What does the default have to do with it? We are already not in the default situation. Interacting with police at all is not the default! If you mean to say something like "it's not likely" or "they're not doing it in unreasonable cases" then your anecdote is not relevant.
> And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?
Several reasons, which would be obvious if you tried to think of them. Most knife-wielding maniacs are, well, maniacs, and aren't fully in control of their actions. Innocent bystanders are regularly killed by police discharging guns accidentally or inappropriately (in fact, even police are frequently killed this way). People are routinely misidentified by police as carrying weapons when they aren't. Police often give misleading or unclear instructions while trying to de-escalate, and with a gun drawn, failure to comply can and does result in the suspect being shot.
Bear in mind that what you are excusing is essentially a (substantially increased likelihood of) extrajudicial execution. It should be a last resort. It's not enough to say "well he's clearly a bad guy, why give him the benefit of the doubt?".
False. Innocent bystanders are killed by police discharging guns, but rarely. And, while the goal should be zero, it will never be zero
https://www.politico.eu/article/helsinki-no-traffic-death-ro...
"Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year, municipal officials revealed this week."
"The limits were enforced with 70 new speed cameras and a policing strategy based on the national “Vision Zero” policy, with the goal of achieving zero traffic injuries or deaths. Data collected by Liikenneturva, Finland’s traffic safety entity, shows Helsinki’s traffic fatalities have been declining ever since."
And no we probably can't make it ZERO, but we could surely get it under 1,300!?
Come on, you know what people are talking about when they say "innocent bystander".
No, it's the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and even if you'd like to craft a scenario next where we're going to talk about Officer Friendly stopping a rape-in-progress, yes, that person is almost certainly guilty, AND the punishment for that crime is usually not death, AND the cornerstone of our justice system says that the officer in question, no matter how pure of heart he might be, cannot exact a death sentence on a clearly guilty person because that is not how justice works.
A cop killing ANYONE, be they a bystander, or a suspect, or an assailant, should be RARE. It should be notable.
It sure is! So let's not confuse it with something else.
> A cop killing ANYONE, be they a bystander, or a suspect, or an assailant, should be RARE. It should be notable.
That's a perfectly reasonable point but let's get there without mixing up two very different statistics.
The EU has a much bigger population than the USA, in a smaller space, and I'd bet they're already around this number.
I guess you mean "normal" non-criminal people in the EU are not allowed to have AR-15 assault rifles in their homes, that they can use if they have mental health issues.
I personally believe that is one of the reasons the USA has so much gun violence. Get rid of the guns in people's homes and things will change for the better.
I mean ... look at this ... Only in the USA!
https://dimages2.corriereobjects.it/files/image_572_429/uplo...
Why the fuck not?
If this was true, would you have survived?
Untrained random civilians encountering cops are supposed to have perfect sefl control. Supposedly trained professionals can be irresponsible, escalate for no reasom, risk others and shoot if they merely feel afraid - regardles of actual danger.
You start asking questions like this and it becomes clear how we voted in the current administration. We spent generations structuring around such buly mentality.
Two cops in a car rolled up and jumped out of the car with guns drawn and screamed at us to put our hands up because we “looked suspicious”.
They then asked us what we were doing, we said “walking home”, and they put their guns away and said “be safe out there, we didn’t realize you were kids”.
Absolutely no idea why it warranted guns pointed at us
They don't know you or what you could be capable off.
If you do that daily, sure it is easy. But a lot of human behaviour is automatic, based on what we are accustomed to do daily. (During covid there were many videos, where person on the screen says “… also avoid touching your face …”, while touching his/her face)
(Also there are some mistakes in your framing. For a regular motorist who isn't planning on attacking the police officer, putting your hands on the steering wheel does nothing to effect the officer's safety. We're talking about a point before they've given you any orders beyond signalling you to pull over, so there is nothing to follow. Furthermore they're also generally pointing a bright spot light directly at you, destroying your awareness and ruining your judgement, so it's reasonable to expect that orders are going to be followed sluggishly and imperfectly)
It very much does. Cops are humans if they see you know how to behave instead of making there job harder they will notice and appreciate that.
