1741

It’s really not. It isn’t like over here there’s a system, and over there there are police. The system is comprised of people. People we generally call “police”. And a ridicuously high percentage of those people are the ones routinely committing horrific acts on the citizens they are supposed to be protecting and serving (or covering for them). So, yeah, fuck the police until they start acting as a whole the way they are supposed to; the “good” cops not standing up and seeing to it that the bad ones are kicked out and never work in a department again, that aren’t agitating to have those officers prosecuted for the crimes they commit? They are just as bad as the ones actually performing the bad acts.

Also, nothing like solder example above. I’m not picking on the police because we have retarded drug laws (i.e., an unpopular war that they’re soldering through). I’m picking on the police because they are acting like thugs and criminals.

1742

All of them?

1743

You should probably define “ridiculously high percentage.” The overwhelming majority of police do not fuck up.

1744

My thought as well.

1745

I’m resurrecting Qt3’s most infuriating thread with this gem:

A Houston police officer shot and killed a schizophrenic, wheelchair-bound double amputee threatening people with a pen at a group home for the mentally ill after authorities said the man advanced on the officer’s partner.

Jesus. Sweet, sweet, jesus.

Claunch, who lost an arm and a leg in a train accident, trapped one of the officers with his wheelchair in the corner of a room and attempted to stab the officer with an object that turned out to be a pen.

1746

They didn’t identify the cop that got trapped in a corner by the double amputee. I hope they laugh him or her off the police force. We need more shame.

The shooting occurred early Saturday morning after police responded to a call that resident Brian Claunch was acting aggressively…
The fatal mistake. When you call the police to calm someone down, there’s a chance that person will be killed in the name of “officer safety.” Find another way.

1747

One armed man. In a wheelchair. Both cops should be drummed out for sheer patheticness.

1748

Maybe, I don’t know, stick out your foot and stop the chair at the bottom, where he can’t stab?

It’s funny because I was actually an apologist for the police when they shot a guy here while handcuffed, he had gotten ahold of a boxcutter and went after them despite having his hands behind his back. I can see a scenario where I would shoot someone like that, though many would disagree. More to the point I can see how I could still mess someone up badly if I were handcuffed and had a razor knife in a small apartment, so I give the cops the benefit of the doubt. This, however, is beyond the pale. If he had a machete, maybe I could see a scenario, but a frickin’ pen?

1749

My other favorite money quote in stories like these (why don’t we have computers writing news articles yet?)

“This was an incident that didn’t have to take place if the individual – a police officer – had been trained in dealing with emotionally disturbed individuals.”
When bureaucrats fail, give them more money!

I think a week of paid time off (aka training) should be sufficient to learn how to deal with a double amputee in a wheelchair. Remote site and catered lunch, of course.

1750

He must have thought it was a knife.

1751

Well, in fairness, facing an irate wheelchair-bound double-amputee must be very confusing. I mean, in a sense, the guy was sort of pre-wounded to start with, right? So the situation went straight to “he just kept on coming!”

Shit. This situation really deserves more than sarcasm, but that’s all I got, other than the usual lament about “when all you have [been trained to use] is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

1752

Yeah, the guy had one arm. I can’t imagine that it would have been difficult to, say, grab that arm and stop him from attacking with the pen. Just spit balling here…

1753

In the two seconds it takes a cop to draw a pistol he couldn’t see otherwise?

1754

Well, you gotta figure that you can definitely hurt someone bad, or even kill them, by stabbing them with a pen.

Imagine if you hold fire and the guy stabs your partner in the eye or something. Then what happens?

It’s not the pen that’s the threat, as much as it’s the guy trying to stab you in the face with it.

All that being said though, someone made some serious errors to be put into the position where the guy was able to pin the partner against the wall and start stabbing at him.

1755

It’s a 1 armed dude in a wheel chair. If a cop can’t handle that without filling the guy full of lead then I really don’t know what to say.

I hate to even suggest this but couldn’t they have tried tasering him first? FFS, who goes straight to bullets?

1756

1757

I think the latter is the better criticism… Like I said, in terms of “it was only a one armed guy in a wheelchair”, while that means that they were likely incompetent for allowing him to surprise them like he apparently did, it doesn’t mean that he couldn’t cause grievous bodily injury with a pen.

But I can’t really think of much argument against the second. Don’t all cops carry less-lethal force weapons now?

1758

I guess my point about the 1 armed guy in a wheelchair thing is that I assume cops are trained in how to disarm someone coming at them with a melee weapon – right? At least I would HOPE they are. If that’s the case …

1759

Oh, no argument that you could hurt someone with a pen if you were relatively able-bodied, but in this case it’s a little ridiculous. This guy isn’t Mark Zupan, he’s not going to run you down. Also, if a pen is considered sufficient for lethal force, exactly what isn’t? An old guy with a pen is a hell of a lot less dangerous than a young gangbanger (banber!) with his hands, this puts us at the end of the slippery slope where any resistance to arrest is grounds for killing.

1760

Also, if a pen is considered sufficient for lethal force, exactly what isn’t?

Eh, I don’t think anything really isn’t.

Generally, if you are attacking a cop, you risk getting shot. Or hell, if you are attacking someone in the presence of a cop, you risk getting shot. I dunno if this is “right” or not, but I think that’s how it works. It probably differs depending on the locality though.

And hey, maybe he only had one arm, so it was SUPER STRONG! Like, the strength of two arms, in one! Also, he might have had some derivative of retard strength going!