
Training Officers to Shoot First, and He Will Answer Questions Later - pmiller2
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html?_r=0
======
enraged_camel
The first comment picked by NYT staff on that article is from a retired cop.
It is very telling:

"I was a Police Officer in Phx for 30 years, and fortunately never had to
shoot anyone, but was shot at four times and hit once. I was in several
situations that I would have been justified in shooting! Were I an officer in
todays world, (retired 20 years ago) I would probably be more likely to use
deadly force in situations like I encountered. It is a much more dangerous
world today and I cringe each time I see an officer making a stop. I still
carry and at each stop I see being made I prepare to come to the officers aid
if needed."

This retired cop has somehow reached the conclusion that it is a much more
dangerous world today than it was 20 years ago, _despite crime rates being at
an all-time low._ I'm seriously wondering where his delusion comes from,
because it seems to be shared by cops all over the nation.

~~~
pmiller2
>This retired cop has somehow reached the conclusion that it is a much more
dangerous world today than it was 20 years ago, despite crime rates being at
an all-time low. I'm seriously wondering where his delusion comes from,
because it seems to be shared by cops all over the nation.

My wild guess: the 24 hour news cycle.

------
DrStalker
Is putting your hand in your pocket now a capital offence?

> The white officer yelled for him to take it out. When the driver started to
> comply, the officer shot him dead.

Doesn't sound like there was any way for the victim to not be shot here; doing
what he was told was lethal, and keeping his hand in his pocket would have
gotten him shot for disobeying the police.

~~~
prawn
I would be very nervous in that situation.

Even if you tried to explain what you were doing "I don't have a gun, I'm
going to remove my hand from my pocket slowly" there's every chance they'll
still be shouting instructions and not hear you. If they mistake a shadow or
fold in fabric to be a dark shape, you're toast.

------
secabeen
He's justifying shooting by the speed with which an assailant can shoot, but
with zero data on the accuracy of the assailant when moving that fast. I'd
want to know what is the estimated time to pull and shoot a gun with at least
a roughly 10% chance of the officer being hit, not to mention being killed.

~~~
ams6110
So it's OK to pull a gun and shoot at a cop if you don't hit him?

~~~
melling
Nah, someone is just playing probabilities with someone else's life. But hey,
you don't have to be a cop. Better to be a webdev and hangout on Hacker News
all day.

------
rpmartz
It's unfortunate that most will discount this article prima facie given the
current political and societal winds.

I'm not qualified to determine whether the guy's science is sound or not, and
I damn sure don't endorse "shoot first and ask questions later." But I've been
the guy with dirty boots carrying a gun and can tell you that unless you've
been there, it's difficult to understand how quickly things happen and how
your brain and nervous system react...far too quickly to rationally consider
things like "he is shooting too fast to have a high probability of hitting me"
or "statistically my job is not getting more dangerous" like so many
enlightened internet commenters are proposing. Comments like that nauseating
naiveté masquerading as enlightenment, not constructive solutions to police
shootings.

Let me state unequivocally that one preventable death is too many, regardless
of race or circumstance, and police officers who abuse their power or hide
behind their badge ought to be punished more harshly given the increased
responsibility they bear.

But in the same way that we ought to empathize with the victims who have
gotten the short end of the stick from our justice system and society in
general, maybe we ought not to be so quick to judge officers who do a
dangerous and often thankless job, but one that's critical to society.
Especially those who have never been in a shoot/don't shoot situation or faced
the ambiguity of trying to determine in the heat of the moment whether the
situation unfolding before them in real time is truly a shoot/don't shoot
situation.

~~~
tajen
You have your values wrong, and this is probably due to lack of training.
There are a couple ways to deescalate a situation which don't involve thinking
or judging (if you've learned the criteria as a pure yes/no situation, they
become a reflex). Also, police should protect the citizen more than
themselves, therefore when in doubt, don't shoot and take the risk of being
shot. Police will be popular when they count more deaths in their rows than
arbitrary executions by police on the street. You can't take the risk of a
police/population divide.

> one preventable death is too many

It's not one. See comment from slxh in next thread. I don't set foot in the US
for fear of police mistakes, and last time I said that I was upvoted 9 times
[1], so it seems US is already massively facing the consequences of their
untrained armed force on their ground.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948835)

~~~
Raurin
You can't ask living, breathing humans to not defend their lives.

Yeah, ~500 people have been killed by police in America so far this year. That
includes rightful and wrongful shootings. Some of them were innocent, sure,
and some were in a grey area, sure, but plenty were warranted.

Contrast that with over 100 /homicides/ in New Orleans so far this year. NONE
of those are warranted or just (by virtue of being homicides).

And just to do the math, there are approximately 750,000 officers with the
authority to arrest in the USA (wikipedia). If each of them interacted with
only one non-officer per day (rounding against the police, here), that's over
160 million police interactions so far this year, making a deadly outcome the
result of only .0003% of all police interaction, and I'll bet a huge segment
of those shootings are warranted.

Staying out of the USA because you're scared of cops isn't exactly a rational
decision.

------
GeorgeOrr
One quote from the article:

"People die because of this stuff,” said John Burton, a California lawyer who
specializes in police misconduct cases. “When they give these cops a pass, it
just ripples through the system.”

I'm curious what people think of this ... does defending the police even under
pretty damning situations really equate to being responsible for future death?

~~~
ams6110
Everyone deserves a defense.

~~~
socceroos
...excluding the dead victim. Because, you know, he's lost his rights.

------
Qantourisc
So if they draw a gun, do not comply and lie down on the ground instead ? Hell
at this point, it would start to get safer to consider shooting the cop, since
there is a high change he will shoot you by this logic ! Or do WE have to
start wearing bullet proof vests ?

~~~
cmurf
Are you black? If yes, seems clearly well past time to start wearing a vest.
If you're white? Just don't be armed. Probably.

------
melling
How many police officers are shot yearly? This seldom gets much press.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/03/us-usa-shooting-
te...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/03/us-usa-shooting-tennessee-
idUSKCN0Q70LL20150803)

Just knowing this stuff happens must make police edgy.

~~~
slxh
126 cops killed in 2014 [1] and 623 citizens killed by cops in 2014 [2]

1\. [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/u-s-police-
officer-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/u-s-police-officer-
shooting-deaths-56-percent-2014-report-n276811)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States)

~~~
samcheng
Reading further, it's actually 50 officers who were killed by firearm in 2014,
and it's not clear whether that number includes suicides.

This number is trending downwards since in the mid-seventies.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/u-s-police-
officer-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/u-s-police-officer-
shooting-deaths-56-percent-2014-report-n276811)

~~~
ams6110
Would guess the downward trend is due to more widespread use of body armor. I
seldom if ever see a uniformed cop who's not wearing a vest.

~~~
samcheng
Actually, gun violence has been on a downward trend since the early nineties
across the entire population. You'd expect police firearm fatalities to trend
downward accordingly, regardless of the use of body armor.

Police wearing body armor, armored cars, AR-15s, and the like are part of a
different trend: the militarization of US police using surplus equipment from
the Department of Defense, in a DOD program 1033.

[http://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-
the-...](http://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-the-federal-
push-to-militarize-local-police)

