Why Many Police Traffic Stops Turn Deadly
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Maybe that's why?
Nope. True in nearly all these scenarios.
And how connected are we all today in this mass surveillance society?
I submit enough to follow up on it, whatever it is, rather than kill someone.
From a cops point of view, it's better for him/her to assume the worst and act accordingly.
Accepting there are rogue elements.
Like, things would go very badly for me if I sped away during a traffic stop here in Canada. Prison eventually, tire blow strips on the highway, and quite a rough arrest. But I honestly would not expect to be shot in that situation, unless I gave them reason to think I was armed and homicidal (though I still wouldn't roll the dice on it). Of course with that said, a significant proportion of the police shootings here are also in traffic stops. I admit it's a naturally tense situation.
This is true in the UK because most cops don't have guns and they don't expect people they stop to have guns either. Despite this, the police have still managed to shoot a number of innocent people.
I should add that the chances of randomly being stopped in a car by UK Police is about the same as winning the lottery.
There is plenty of discomfort ahead for people who flee. Could be years of it.
Killing them is unacceptable.
The root cause of all this is a change in policing doctrine.
Current doctrine is escalation of force to compliance:
Verbal
Aggressive Verbal
Physical
Force
Deadly Force
Killing people is the current end game by design, and that is the unacceptable part. What makes it unacceptable is the initial event can literally be anything, and even an illegal order.
When the initial harm does not warrant death, neither should the enforcement measures.
We don't know but it's a factor to be considered in a split second.
Yes we are.
Sometimes we need to, say armed people fleeing a scene. They could harm, kidnap others. Fair enough.
Many times we do not need to, and by percentages the killing of people by the police speak to a general failure to properly assess these dynamics.
Earlier, I wrote about doctrine, escalation of force to compliance. It is up thread.
Essentially, police are killing people for failure to comply, not a respectable assessment of their potential hazard otherwise.
When we changed the doctrine, we created these ugly scenarios.
When we revise doctrine, we will improve on all we see right now.
Our society can do much better.
We need to change the doctrine and invest in far superior training and screening. Nations that do that do not generally report the ugly we do.
Secondly, we need to examine why crimes are happening, and that will lead us to a better economic policy, and far fewer and less toxic crime incidents to face.
All of that leads to happier overall people, less crime, less policing, less death.
Fact is, when we really put the screws to people, they will act. They will feel they have to. They will feel less obligation to care too.
Often, how much we may care as people gets directly linked to how we are cared for. For far too many, it is a damn rough place to live. They act accordingly.