We don’t live in a more dangerous world, and evil hasn’t come to the United States (or, I guess, it hasn’t come in any greater quantities than it always has). By early counts, last year was the second-safest year for police officers since 1959. Crime remains at near-historic lows. Yet there’s an ongoing belief in law enforcement that the police are constantly under attack. You see it in the exaggeration and hyping up of the threat of ambushes and targeted killings (both of which do occur, but are vanishingly infrequent when compared with the number of cops on the street). And you see it in the menacing movement within law enforcement that sees the world in apocalyptic hues and that urges police to shoot more people more often — to dispense with hesitation and critical thinking and rely more on primordial instinct and muscle memory.
That is the truth, and when even the WaPo gets it, all cops are going to have to take a step back and reconsider their World View...
From Forbes:
The 10 Deadliest Jobs:
1. Logging workers
2. Fishers and related fishing workers
3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers
4. Roofers
5. Structural iron and steel workers
6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers
9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
10. Construction laborers
... You'll notice "police officer" isn't on the list.
No, when somebody draws a gun, only one person goes home. And the cop wants that person to be him or her. Pretty reasonable, I would think.
They’re not just walking down the street and seeing somebody they decide to shoot. They’re in a crisis situation, where somebody is shooting at them or looks like they’re about to shoot.
Prosecute those cases where there seems to be no threat or no justification, I entirely agree. But in most cases, it’s fully justified.