be real, their intentions may be good, the outcome will still be bad.
> I have a lot of sympathy for police too. They have a dangerous and thankless job, and we all rely on them. But my sympathy ends at those who abuse their power, and those who protect the abusers in their midst.
I think we can all agree on this.
What happens to Not Police in these situations?
You want unarmed people doing this? Your Not Police would be getting killed in any of those.
If you believe police is not needed as a form of authority, you have been living in a privileged bubble for far too long. Travel, look around, and you will see the world is not as nice as you think it is.
1) mental health
2) homeless
3) drug addiction
4) domestic violence
5) traffic stops
etc etc
They should be called to handle
1) robbery in progress
2) active shooters
etc
The Not police should be trained in deescalation and should be familiar with all the social resources necessary to help people in the community. The not police should not be armed