The local convenience store by my brothers gives out free coffee and pastries to county sheriffs. Maybe 2/3 of the times I drive by there, there's a car in front and a couple of officers inside. I chatted with the owner once and he said since he started doing it, he had NEVER been robbed. 1+1=2
YOU'RE FIRED!
- Thread starter Berzerker
- Start date
Except of coffee and pastries by law enforcement.
Ah the ol' extortion...er um, I mean... protection racket... Works for the Wiseguys... If it ain't broke... amirite?
Gori the Grey
The Poster
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Nice donut shop ya got here. Be a shame if somethin' happened to it.
No obligation involved.
Berzerker
Deity
I learned a harsh lesson about donating to charities over the phone, including FOP (I play once in a while in their golf tournaments for fallen officers). Somebody shared my phone # with other charities and I started getting unwanted calls. A FOP called and I told him why I no longer donate over the phone and he insisted it wasn't them. I'm sure it wasn't, but I got on no call lists and eventually changed numbers - no more problems.
Zkribbler
Deity
"My source" is unrefuted grand jury testimony.However, I don't recall it saying anything about Wilson grabbing Brown's throat.
I'm glad you agree that it was Wilson who pulled the gun. A lot of pro-Wilson folks claim Brown pulled out the gun. However, they can't explain why Wilson's DNA was on the handle of the gon while Brown's DNA was only found on the gun's barrel.
It depends. At the scene, Wilson told his supervising sergeant that when Brown turned around he raised his arms like a bull's horns before charging. In the Grand Jury testimony, he said Brown dropped into a three-point stance. So, choose the version you like best.
It doesn't really matter though. Once mountain-sized, hostile Brown started charging, Wilson had every right to defend himself. Being that it took 10 shots/6 hits to stop Brown, at that point, Wilson did not use excessive force,
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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It shouldn't be too much to ask that law enforcement be able to win a fight with an unarmed civilian without having to resort to deadly force.
I dunno, if we want these people to get credit for putting their lives on the line to protect us, maybe they ought to actually do that as the situation calls for it?
I dunno, if we want these people to get credit for putting their lives on the line to protect us, maybe they ought to actually do that as the situation calls for it?
Agreed! We should only hire individuals big and bad enough to be able take on any possible threat without the use of weapons. Of course, that might shrink the pool of candidates a tad.
Better yet, perhaps the police should only observe and report rather than intervene. Then the po-po and the perps will all be safe from each other.
Lexicus
Deity
Disarm the police. Only specialized tactical units should carry guns regularly.
But sooner or later they will misuse and abuse them and then we are right back here!
When they ask the suspect to come peacefully and the suspect refuses to comply, they should just let the suspect go, right? What possible alternative is there? Physical restraint? That might cause injury to the suspect, the police or both. Or even an innocent bystander.
I mean, seriously, why do we want law enforcement out there to begin with? People only get hurt.
Imagine how many lives would be saved and how fewer injuries there would be if people never had to face law enforcement.
To me, the math is quite simple. Never put a cop in a position where he is expected to compel someone to comply with instructions. Better to let people go about their business than risk injury or death, if you ask me. Also, it means fewer media storms.
Lexicus
Deity
We might be, on a case-by-case basis, but this would drastically reduce the number of relevant cases. That is worth doing.
Well, I'm a mite less concerned about "physical injury" than about, you know, death. Indeed, my whole "thing" with firearms is that they are an accelerant to violence, that the presence of firearms means that a confrontation that might have just left a couple of people with broken noses ends up with people being killed.
Police in countries like the UK do manage to physically restrain suspects on a regular basis without killing them (afaik UK police don't regularly carry guns). The idea that pulling out the gun and killing someone is a reasonable or necessary response in a situation like this:
is sickening to me.
Berzerker
Deity
You didn't even know the name of your source... And it was your source who said the cop grabbed Brown around the neck. Unrefuted grand jury testimony? You should look at how the narrative changed under oath...
