7 ms·

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 gu

by rpmartz 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.

by rpmartz 11y ago

tajen 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.