>Furthermore they're also generally pointing a bright spot light directly at you, destroying your awareness and ruining your judgement, so it's reasonable to expect that orders are going to be followed sluggishly and imperfectly)
Only if it's too dark to see, so once again help them to help yourself and turn on the light inside the car. If these simple instructions are too hard to follow you shouldn't be driving in the first place.
Their comfort is not safety. Your original claim was that this had something to do with safety.
> these simple instructions
What "instructions" ? You have no authority to issue instructions that others must [0] follow. And if the cop hasn't gotten to the vehicle yet, then they haven't credibly given instructions (orders). So there are no relevant "instructions" here.
The reality is that the police officer is the party aggressing to create a confrontational situation. Therefore they are responsible for managing that situation. This includes not capriciously harming individuals who are acting reasonably but perhaps inconveniently. As I said, if they cannot handle their job of being public servants, then they have no business being in a position of authority over the public in the first place.
[0] "must" being implied by your general position of "[then] you shouldn't be driving in the first place" and the fact that similar "instructions" are often trotted out as a justification after the police kill somebody.
Such advice always seemed weird to me, but I suppose that is because I just haven't ever encountered a paranoid cop
One way or the other, this doesn’t seem to be a problem in other countries.
If someone is less than 21 ft from you and they are going to be using a knifes against you, then you should still draw a gun just as often as if they had a gun. So at <21 ft you think guns should be drawn less because they have knives you should also be thinking guns drawn the ~exact amount less no matter which of the 2 weapon they had.
Disarming someone who poses a threat with a knife (especially via the use of modern equipment) is absolutely possible and can be performed in most cases with training, even with just one officer. Meanwhile, disarming someone with a gun is a much more complex task, often requiring a coordinated effort from multiple officers
I want to see you attempt that in real life when someone is within 21 feet. If you watched enough training videos and the literal flood of body camera videos that show even tasers are more often than not infective you would not speak so conveniently about a split second life or death situation.
Sadly I did not film it, but you could have been! I have attended multiple classes during which I had to disarm people with knives and other weird objects. It is absolutely possible with the right circumstances and training, but it's a completely different story when it comes to guns - the element of luck is much more meaningful, as a instructor who was shot quite a few times in their career has pointed out
For incapable civilians like me - absolutely. But I expect more from police officers than from myself when it comes to non-lethal disarming capabilities
It's asinine to expect someone to put there life in danger for little to no benefit just because they are trained for it and there is a chance it might go well instead of certain death.
If someone comes at someone with a knife (which is deadly force), they should expect to be met with equal or more force, this isn't some game with retries. Others don't have to go along your stupid games just because you drag them into them. Play stupid games win stupid prices.
Whether it's asinine or not depends on context. Where I live, it is expected for police officers to protect you with their lives from a lethal threat if necessary, both legally and socially, and failure to commit to that means that you shouldn't be a cop
For the US, I think that the Uvalde shooting revealed a lot about what people actually expect from cops in life threatening situations, never mind what they are legally obligated to do
No, it is not as dangerous.
To use gun from 7 meters away, you have throw it, which takes way more movement hand movement and time. While you should not rely on it, it is very feasible to just move out of the way of the thrown knife.
Other possibility getting closer to you. Running will take 2 seconds. (Not a lot, but definitely not as dangerous as a handgun)
How police respond to you is very dependent on a lot of factors, including your age, race, what you are wearing, where you are, and what time it is. I don’t think you should use your own personal experience as a universal template.
> And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?
Because, as a society, we should do everything we can to prevent harm to everyone, even people who are acting erratically. There could be all sorts of reasons for the behavior. Anyone can have a psychotic episode, and that shouldn’t immediately earn a death sentence. Of course, I understand that even an innocent person having a psychotic episode can be very dangerous, and I don’t think they should be allowed to hurt others, and it may be necessary to use force, and potentially deadly force, to protect other people.
However, I think that is very different than saying “we shouldn’t worry about the perpetrators well being at all”, or that it is preferable to kill the person rather than take ANY risk that they could hurt someone. The answer lies somewhere in between.
Guns are definitely pulled way more often by the police than they should be. but to your point I am okay with cops shooting anyone brandishing a knife or any other deadly weapon.