I know it's super easy to judge a situation when you're not the one who was threatened. But, reading this article made me think a little.
The foremost question in my mind is why do we spend so much on officer training if they use a gun at every opportunity? One would think that during some of the 1,300 hours of required training, that less-than-lethal enforcement techniques might be mentioned. At least in passing. Let's examine a couple of citizens with guns against trained police officers...
(highly trained police officers with thousands of hours of training and experience) + (guns and ammo) + (unexpected threat) = (dead threat)
The only difference here being the taxpayers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train and outfit the officers.
I'd like to think in a perfect world, that the encounter would have went something like this:
(highly trained police officers with thousands of hours of training and experience) + (guns and ammo) + (unexpected threat) = (neutralized threat that goes on to get the mental help she needs and released back into society where she can become a normalized taxpayer like everyone else)
But alas, it didn't happen that way.
OK. Just some thoughts. Again, I wasn't there and I didn't make the decision those officers did. I'd hope that if I was in a similar situation that I'd try to keep it together a little better.
Very well put /u/idlethreat. I too am confused by how much training all of these officers have and yet they seem to resort to guns far more often than they should. Whatever happened to processing a scenario and using the right tool for the job? Sadly, people with mental illness cannot act appropriately because they ARE mentally ill.
I know it's super easy to judge a situation when you're not the one who was threatened. But, reading this article made me think a little.
The foremost question in my mind is why do we spend so much on officer training if they use a gun at every opportunity? One would think that during some of the 1,300 hours of required training, that less-than-lethal enforcement techniques might be mentioned. At least in passing. Let's examine a couple of citizens with guns against trained police officers...
(GED-wielding slack-jawed yokels) + (guns and ammo) + (unexpected threat) = (dead threat)
and now the police
(highly trained police officers with thousands of hours of training and experience) + (guns and ammo) + (unexpected threat) = (dead threat)
The only difference here being the taxpayers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train and outfit the officers.
I'd like to think in a perfect world, that the encounter would have went something like this:
(highly trained police officers with thousands of hours of training and experience) + (guns and ammo) + (unexpected threat) = (neutralized threat that goes on to get the mental help she needs and released back into society where she can become a normalized taxpayer like everyone else)
But alas, it didn't happen that way.
OK. Just some thoughts. Again, I wasn't there and I didn't make the decision those officers did. I'd hope that if I was in a similar situation that I'd try to keep it together a little better.
Very well put /u/idlethreat. I too am confused by how much training all of these officers have and yet they seem to resort to guns far more often than they should. Whatever happened to processing a scenario and using the right tool for the job? Sadly, people with mental illness cannot act appropriately because they ARE mentally ill.