He pulled the gun after being attacked
How does one preclude the other? A witness said Brown raised his arms to look for wounds with palms facing himself - then he charged the cop. Even witnesses sympathetic to Brown admitted under oath he wasn't trying to surrender and the cop yelled at him to stop before shooting him.
There are very many instances in the U.S. where cops manage to apprehend combative individuals without deadly force. They usually result in police brutality claims just the same. At the same, I am not going to judge anyone who uses deadly force to stop a threat, especially after repeated warnings of said deadly force.
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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It doesn't take superior size or "badness" to win a fight, or restrain a suspect. It takes training and perhaps a reasonable level of physical fitness. Cops in other countries manage to do it every damn day as a regular part of their jobs. Actually, so do tons of American cops, who don't resort to pulling their weapon just because a person is presenting a physical threat to them. So to claim that this is an unreasonable ask is just plain ridiculous.
And even then, why not tasers and stun guns? Or mace? Cops have plenty of other nonlethal tools at their disposal to take down unarmed suspects, including batons. Even if you're going to insist that cops need weapons, can you tell me why officers need to reach for a gun to confront an unarmed suspect?
Archon_Wing
Vote for me or die
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Those guys are rude and manage to contradict themselves within the same sentence. Shady it would seem, though I suppose that's the nature of phone solicitors.
I don't totally disagree, and every case is reviewed on its own merits. But why are we so quick to defend the individual who refuses to comply, who won't stand down, who charges the police even if without a weapon? Why do we condemn the officer who is facing down that situation and forced to make a split moment decision? Do we expect training to cover every eventuality? Today, cops need SEAL team level training to be able to do what the public wants. They need that level training to ensure they can apprehend without deadly force every imaginable threat they might face. Yes, we are asking more than the average human can give in such situations. And don't go on about other countries because they all have their own sets of issues. All cops everywhere are human.
So, I am not really being sarcastic when I say cops should be removed from the situation. Despite training, they can make bad decisions. Despite what the suspect is doing, the burden is on the cop to end the situation in a way everyone finds acceptable. No matter how much the suspect is warned of the consequences of their actions, the cop is never expected to act upon those warnings.
Not every incident should end in a shooting, but my sympathy will always go first to the person we put out there and told them, "we want you to catch the bad guy!"
So to save everyone some grief, I say we stop worrying about catching the bad guy, because we just seem to make the cops into the bad guys in the process.
Lexicus
Deity
This is just total nonsense. The rules of engagement for the military in foreign countries are actually far tighter than the one we apply to cops here. If a soldier killed unarmed civilians and then tried to claim he feared for his life he would be (rightfully) drummed out of the military and probably imprisoned.
One could just as easily turn this around and ask why you are condemning the untrained civilian forced to make a "split moment decision" while staring down the barrel of a gun...
Cops make themselves into the bad guys by doing bad things.
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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It's interesting you bring up soldiers, because they are actually trained to go through several levels of threat assessment before firing their weapon at someone. Not just SEALs, either, but any member of the military who enters a combat zone with a weapon is trained to assess threats and only to fire once their assessment deems it necessary. And every single soldier is accountable for every single time they discharge their weapon, even if nobody is harmed. If they didn't follow the proper protocol, and they didn't properly assess a threat before shooting at it, they are disciplined immediately and severely. I think that's really the key, too - if there was a sense that officers routinely received harsh discipline when they needlessly kill people, the way military members do, I don't think there would be the breakdown of trust that has happened over the last several years.
We condemn the officers because they have all of the power, and all of the training. They are far, far better equipped to make a correct split-second decision than a civilian is. With great power comes great responsibility; I'm not about to run around blaming the powerless party in an encounter where the powerless party ends up dead when there is no legitimate justification for it. It shouldn't be controversial that "I feared for my safety" isn't enough of a justification for an agent of the state to take a civilian's life.
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