11 cops vs. teen with a knife. You know where this is going.

[Gary Childress]

Maybe people shouldn't wave knives at cops and behave in a generally threatening manner while armed with a deadly weapon. Maybe then they wouldn't get killed. Maybe.

This really does seem like good advice. I can also sympathize with those who think the police might have overreacted. Maybe the guy was having an episode of mental illness. From reading the OP I take it no one was harmed other than the person waving the knife? If so then that amounts to the death penalty for waving a knife in public in a threatening manner. I would like to think we don't pay our police officers to simply find the quickest easiest solution to complex situations. I would like to think they are trained to handle such difficult situations in a professional and non-threatening manner. Then again, in my opinion emergency response professionals are also grossly underpaid for the services they perform. Our government is a bottomless money pit when it comes to bailing out those who sit on their butts and make money all day trading stock. But when it comes to the salaries of average public employees doing the dirty work we all have to be frugal? Pretty messed up system this thing "capitalism" is. But I digress...

 

[Formaldehyde]

Maybe the guy was having an episode of mental illness.

Given that he was reported to have been waving his penis around while otherwise acting strangely, I don't think that is outside the realm of possibility. But I also think that any time someone continues to hold a 3 inch knife while a cop is repeatedly shouting "drop the knife" and pointing his handgun at him that it could be taken for granted that he was likely suffering from some form of mental impairment.

 

[aelf]

Naw, if you have mental illness it's okay that you get killed by the police for looking threatening. Simple right wing logic.

 

[Farm Boy]

Then again, in my opinion emergency response professionals are also grossly underpaid for the services they perform.

Depends and depends. Volunteer firemen and EMTs? Not very well compensated, hardly at all actually. Most patrol officers in metropolitan areas? Not as badly as most people presume, though it varies and there are lowball exceptions. At least around here though patrol cops generally make a very respectable salary with solid benefits especially considering the wages of positions that require similar levels of education.

 

[shadowplay]

The officer who shot the man has been charged with murder:

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...er_charged_with_murder_in_shooting_death.html

 

[Kyriakos]

The officer who shot the man has been charged with murder:

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...er_charged_with_murder_in_shooting_death.html

From that article:

University of Windsor law professor David Tanovich says Yatim’s shooting is a “watershed case” involving police. “Simply because there is such strong video evidence showing exactly what happened,” Tanovich said. “I don’t see how anyone could come to a conclusion that the conduct was reasonable and necessary.”

Seems entirely true. The video indeed shows that shooting the man in the bus was not at all warranted, and so many shots were fired...
I am not sure what effect this will have in the long run, in the police force there. However i definitely agree with the charges, and this policeman just brought his demise all by himself.

 

[Rashiminos]

From that article:



Seems entirely true. The video indeed shows that shooting the man in the bus was not at all warranted, and so many shots were fired...
I am not sure what effect this will have in the long run, in the police force there. However i definitely agree with the charges, and this policeman just brought his demise all by himself.

I remain cynical as to the effect a successful conviction (we should hope) would have on the other loose cannons.

 

[IglooDame]

I remain cynical as to the effect a successful conviction (we should hope) would have on the other loose cannons.

One conviction probably won't be enough to change much behavior. One or two more people are going to have to die at the hands of police that believe 'officer safety trumps all' (and get convicted of homicide-related felonies) before there's much introspection.

 

[El_Machinae]

We might not get a conviction, even the actual charge might've been politically motivated. After the charges come forward, there's a couple of years for the public to forget.

 

[Formaldehyde]

At least they charged him with a homicide albeit nearly a month late. Baby steps.

What will eventually change all this is a sufficient amount of video documentation. And it won't just be due to how pervasive phone cams have become. Eventually, every cop will be equipped with a video action cam which is activated whenever he pulls out his gun or taser. That video will be available to the public in states and countries with sufficient transparency laws.

 

[Kyriakos]

Eventually, every cop will be equipped with a video action cam which is activated whenever he pulls out his gun or taser. That video will be available to the public in states and countries with sufficient transparency laws.

I don't see that happening, and if it did happen it would not be a good idea in my view:

-If the cop is anxious about anything that may seem "unwarranted" then this may contribute in even worse decision-making on his part, leading to even more deaths that could have been avoided.

Surely not the entire police force is problematic to the degree of gunning down people when there was no need at all to do so (as in this case we saw the video of). What does have to happen is better training, along with making it a lot more clear that being in the police does not give you a free ticket to act like you are some sort of master of the civilians.
Sure, a policeman has to risk his life on the street, but he is also paid to do just that. A civilian does not have to risk his life, unless he actually is doing some crime that carries the potential to result in his death.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Sure, a policeman has to risk his life on the street, but he is also paid to do just that.

Are they paid enough, though?

The culture that says "no cop is ever wrong" is a hard one to break, but it'll be far more difficult if officers feel inadequately compensated for the dangers they face.

 

[Kyriakos]

Are they paid enough, though?

The culture that says "no cop is ever wrong" is a hard one to break, but it'll be far more difficult if officers feel inadequately compensated for the dangers they face.

I surely agree with you. I am not at all anti-police (or pro-police). It is hard to maintain a consistently logical standard in such a force, which moreover is mostly populated by people who (even if they do mean well) are still aspiring to do a dangerous and not very rewarding job.
Surely not paying police enough will lead to even worse problems. Paying them more may help, but then again it would be more sensible to have special rates in areas that are more known to be dangerous.

I dislike policemen who act as if they are your owner, but obviously not all of them are like that.

 

[Farm Boy]

They're usually paid pretty darn good, at least in the states for positions of equitable risk and equitable eduction.

