Posted on 03/18/2015 6:26:04 PM PDT by ToxicMich
“Why not use non lethal force for a crazy guy with a screwdriver?”
A guy with a screwdriver, that close to you, can kill you before you’d even know it was happening. I think the cops are justified on this one.
Even though you don’t see him much just before the shooting starts, you do see that he switches from “fiddling” with the screwdriver in both hands to holding it by the handle, with the point out, and then he does seem to advance towards the police. Maybe he didn’t intend it, but I think most cops would interpret that as a threat, in such a situation.
Exactly right. Guns are lethal weapons and they shouldn’t be used for anything else when in an officer’s hands.
You shoot for center mass and hope to stop the guy before he harms someone for life.
Shooting a guy in the kneecap is a very tough shot when he’s moving. You shoot for the only big target there is, the torso of the perp.
I swear, people who advocate to wound watched too much Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, Hop Along Cassidy, and Roy Rogers as kids.
Thanks. I’d not heard that thought process before. Quite educational.
My thought on whether it’s a good shoot or not would generally prevent that scenario, because I would try very hard not to take a shot with any downrange risk.
I would try to position myself so that I had a safe shoot if I needed to take a shot.
If I were an officer and I could walk into a scene, I’d be thinking what if all the way in.
(this makes it sound like I might be an officer, and those that don’t know, I am not)
I like Rick Ector’s classes. They’re pretty extensive. he even has lawyers and cops come in to talk about things like refusing to answer questions from police without being confrontational after a shooting or how to call 911 and what to say.
The cops don't have to stand their ground in every single instance unless they want to create the impression that we live in a police state. A cop with a normal sense of humanity could have backed off and defused the situation. Any good fascist, of course, would naturally have plugged the guy. Sure, guys, it was a righteous shoot for a nazi.
The police were called for a reason. Others were afraid of the guy too. So your plan to back off and just let the situation defuse itself, involves risk to others.
The guy is mobile. You back off, he rushes another apartment and stabs someone’s mother and little kid to death.
Then what?
Honestly, some of you blowhards should get out more. So some ride-alongs and learn what the real world is all about.
Sounds good. Thanks for the mention.
The man with mental problems was not in the act of trying to use deadly force and was not threatening to use deadly force.
Police have no right to shoot someone for nothing other than refusing to obey police orders. People who argue with this are criminal-minded constituents—often those with either inadequate police academy training or no police academy training.
I would think the guy has to at least look like he’s going to attack. Oh well.
Do not have mental problems or physical illnesses dealign with cops. They’ll shoot you dead. Lotsa diabetics having seizures will back me up on that one. Or even just disoriented people who’ve been shot. Or people having a swat team bust into their place thinking criminals are doing a home invasion. They’ll back me up. If they could.
People with schizophrenia are far more likely to harm themselves than be violent toward the public. Violence is not a symptom of schizophrenia.
News and entertainment media tend to link mental illnesses including schizophrenia to criminal violence. Most people with schizophrenia, however, are not violent toward others but are withdrawn and prefer to be left alone. Drug or alcohol abuse raises the risk of violence in people with schizophrenia, particularly if the illness is untreated, but also in people who have no mental illness.
In the past, mental patients were less likely to commit violent crimes than members of the general population. The numbers are changing somewhat as a result of the following, though.
Cannabis / Marijuana (and other street drugs) Have Been Linked to Significant Increases in a Person’s Risk for Schizophrenia
http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/cannabis.marijuana.schizophrenia.html
Your last point - just so dead on. :)
Those “heavy hitters” have been playing both parties in political discussions for a long time. It’s too expensive to build a little house, start a small manufacturing operation or to even escape their gossip and other robberies. They’re the new “untouchables” (as in the immune), and now they’re getting even more drug money.
I've taught this class 15 times in the last 10 years and often have the CIT members come to our class and talk about their training and how they attempt to deescalate a situation with as little force as possible. When I teach Family-to-Family I always stress to families that, if they need to call police if their ill relative becomes violent or threatening, they should always insist on a "CIT trained" officer or officers to respond. If every officer in the US had CIT training there would be a lot less deaths of mentally ill people. No one can be expected to do a psychiatric evaluation on the spot, but CIT officers are trained to more effectively communicate with someone experiencing psychosis and can often deescalate a dangerous situation without the need for deadly force.
And there are millions of people, like my son, who suffer but have never harmed anyone. The problem is, the ONLY time we hear about mental illness in the news is when some situation gets out of control, usually due to lack of proper medical care. That then causes people to have the impression that all people with mental illness are dangerous killers, which only adds to their tremendous stigma.
No. But the officer needs to be trained to know how to more effectively communicate with a person experiencing psychosis (which is the result of an illness). Such training is available, but not all officers get the training. We have a team of officers in Albuquerque called the "Crisis Intervention Team" (CIT) who are specially trained to deal with mentally ill persons and can usually deescalate a dangerous situation without the need for deadly force.
I have a son diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder and luckily have never faced a situation like that mother, but if, God forbid, I ever had to call the police on my son, I would insist that CIT-trained officers respond.
“Stun guns and pepper spray are never used when the perp has a weapon.”
Thanks for that info. Makes sense.
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