American police officers have one of the most difficult jobs in the world and I’m not sure how they can be expected to do their jobs if they’re not allowed to protect themselves from perceived deadly threats.
Not true. It’s not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America:
I said most difficult, not most dangerous. Cops have to make split-second decisions that can make them either heroes or villains or dead. I couldn’t do it and neither could you, but someone has to.
I didn’t say I could do it. I’m just pointing out all of the hideous examples that are in this profession and how they almost always get away with their crimes.
EDIT: I should add, though, that I could easily get a job as a police officer. I’d be terrible at it, but I could get that job. That’s the problem. The standards are low and there’s next to no accountability.
That cop was in no danger and he shot an underage person sixteen times needlessly. I’m tired of cops operating on a >different moral plane than us. If I had done this to someone, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life for murder. This >fucker should be too. Cops should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. If they perceive a deadly threat >where there is none, then their asses should be in prison.
So when is it okay for a police officer to shoot a suspect who’s wielding a knife? After it’s already stuck in the cop’s ribs?
I think they should wrestle it out of the suspect’s hands, especially when there’s multiple cops there.
The idea that a cop should have to risk getting stabbed to deal with someone wielding a knife is ludicrous.
Why? It’s their job. If they can take him alive, them they should.
While I agree that it’s their job to protect the public and that includes suspects in their care, I don’t agree that it’s their job to risk their safety in a potentially deadly way in order to subdue a suspect who fails to heed their instructions. Besides, cops wrestling suspects to the ground doesn’t have such a great track record either. That’s why I said Tase them if they fail to comply. Tasers can be abused, of course, and they’ve led to deaths, so there should be specific scenarios under which they’re deemed acceptable, but Tasing seems like a reasonable middle ground between letting a suspect wander around freely and lunging at them to disarm them. Stun them and cuff them before anything really bad happens.
In this scenario, I think they could’ve let the dude continue walking along and tried to talk him down until he agreed to surrender peacefully, and if that goes on too long or they encounter other civilians who might be put in danger, Taser. Someone on the radio asked if anyone in the vicinity had a Taser, which shocked me because I would’ve assumed they were standard issue for all officers.