I have no idea if my sources are any good but from jumping around some high hit websites it looks like average trucker salaries(a taxing job on travel, not particularly occupationally safe) come in around 40,000 CAD per year. RCMP advertise their salaries as the following for the constable rank:
entry: $49,680
6 months service: $64,549
12 months service: $70,035
24 months service: $75,522
36 months service: $80,498

The Toronto police advertise the following:
Toronto Police Service Base Salary
Cadet in Training $54,398.66
4th Class Constable $60,455.95
3rd Class Constable $69,098.18
2nd Class Constable $77,736.24
1st Class Constable $86,365.94

I haven't checked, but most patrol officers in the US require a high school education and often(not always) attendance at a several month police academy, often on paid time and paid for by the hiring department for new officers. I'd say it's not bad even compared to jobs that are functionally significantly more hazardous to life and limb. Any conflicting opinions?

Gah, I wanted to do better but I don't have research time atm. This isn't really a good picture since it doesn't include accidental injuries police suffer but many people seem to speak of policing being dangerous due to intentional violence, so it's at least partway there for comparison. Somebody better than me can provide more if willing.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/04/25/f-dangerous-jobs.html
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010003/article/11354-eng.htm

I do find it somewhat telling that the second link states that taxi drivers are twice as likely to be murdered on the job as a police officer. How well are they compensated?

 

[Kyriakos]

Here it seems most low-ranking policemen are paid a very bad salary, which makes their work even worse. They are also bound by far heavier restrictions on the ability to use their handgun.

Both extremes are obviously wrong. Policemen should be paid enough to make them feel generally like they are awarded for a dangerous job. However this should not lead to a steady flow of use of forces that are not needed, towards the citizens.

By the way, most policemen i have seen here (those working the street-patrol, either on foot or motorbike) are at least not fat, which makes sense given their job's traits. It seems in the US the policemen are often fat, or even obese, which makes no sense at all. Surely a person having physical difficulties will be even more prone to use his handgun if in any sort of peculiar situation...

 

[Farm Boy]

It seems in the US the policemen are often fat, or even obese, which makes no sense at all. Surely a person having physical difficulties will be even more prone to use his handgun if in any sort of peculiar situation...

Not as often as you think. Those are usually administrators on the force or small town police(not always but often). Your local Barney Fife doesn't need to be a Navy Seal(though enough of them seem to think they do). Hopefully there just isn't any need for violent response in a small town around here, and if there is, you better believe there is backup from the county with different training standards coming in short order. And those boys won't be the administrators.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I don't see that happening, and if it did happen it would not be a good idea in my view:

Some police departments already have tasers which have built in video cameras that activate when the weapon is drawn.

By the way, most policemen i have seen here (those working the street-patrol, either on foot or motorbike) are at least not fat, which makes sense given their job's traits. It seems in the US the policemen are often fat, or even obese, which makes no sense at all. Surely a person having physical difficulties will be even more prone to use his handgun if in any sort of peculiar situation...

You don't seem to mind at all engaging in sheer hyperbole based on absurd stereotypes.

 

[Kyriakos]

Some police departments already have tasers which have built in video cameras that activate when the weapon is drawn.

You don't seem to mind at all engaging in sheer hyperbole based on absurd stereotypes.

Forma, thanks for quoting the essential parts of my posts there

And is it not hyperbolic to use the term "hyperbole" in so many of your responses to other people's posts?

 

[Formaldehyde]

So now pointing out clearly obvious hyperbole is a form a hyperbole?

 

[Winston Hughes]

I think the following passage from David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, referring to a young man shot by an officer who mistook his cigarette lighter for a weapon, is worth quoting here:

The question was not whether the Ja-Wan McGee shooting was good or bad; every cop who ever felt the need to draw his weapon winced at the thought of a cigarette lighter on the linoleum and a seventeen-year-old crippled for life. The question was whether the department was going to sacrifice its own rather than confront one of the most unavoidable truths about police work: the institutionalized conceit that says in every given circumstance a good cop will give you a good shooting.

A heavily armed nation prone to violence finds it only reasonable to give law enforcement officers weapons and the authority to use them. In the United States, only a cop has the right to kill as an act of personal deliberation and action. To that end, Scotty McCown and three thousand other men and women were sent out on the streets of Baltimore with .38-caliber Smith & Wessons, for which they received several weeks of academy firearms training augmented by one trip to the police firing range every year. Coupled with an individual officer's judgment, that is deemed expertise enough to make the right decision every time.

It is a lie.

It is a lie the police department tolerates because to do otherwise would shatter the myth of infallibility on which rests its authority for lethal force. And it is a lie that the public demands, because to do otherwise would expose a terrifying ambiguity. The false certainty, the myth of perfection, on which our culture feeds requires that Scotty McCown should have shouted a warning before firing three shots, that he should have identified himself as a police officer and told Ja-Wan McGee to drop what he believed was a weapon. It demands that he should have given the kid time to decide or, perhaps, should have used his weapon only to wound or disarm the suspect. It argues that a detective who fails to do these things is poorly trained and reckless, and if the detective is white, it allows for the argument that he is very possibly a racist capable of viewing every black teenager with a shiny lighter as an armed robbery in progress. It doesn't matter than a shouted warning concedes every advantage to the gunman, that death can come in the time it takes for a cop to identify himself or demand that a suspect relinquish a weapon. It doesn't matter that in a confrontation of little more than a second or two, a cop is lucky if he can hit center mass from a distance of twenty feet, much less target extremities or shoot a weapon from a suspect's hand. And it doesn't matter whether the cop is an honorable man, whether he truly believes he is in danger, whether the shooting of a black suspect sickens him no less than if the man were white. McCown was a good man, but he let go of a .38 round a moment or two before he should have, and in that short span both victim and shooter became entwined in the same tragedy.