Are the police so poorly trained and terrified that they are unable to subdue a deaf man carrying a pipe without lethal force? Why is walking towards a cop with a melee weapon grounds for a death sentence?
It's not a matter of being poorly trained. A "melee weapon" at 15 feet is a credible lethal threat, full stop. You don't mess around with that.
Probably the guy had no intention of using it as a weapon, but cops do deal with people prepared to attack them, and had only subtle clues that this case might be different. Given that they already had guns drawn, a clear signal, the deafness is almost irrelevant. Either the guy was coming after them, or just not tracking the situation. Only in hindsight is it clear that it was the latter.
There's dozens of videos of UK police detaining people carrying machetes and other weapons without lethal force. A police officer shooting at someone coming at them with a melee weapon is a combination of laziness and cowardice IMO.
I've been on raids with British police where the suspect has a violent criminal history. They just put on helmets and had shields ready in the van. No guns, no tasers, just batons and pepper spray. On one occasion the suspect had previously gotten arrested for brandishing nunchucks in public, and in the pre-raid briefing the sergeant said "if he comes at you with them, just retreat and wait for him to either knock himself out or tire himself out, then hit him a bit". He was only semi-joking.
It absolutely comes down to better training. Even failing that, I see no reason why a taser could not have been used in this situation. And ultimately if a police officer gets injured, tough shit: it's what they get paid for and they're well aware of the risks when they sign up. Maybe ditching the "shoot anyone who poses a marginal threat" mentality would be good for the police too, I reckon there'd be a lot less power hungry cops in the states.
Riot gear? Use those man catchers the japanese have? Retreat if he doesn't pose an immediate threat to anyone else? Pepperspray?
Other countries manage to detain physically violent people without shooting them. Unless the US is governed by different physics that make steel pipes more lethal I think there's no solid argument why police officers can't just handle the situation the same as everyone else.
Couldn't the police shoot the legs or the hand holding the weapon in less-threatening situations. Or is that more cruel than death?
Even a warning shot in the air is enough to calm certain situations. Or is there risk of shooting a plane, helicopter, falling bullet killing someone else?
Warning shots and attempts at non-lethal injuries escalate the encounter and are practically impossible under stress. That only works in Western movies.
How much risk do you expect police to take on? This man threatened them with lethal force, in the face of drawn weapons. Even if they were to attempt to subdue, they would be risking severe bodily harm.
At some point I believe a human being momentarily forfeits their right to life when they show reckless, deliberate disdain for the life of others. Deadly force was met with deadly force. The power imbalance is irrelevant, considering how much damage a man can do with a pipe, and the fact that he was fully aware of the situation.
All of it. I will trade a hundred dead police officers for one citizen who would have been unjustly harmed and sleep soundly for it.
Police receive power from the state and significant social plaudits. In exchange, they place the well-being of every citizen over their own. That's the deal. It is being abrogated regularly. That needs to change.
> In exchange, they place the well-being of every citizen over their own. That's the deal.
Sadly, this hasn't been the deal in my lifetime and, to hear my parents--both of whom were police officers--tell it, for longer than that.
Every person I've ever interacted with who is or has been a police officer has said that the message is that your first duty is to "go home to your family." The "bad guys" aren't worthy of self-sacrifice and heroics. Now if you, as an officer, happen to die because you selflessly saved "a civilian" (notice how that's different from "a bad guy"), then you are seen as deserving of all of the heroic writings ever to be written about a human.
But if you die as a result of a supposedly-preventable outcome of a confrontation with "a bad guy", meaning that you didn't fire soon enough or you tried non-lethal methods in a situation such as described here, then you're just an idiot. So you've not so much sacrificed as a hero but simply failed.
I genuinely don't think that any police officer, or at least any significant number of them, sees themselves as having placed the well-being of every citizen-including-"perps" over their own. I kind of get it; when it comes to me versus the other guy, of course I want to be the one still alive at the end. I guess that means there's something fundamentally broken with how we parcel out state-backed forced.
> I genuinely don't think that any police officer, or at least any significant number of them, sees themselves as having placed the well-being of every citizen-including-"perps" over their own.
I agree with this depiction of the current state of affairs.
I am saying that it is bonkers and wrong, because it is bonkers and wrong.
