SavannahMann
Platinum Member
- Nov 16, 2016
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As a society we sure don't want to pay for professionalism and training, why, our taxes might go up since we won't defund militarily occupying the planet and deciding the governments of others.I saw this on the news. Seems that even though the 911 dispatcher gave them the right address, they went to the wrong one late at night.
Seems that he opened the door, they saw a gun and shot him. His wife was awake and said that she didn't hear any warnings, just shots and then saw her husband laying on the ground.
Sorry, but when it comes to crap like this, the cops in question should be fired. In the military you wouldn't be able to get away with crap like this. You'd be kicked out. Police need to be accountable for their actions.
We do pay for training, and that is part of the problem.
We imagine training is like it used to be, with police facing targets like in the old Hoogans Alley scenario. The cop would walk down the street, and targets would pop up or swing out and the cop would point the weapon, and fire if the target was a picture of someone holding a gun, and hold fire if the person was holding a shopping bag.
It isn't like that now. Now, it's all about the quick draw and fire. The FBI even has that as the new standard for qualification. How fast can you get your weapon out and firing? The argument is that those split seconds are precious, and the cop can't wait until he sees a weapon, if he does he's shot and killed.
This was actually filmed at the police range. It was the way the cops were trained to shoot. It was the way we trained the cops to shoot or don't shoot.
Notice the situation, seek cover to reload, identify the target, before you pulled the trigger. Now, that isn't the way it's done. Now, it's all about draw and fire. It is as if the police believe they are in a quick draw competition with Billy the Kid.
Notice the difference. It's about time it takes to get the shots off. Not in if the target needs to be shot, but how fast you can shoot. How fast can you shoot, reload, switch hands, and shoot some more? Well, if it isn't fast enough, then you fail.
When the Dirty Harry movie above was filmed, the police considered it an unjustified shooting if the baddie did not have a weapon. Then in the 1980's, those of us alive remember the stories of kids in apartment buildings playing games with toy guns who got shot. We were reasonable as a society, we said that we could understand how the police could mistake a toy, for a real gun. We excused it. We were starting down the slope to hell, and we did it for the best of reasons.
Then it was something that looked like a gun. A wallet, or similar item, if held just so, could be mistaken for a firearm. We as a society accepted this as a reasonable excuse. We allowed the standards for a "good shoot" to slide a little farther down the hill. Then it was a gun they could see, in the waist band or pocket of the baddie. Then it was where we find ourselves today.
If it is possible that he had a gun, or was going for this imaginary gun, it's completely justified to shoot the bugger. We justified our way into the hell we find ourselves in. All the time, the propaganda has it that the cops have a dangerous and dirty job, and we have to support them.
Now, it is nearly impossible to find anything a cop does to be wrong. A cop who off duty shoots his daughters black boyfriend is not convicted three times. Three times it's a hung jury. The aggressive action? The boyfriend saw the father approaching, and stood up and held out his hand, offering to shake the hand of the father of his girlfriend. He's dead now, and the cop is not in prison. He was afeared for his life, and that's all he has to say to get away with murder. Three hung juries. Three times that travesty has happened.
We were reasonable, and admitted there were exceptions. Now, the exception is not an exception, it's the rule. We do train them, we give the cops very expensive training, and it's the wrong lessons. More money for training isn't the answer. Changing the training to the old standards, no weapon visible, you don't shoot. No weapon on the baddie when you shoot him, you are in a lot of fucking trouble.
We have no standards for the use of force now, not like we did. We train the cops to that lack of standard. It's all about the quick draw. It's all about how fast you can shoot. If you aren't faster than Wild Bill Hickok, you are going to die is the lesson we are teaching our cops, and socieity, all of us, are paying the price for allowing this to happen.