It’s almost as if a militarized police force trained to shoot first and shoot to kill shouldn’t be in charge of wellness checks, mental health emergencies, or even nonviolent offenses.
In fact, we could use some of the budget assigned to police and use it to train non-violent emergency response teams, since the police won’t be doing that work anymore.
I don’t disagree with you. They have been militarized with surplus weapons, gear, and vehicles. All of which they were handed with wildly insufficient training, under a system with little to no repercussions for excessive use of force. It’s no surprise we’re in the situation we are today.
Just to be clear, if you are shooting someone you are always “shooting to kill”. You never so much as point a firearm at someone unless you are ready to end their life. If someone happens to be incapacitated but survive being shot then that is a happy accident but it should never be the expected outcome.
ACAB of course and I agree with everything else you said. I just get really tired of the “why didn’t they shoot the in the leg or hand” comments. Real life isn’t an action movie. That isn’t how things work. If you are shooting someone you are aiming center of mass so you have the best chance of hitting despite the high stress scenario which it will be if you’re not a sociopath. And you keep pulling the trigger until they drop because gunshot wounds will rarely drop someone in one hit. Even of it winds up being a lethal wound it can take a while to kill or even be debilitating to someone who is almost certainly running on adrenaline; until then all you’ve done is piss them off and make yourself a threat. In high stress situations people are known to be able to sustain fatal gunshot wounds and not even realize that they’ve been shot until the adrenaline starts wearing off.
I just get really tired of the “why didn’t they shoot the in the leg or hand” comments.
This was not the intention of my “shoot first and shoot to kill” comment.
My issue is with the “warrior mindset” training adopted by many police forces that assumes every situation is a life threatening encounter for the officer and warrants an escalated response in order to preserve their own safety.
You are right, a firearm should not be raised unless the intention is to shoot to kill. I am saying that being trained to shoot to kill is not the appropriate background to respond to mental wellness check.
It’s almost as if a militarized police force trained to shoot first and shoot to kill shouldn’t be in charge of wellness checks, mental health emergencies, or even nonviolent offenses.
In fact, we could use some of the budget assigned to police and use it to train non-violent emergency response teams, since the police won’t be doing that work anymore.
If only we had a catchy slogan for it.
I would prefer the Police actually had military training. The military actually teaches de-escalation.
Edit, source: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504718239/military-trained-police-may-be-slower-to-shoot-but-that-got-this-vet-fired
https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/police-officer-wins-settlement-city-fired-him
I don’t disagree with you. They have been militarized with surplus weapons, gear, and vehicles. All of which they were handed with wildly insufficient training, under a system with little to no repercussions for excessive use of force. It’s no surprise we’re in the situation we are today.
Just to be clear, if you are shooting someone you are always “shooting to kill”. You never so much as point a firearm at someone unless you are ready to end their life. If someone happens to be incapacitated but survive being shot then that is a happy accident but it should never be the expected outcome.
ACAB of course and I agree with everything else you said. I just get really tired of the “why didn’t they shoot the in the leg or hand” comments. Real life isn’t an action movie. That isn’t how things work. If you are shooting someone you are aiming center of mass so you have the best chance of hitting despite the high stress scenario which it will be if you’re not a sociopath. And you keep pulling the trigger until they drop because gunshot wounds will rarely drop someone in one hit. Even of it winds up being a lethal wound it can take a while to kill or even be debilitating to someone who is almost certainly running on adrenaline; until then all you’ve done is piss them off and make yourself a threat. In high stress situations people are known to be able to sustain fatal gunshot wounds and not even realize that they’ve been shot until the adrenaline starts wearing off.
This was not the intention of my “shoot first and shoot to kill” comment.
My issue is with the “warrior mindset” training adopted by many police forces that assumes every situation is a life threatening encounter for the officer and warrants an escalated response in order to preserve their own safety.
You are right, a firearm should not be raised unless the intention is to shoot to kill. I am saying that being trained to shoot to kill is not the appropriate background to respond to mental wellness check.