You can't have a free society that fears its police.
I can simultaneously be okay with the police shooting a man coming at them aggressively with a pipe and not fear the police, because I have no intention of going after the police with a pipe.
Didn't even have to click the link. I still generally don't fear the police because I do think that video was an exception, but yeah... that man was murdered.
"The question that is frequently asked is Under what circumstances does the state or municipal entities have a constitutional duty to protect citizens from violence at the hands of private actors?
The general answer to this question is that there is no constitutional duty to protect free citizens. The only clear case of a duty to protect is when a citizen is in the custody of a state or municipality."
Respectfully: you are assuming, with this answer, that I do not understand what the currently-held jurisprudence is. And not that I assert that that jurisprudence is horseshit. Because I do understand it, and it is horseshit.
Are the police not able to run away? No, not really. To threaten somebody with deadly force is a felony. You or I would have a duty to run away if possible. A police officer has a duty to apprehend the suspect. What if the officers ran away and their assailant went on to assault and kill others?
As for how much risk a blunt weapon poses, a pipe can easily cave in a person's skull with a single blow. Successfully blocking the strike could result in a compound fracture of the forearm ... and then a caved-in skull. Broken ribs can cause punctured lungs and death from a pneumothorax. And it can all happen in a fraction of a second.
Real life violence is not a dance, like those long drawn-out fight scenes in movies. It's not about throwing punches and inflicting pain until somebody gives up. It's about breaking bodies so thoroughly that it's irrelevant whether the other person wants to give up or not. It's sudden, fast, confusing, brutal, and often horrific. The survivors of real world violence often come away knowing the smell of brains or freshly spilled bowels.
Before second guessing the police, it's important to know just what they really face. Read some books on real life violence. It's sobering. Rory Miller is a good place to start.
I believe you are under a mistaken assumption. It's never ok to kill the suspect. Still, one can be justified in using lethal force. It's a very subtle distinction. You never shoot to kill. That's simply murder. You shoot to stop the attack -- even if that's very likely to result in the death of the person you're shooting at. It can be justifiable to shoot somebody running at you with a deadly weapon. Shutting down the circulation is a fairly quick and reliable way to stop somebody from taking actions that threaten your life. But, once they stop running at you and crumple to the ground, you have to stop shooting. If you continue shooting, that's murder. If somebody turns to run, a civilian must stop shooting or it's murder. (In certain circumstances, the police can and should continue shooting.) Again, it's subtle.
So, it's not ok to intentionally kill the suspect, but it can be ok to use deadly force. I'll assume you're really asking why deadly force might be acceptable. A pipe in the hand is a lethal weapon. If a police officer is duty-bound to apprehend a person who is using lethal force against him, it would be insane to use anything less than lethal force in response. If an officer attempts to use less effective non-lethal means, but fails and is killed, then he is not only dead, but also has failed in his duty to protect the public just as if he had run away.
It's important to remember that these situations can happen extremely fast, under enormous stress. A routine encounter can turn deadly serious in a fraction of a second. The whole thing can be over in under three seconds. There is no time to think or reason. To think is to hesitate, and to hesitate is to die. You must have a trained reflex: if they use deadly force, then I shoot at center-of-mass. Seeing a pipe in the hand of an approaching person might be the trigger for that reflex. It's not quite so simple, though. It's best to prime the reflex by thinking it through before-hand. Police officers must constantly maintain situational awareness, thinking through possible scenarios and priming their reflexes based on who is around and how they're acting. It's a very difficult and dangerous job.
> How much risk are they really in from a blunt melee weapon?
while i'm no fan of the police, or their excessive use of force, one shouldn't be dismissive of "blunt melee weapons". they've been killing people on a daily basis for the duration of recorded history, and will likely continue to do so as long as we're all made of meat.
But it is still possible to prepare police officers for such situations. Don't know about US but in my country police officers:
a) are never alone, always a pair of them on patrol
b) are supposed to be trained in combat to reasonable skill level
c ) carry their own meele weapons (batons)
d) (often) carry a taser
That should give them enough advantage over a man with metal pipe to subdue him without using guns. And if that's not enough, then maybe we should give them additional equipment (pads, helmets, shields, etc.) so they don't have to resort to guns.
