This is what happens when people think TV and movies are an accurate representation of reality. Beyond the problem of police not getting enough firearms training in the first place, it just isn't possible to shoot anything other than center mass with any hope in hell of hitting with a handgun for the average officer.
This is almost as stupid as thinking a taser is non-lethal. Getting hit by a taser can kill people. New research into low lethality weapons for police would be great, but I'm not holding out much hope given the funding.
Perhaps we can stop with the fantasy and start concentrating on things like over use of SWAT, actual police oversight, and liability of the chain of command. On the other side, stop demonizing police before the facts are in.
One thing I've noticed in watching videos of police recently is that they seem really quick to draw their weapons on a target.
Perhaps that's where we should start, with this assumption that citizens are constant, dynamic threats and that cops, when out on patrol, only exist in a constant high-threat environment. Idk. I'm not a cop, but this place has to be safer than Afghanistan.
That is what scares me along with the use of SWAT. I would love to have stats on drawn weapons per encounter through the year (yeah, pipe dream). I'm not sure its more frequent or we just have a ton more video. My brother had a gun drawn on him by a young highway patrol officer while he was stranded by the side of the road putting a new belt in his car. His first knowledge of the officer was hearing the clicking of the gun. He and the person with him (standing on the engine push down on the alternator with a 2x4 so they could slip the belt on) were not amused.
Edit: Beyond the above, from a tactical perspective...just think through the game theory on that and you'll see why that would be unwise.
This has a likelihood of being a nice idea which in practice makes things worse.
On the other hand, in Germany, dogs are used more widely to stop people who don't need the orders to halt.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to...
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article205518...
That said I'm a former Norwegian King's Guard, and we were told to aim for the legs first if shooting was absolutely necessary. Admittedly, since we were shooting with 7.62mm NATO rounds at the time, a shot in the leg would basically be a very crude amputation. They use 5.56mm NATO now, but I bet getting hit in the leg is still not much fun. We were stationed at posts including the palace and the fortress, which are both in the centre of Oslo, so if you're really looking for trouble the threat is not academic. I've never heard of a guard firing at anyone since ww2 though (except themselves in suicide).
Why can we not address and punish cops who think firing rounds into someone's back as they flee is acceptable instead of trying to mandate that they shoot an extremity (which they will undoubtably 'miss' in the 'heat of the moment' in favor of center mass)?
This article also makes a compelling case that when the necromorphs come, cops will be useless to protect humanity.
Instead of passing stupid legislation (anyone who's used firearms extensively knows aiming for limbs is not realistic, you have to aim for center-mass), they should work on improving ongoing officer training and conditioning so that officers would feel much more comfortable controlling a suspect without killing them.
You can see hundreds of videos out there of police shooting people without apparent just cause - just because they "felt threatened". If they had the confidence they could deal with a physical confrontation if needed, I'm certain the amount of unnecessary shootings would decrease significantly.
i.e. do police in the US shoot suspects when there is no threat other than the risk they will get away?
So yeah, I suppose it happens. But it's not legal.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/08...
Yes, but the better question to ask is, "Do police shoot citizens who do not (or are not known to) pose an immediate threat?"
The answer is yes. Here's a recent murder, complete with two other officers attempting to cover it up:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/30/samuel-dubose...
It's also worth asking how so many citizens are able to "shoot themselves" while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-teen-shot-self-in-head-wh...
I see that sort of incident in the news several times a year, and I can't possibly be seeing all of the reported incidents. There are just too many deaths for one person to keep up with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
And those lists probably don't include suspicious deaths in police custody (squad cars, jail cells).
Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that, under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."
Which to say, yes. Although I don't think there's actually a requirement to verbally warn them.
> he or she may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."
> Which to say, yes. Although I don't think there's actually a requirement to verbally warn them.
Which is to say: not legally.
April 4, 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott
July 19, 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Samuel_DuBose
Before 1985, using force, including lethal force, to stop a "fleeing felon" was accepted from common law--for any party, not just police. Lethal force would not be acceptable for minor or non-violent crimes. Doubtless the trope comes from practices pre-1985. I'd imagine the same provision of common law applied in the UK at one point, but I couldn't say when or how it stopped. Perhaps quite a long time ago.
Police and civilians also have legal justification for use of lethal force in defence of one's self or others from imminent use of deadly force (and usually other serious violent crimes like kidnapping or rape). Exactly how that line is drawn varies slightly; some states have a strong "duty to retreat" whenever possible, but most don't.
At distances of ~5 meters the officer could be overpowered, wrestled to the ground, and have their own gun used to shoot them. So "unarmed" is a pathetic joke when people (and the media) use it as a synonym for "not dangerous".
Actually, I think it was, "Stop or I'll pop a cap in your ass!"
Police ought to be part of the community, rather than some external paramilitary force. Their behavior would then be modulated through social mechanisms.
But, another name for “non-lethal weapon” is “cheap and effective compliance tool”.
With those, we risk making many forms of protest and civil disobedience difficult or impossible.
As this article talks about firing multiple rounds per encounter is the norm it nigh be worth pointing out that the whole German police fired less than 100 shots at person per year for the last decade. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_i...
Given that it is harder for an individual to obtain a gun, it naturally makes it less often that the German police will need to discharge their weapon.
This at least, as an European, goes threw my mind, when I read such descriptions and some news from unarmed people shot into the back.
Even, when you expect everybody to have guns, it does not justify shooting others into the back.
That said... we have the technology, today, to make a gun that automatically targets, in a split second and with high accuracy, the arms and legs (and any other part) of a person. So why don't we just do that?
2. Where is this weapon?
2) I do not know of one that exists, but I am sure that one is possible with today's technology. Perhaps I should gather a team and build it
Baltimore, where I live, has 25x the per-capita murder rate of London. Chicago has 13x the murder rate. New York, the safest large city in the country, has 3x the murder rate.
There are several armed criminal gangs in London.
When the police seem to abuse their power by shooting many, many more times than is necessary it's natural for people to ask what can be done to restore a bit of balance between the police and the public.
http://ktla.com/2015/05/23/cleveland-officer-michael-brelo-f...
However, there would seem to be something worth considering in a "shoot to disable" policy, as opposed to a "shoot to kill" policy.
Gun violence seems to be so deeply ingrained into the American psyche that the Congress has found it necessary to pass a law preventing the Center for Disease Control from studying the epidemic of violence. See, for example, http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.as... and elsewhere. People get so worked up about this issue when they fear their guns will be taken away that they will not support anything which will help mitigate the violence. So much for rational thought.
This is a problem with the gun violence issue as a whole. The use of guns is absurdly high across the board.