Unfortunately, as a US civilian you need to be smart about de-escalating encounters with underpaid rage-monster cops with something close to legal immunity. Your goal should be to avoid injury or death until you can get to a lawyer.
Police officers that shoot ppl should be held liable as well as the SWAT caller.
Because the guy who shot made a huge and deadly mistake, but the fact that you can call 911 and have someone SWATted is a big problem on its own.
I agree with you that those should have been the consequences---i.e., none. Though, in a country where SWATting is a thing, whoever placed the call is very much responsible too, because he must have known the possible effect of his prank.
All in all, the cops (while responsible) don't have the largest slice of responsibility.
Also, it is good to remember, the worst case situation, is what cops often have to deal with. But those cases often don't make the news. Even in my small city, these worst case situations happen.
Really?
A growing portion of total gun deaths are police shootings. ‘Serve and protect’ doesn’t seem to extend much further than themselves.
That sounds very hand-wavey and you might say well it's a lot different in the real world, but I've been in a bunch of high-danger real-world situations. Survival is about more than having great reflexes, it's also about having a cool head and knowing when not to act.
And look, while it's legitimate to have some fears/stress, rage monsters are absolutely a problem in policing. Cops are just as likely, or more, to take steroids or be assholes as people in the general population. Let's not forget that nobody is forced to be a cop. If you want to help people and like excitement you could always be an EMT or a firefighter.
Your version of deescalating the situation is to remove the suspect as quickly as possible
See, that's not de-escalation, it's catharsis through crisis - literally the exact opposite of de-escalation. By abdicating your own decision-making power you've ended up arguing for counterfactuals. I realize that you're attempting to model the thought process of police in high pressure situations, but counterfactuals + weapons = deadly errors. The thought process is, however, something we could change.
Pension is something we should all expect. Not resent.
For a job dealing with crime reports and disputes all day and one of the routine job hazards is being shot dead at any moment, that's hardly a particularly attractive deal. Hell, I doubt there's very many people on HN would take that job for twice the pay.
We have roughly 900,000 police officers. A total of 135 police officers were killed in duty in 2016.[0] And 14,453 injuries. We point these people towards danger daily and in a single year only 1 in every 62 of those officers will be 'injured'. I would say that's an acceptable risk for the job if the alternative is the circumvention of due process.
The former Suffolk County Police Chief is currently in federal prison for attacking a handcuffed citizen. [1]
Sorry, but paying Police Officers as if they were SAP consultants does not improve the quality of their policing.
Oh, and if you're wondering, why didn't the District Attorney protect citizens from the police? Well, he is under federal indictment for covering up police crimes. [2]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/nyregion/james-burke-ex-s...
[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Suffolk-County-Distric...