There is an old saying among Combat Soldiers. You go with what you know. The tactics you’ve been taught, the techniques you’ve been trained in. What you do is dependent upon what you’ve been taught.
To the situation where the police are more aggressive in an arrest, it goes with what they’re being trained. The problem is that they approach every situation like it is the one in a thousand oddity. There is certainly wisdom in taking precautions, but that wisdom sounds weak when you look at the results.
The problem is that the police are going for “control” which is an illusion at best. To gain that “control” they have been trained to begin swinging. Because one time out of a thousand, the less brutal arrest technique will result in an injured officer. The pain compliance technique doesn’t work for whatever reason, perhaps the arrestee is also trained, and knows how to get out of it. So the officers are trained and honestly believe if they don’t start the attack first, they risk injury or death. Those one in a thousand events become the norm.
Four decades ago, if the cop fired without seeing a gun, then it was a bad shooting. Then one of those one in a thousand events and now the cops can’t wait to see a gun. All they are doing is waiting for the twitch that tells them the baddie is going for a weapon. The result is that the training for that one in a thousand is getting cops in a lot of trouble. Not just legal trouble, but public relations trouble.
It gets worse when you add in the twisting of the narrative. When the cop tells a lie, or tells the truth in such a way to create a different image from what actually happened, then those who know the truth will view the cops with greater distrust.
We used to teach our children, I was taught, that you could trust the cops. Now, the wise parents are the ones telling their kids never talk to a cop, never tell them anything. Because anything you say will be taken out of context, or twisted to make you look guilty.
There was a story here in Savannah. A Holiday weekend approached. Friday morning the fifth grade boy got up, and put on the same pants he had worn the night before. He had been to a Cub Scout meeting, and he rushed through breakfast, and headed to school. He found a Cub Scout knife in his pocket. This knife, like a Swiss Army Knife, has little tools that fold away. The boy knew he wasn’t supposed to have it at school. He walked to the teacher and turned it in. The Teacher called the office, who took the boy, and called the police. The police took him to the Juvenile Detention facility, and kept him there over the long weekend.
The Judge was horrified. The boy had made a mistake, and just like we taught our children, he did what he was supposed to when he had a problem. He went to an adult, and told the truth. He spent the weekend in jail. He wasn’t threatening anyone, or trying to cause problems. He was a good boy, who made a mistake, and owned up to it. Everyone involved swore to the press that they had no choice, Zero Tolerance rules, and laws, meant that everyone did what they had to.
But that boy has grown up by now. Does anyone think he has forgotten that event? Does anyone believe he went to another adult besides his family if he had a problem? Does anyone believe he has any trust, or respect, for cops?
But there were other kids in the class. Kids who saw all of this, and heard about it. It doesn’t matter that the Judge dropped the charges on Tuesday Morning. It doesn’t matter that the Judge apologized to the boy and told him he had done the right thing, and how very sorry he was that the boy had spent the weekend in jail.
We used to use common sense. We used to use discretion. Now, we expect the cops to do the maximum, because their peers, and trainers, and evaluators, all expect them to do it, or dead cops will be the result.
Look at the board here my friend. See how many people cheer when a cop shoots an unarmed person. All the crap in the world is hanging off that belt, and they go for the gun because one time out of a hundred thousand the baddie might have a gun, so we have to shoot immediately, we can’t risk waiting.
West Virginia city pays former officer $175,000 to settle lawsuit after he decided not to shoot distraught suspect - CNN
How do you fire a cop for not shooting someone? You do that if you have a set of beliefs that revolves around the justification for violence. Instead of using your experience, and your brain, you’re supposed to just draw and shoot, or jump the baddie and pummel him half to death. If you don’t, you are risking your life, and the lives of your fellow cops.
It isn’t just in American anymore. It’s spreading like a virus around the world. Look at the first few minutes of the show Bodyguard from Britain. It is online. But it starts with our Hero on a train. He spots something suspicious and investigates. He finds a woman with a suicide vest. He talks to her, and gets her to agree not to detonate the bomb. Then the cops show up, and want him to move so they can shoot the woman, because it is too risky to allow her to stand there with a bomb. He refuses, and ends up hugging the woman until the bomb disposal person shows up to deactivate the bomb. This prevents them from shooting the woman, who is terrified.
You shoot if you have to. Not when you can. You use violence if you must, not when you can get away with it. Yes, I know the Bodyguard is both British, and fiction. But it is the mentality of the current world, and I’m a truth whore, I’ll take truth from any source, no matter where it is coming from.
