Your ideas intrigue me. Let us discuss them over a cup of coffee.
Is this the girl that was charging another girl while holding a knife in her hand? I’m having a hard time keeping up with all this, but that seemed like a justified shooting - it seemed to me the police saved the intended victim from being stabbed, probably multiple times and fatally. Though, I still don’t understand why cops aren’t armed only with non-lethal means to stop a charging girl with a knife. Nor do I know what made the teen pull the knife in the first place. Or that this is technically the same instance you are talking about.
That wasn’t clear at the time I posted it, but yes.
My thought exactly. How is a gun the right tool to resolve that situation?
KevinC
2899
Seems like a taser or baton or something would have been a better tool than a lethal weapon.
Yeah, the point continues to be shooting someone should be a last resort and not the first option explored for literally every situation, dangerous or not. This situation, as with so many others, could have ended with everyone still living (albeit maybe injured). Now another child is dead.*
*Statement has been reviewed and sanitized to remove all emotional or humanizing elements to abide by forum rules.
Those tools wouldn’t be best to achieve the primary goal of policing: ensuring the officer goes home safe, all else be damned.
The girl was about to stab someone with a knife. I’m sorry she’s dead, but she was about to stab someone with a knife.
KevinC
2903
Right, I just think there were tools that could have been used to stop her other than a gun. Why was the gun drawn initially instead of a taser? A taser should have incapacitated her. A baton may have worked.
I can understand why force was used to stop the individual with a knife, I just think there’s a problem in how we police when lethal options often seem to be the first ones they go to.
I remember growing up, we’d have cops come and talk to us in school. Of course, they presented a very sanitized version of their profession, but something that stuck out to me is that they always talked about the process of dealing with someone who might be violent. There’s supposed to be a progression - you try to step in verbally, then you use your body, then you use your nonlethal means. You were only supposed to draw your gun as a last resort and then fire it as a last-last resort.
If that was the standard we held cops to, it could actually be a noble profession. But the institution is occupied only with protecting itself, not protecting the community.
KevinC
2905
A kid I knew in school had a dad who was a cop. I remember him mocking cop movies and TV shows and saying that in his 20 or so years on the force he had only ever drawn his weapon a few times and never had to fire it. I haven’t seen any statistics to indicate danger to cops has dramatically risen in the intervening 30 years.
I want to make clear that I am 100% not saying a girl should’ve died here or that the cop did the best/only thing he could do. The fact that he killed the girl that originally called for police help sucks all around.
I don’t know anything more than the video here. The cop comes up during the scuffle. He’s unable to grab any of them as one falls over. The girl in black suddenly has a knife and moves to stab the girl in pink. He shoots. It’s literally seconds from the walk-up to the stab attempt.
When your primary training is to use your service pistol/handgun, that’s what you’re going to reach for in that kind of split-second situation. That’s a product of decades of police policy (before Tasers) and the fact that Tasers aren’t trusted by many cops to actually stop a person from doing whatever they’re about to do. (Which isn’t a completely unfounded fear. People have been zapped and kept right on trucking due to adrenaline, drugs in their system, or the stun projectiles getting caught on clothing and not hitting the person.) Additionally, Tasers can kill people, putting the cops in a similar situation with regards to the investigation and community outrage issues that a normal shooting does. Many cops feel they may as well go for the simpler, more trusted solution if they’re going to get raked over the coals anyway. These are all long-term training issues that I don’t think many police forces have overcome yet.
As far as the incident goes, I’m pretty sure this cop will be cleared unless some crazy shit comes out during the investigation.
rowe33
2907
I’m a bit surprised he didn’t hit the girl in pink also.
Banzai
2908
Would be interesting if every cop had a social worker/mental health professional with them and let them do the talking. I could see this particulart scenario turning out very differently, which I think everyone would be in favor of, including the police. They are correct that they are asked to do things that they are not trained or qualilfied to do, so they fuck those things up badly, as we see over and over. So let’s have people who are trained for those things do them.
Timex
2909
A taser isn’t actually guaranteed to stop you if you are about to stab someone.
KevinC
2910
I mean, neither is firing a gun at someone. I’m not saying the cop should spend the rest of his life in jail or something but it seems to be that cops turn to the lethal option first or at least very fast. And I think it points to a problem in their training or their culture (or both) that they are so quick to go with what should be the last resort.
Haavok1
2911
Not knowing what led up to all of this but if it was my daughter about to be stabbed I want cops stopping the other girl any way they can. If I’m the parent of the girl stabbing I am sure i would want them trying to stop her without killing her.
Skipper
2912
Obviously cops have been tainted by videogames, which are the source of all violence problems, right?
CraigM
2913
Because it hasn’t. It has significantly decreased even.
Policing has fewer fatalities today than any time in recorded history, despite more people and cops.
I don’t think you always get two chances at something like this. A knife is a lethal weapon and can cause fatal injuries in fractions of a second.
KevinC
2915
Sure, knives can kill or do a lot of damage, I’m not downplaying the seriousness of the situation. While the US has a fairly unique gun disease among other developed nations, I’m sure police in western Europe have to deal with knives? How are the police in the UK able to deal with knives without able to immediately fall back on a firearm?
