Ask Slashdot: What Non-lethal Technology Has the Best Chance of Replacing the Gun? 712
Wycliffe writes: Most cops are not out to kill someone, but when someone reaches for a cellphone or their glovebox, the cop may assumes the worst and try to protect themselves from dying. Guns are used to immobilize the target, and aren't even that good at it when a person is charging. What other potential devices could be used to protect a cop so that guns are unnecessary? Foam? Lightweight body armor? Nets? Robots? 'M.A.N.T.I.S.' paralyzing gas? Force field? What non-lethal technology out there has the best potential to be more effective at immobilizing a target and/or protecting a cop than a gun?
Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Common sense, the human brain? Reform of policing so citizens actually trust the police?
Of course sometimes force, even lethal force, is needed. The best non-lethal immobilizer we have at the moment is the taser, although that can sometimes be lethal.
But it seems to me that training in de-escalation can go a long way to not needing immobilizers.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reform of policing so citizens actually trust the police?
You need to reform the entire judicial system for that to work. As long as even relatively minor infringements can get someone sent off to forced labour camps with added rape, the police are never going to be part of the community.
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Man, I was going to write you off as another nut job, but reading your response, I realized you're basically on the nose, good job!
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to reform the entire judicial system for that to work. As long as even relatively minor infringements can get someone sent off to forced labour camps with added rape, the police are never going to be part of the community.
This is true...it's not just the idea of arrest that make people hate and fear the police, it's the follow-on effects that destroy lives for no reason.
Smoking a joint or not stopping completely at a stop sign shouldn't make you eligible for a beating, pepper-spraying, arrest (with a chance of injury or death), incarceration, and rape. This doesn't happen often, but even once seems to be too much.
Most police today look and act like extras straight out of RoboCop, and many of them behave as if they're about to be killed at any moment. They overreact at the slightest thing and rarely use their discretion any more. It's just gone fucking nuts.
When I was young the police (most police) were actually friendly and you could count on them for help. Most people liked and respected police officers. Now they mostly seem to be dicks itching for any excuse to make an arrest over the smallest thing.
The problem is that most cops these days can't tell the difference between a felony and just fucking around.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely.
I remember one time I got pulled over for driving my sister's car. She had a warrant that I didn't know about and the officer flipped on his lights right as I was driving over a narrow bridge with no shoulder.
I kept going to the other side of the bridge and then pulled over. The cop basically pulled me out of the car and screamed at me that he was "this close" to ramming my car off the road.
If I wasn't so scared I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. But he was deadly serious.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, most police today act like every contact with person or every situation is "do or die".
They show very little restraint, and equipping them with "less than lethal" weapons (tasers, pepper spray, etc) has resulted in them being MORE likely to use them than less.
You see people tased for all sorts of ridiculous crap nowadays, when 90% of the time the situation could have been deescalated with no force or violence.
But cops ain't got time for that shit these days, now it's comply immediately or risk a tasing or pepper spray to the face. They also feel compelled to arrest or ticket someone for anything, no matter how minor. It's no wonder that the police have such a poor image these days, but the fact is that for the most part, they've earned it.
Shooting a guy in the back while he's running away? No biggie.
Kill a guy by throwing him around in the back of a paddy wagon? That's okay.
Choking a guy to death for selling single cigarettes? Sure, why not.
Shoot a 12-year old kid with a toy gun (Tamir Rice) on sight? That's fine too.
Shoot a guy in the head for a broken tail light? Go for it, no problem.
And for the most part they keep getting away with it, over and over and over.
Really, is it any wonder the public in general hates and fears the police?
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the only solution that might actually work.
This was already tried, and there is a TED talk on the topic which I am too lazy/busy to look up. I don't recall what country this happened in, but non-lethal weapons were handed out to a particular peace force with the intent that they would be used instead of guns, thus resulting in fewer instances of violence. The actual results were that the non-lethal instrument was used something like 10 times more often than guns were, and there was no real reduction in gun usage during police operations.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Reform of policing so citizens actually trust the police?
This. When I moved to the US, I was amazed to find that US cops are very clearly there to only protect the governments interests and are absolutely not there to help/protect citizens. That thinking was very alien to me coming from the UKwhere as long as you have done nothing wrong the cops are generally reasonable, approachable and even your friend because they realize the true value of community-minded policing. By comparison, the whole attitude, body language and even clothing style of cops in the US is designed to be immediately intimidating and aggressive. Its a stupid bullying attitude that actively alienates cops from the people so IMHO actually does way more harm than good.
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Oh yeah, but don't forget we live in a police state because there are lots of CCTV cameras on the motorways. They don't live in a police state, because guns make for a polite society that doesn't even really need policing.
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Its a stupid bullying attitude that actively alienates cops from the people so IMHO actually does way more harm than good.
It's a well thought-out bullying attitude that actively alienates cops from the people (that clearly being the objective) and it does more good than harm to those in charge (even if it isn't immediately obvious) or rest assured things would be different. Mind you, to truly grasp any of this, you'd have to understand the world for what it is, not what you've been led to believe it is.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
>> to truly grasp any of this, you'd have to understand the world for what it is, not what you've been led to believe it is.
As someone who has seen a lot of the world including having lived/worked in several different countries, and now lives in the US but wasn't born/raised here, I can clearly differentiate between the rampant patriotic brainwashing that goes on here in every school and throughout all the media, and what the rest of the world is actually like.
it therefore seems to me that your assertion that I don't know the real world actually fits most Americans (including you?), and especially those that have never had their eyes opened by ever leaving the American continent, far better than it does me.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Laws or state/federal constitutional amendments that prohibit using criminal statutes for revenue generation (or redirect funds out of the hands of the entities that pass and enforce those statutes)
- Ending the drug war/decriminalizing possession
- Expanded training in de-escalation, legal use of force, and constitutional rights
- Demilitarization of a large proportion of each local and state law enforcement agency, excepting justifiable units (e.g., small, dedicated SWAT teams)
- Expanded protections against, and personal liability for, prosecutorial misconduct (because not all abuses have their genesis at the street level)
- Expanded mandates for body and vehicle cameras (both at the departmental and evidentiary levels); simultaneously, thoughtful limitations to unfettered sunshine law access to every minute of footage
- Community (e.g. citizen board) review of brutality complaints
- Abolishing vague "disorderly conduct"-type statutes that allow for meritless arrest-and-drop-charges-later encounters
- Financial penalty for instances of "resisting arrest," "failure to obey," or "disorderly conduct" for which no conviction/guilty plea is eventually secured
Not all of these would be appropriate for every situation. But some subset might go a long way in a lot of places.
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I think you totally hit the nail on the head with all those changes.
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You do realise that the US is a republic and not a democracy right?
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, sadly morons like that exist in the UK too, but my point was, the UK cops generally don't start off by alienating people and already assuming everyone is a criminal that needs to be intimidated.
Where as a US cop is apprently free to jump straight to tazing someone for any slight non-compliance or even pulling a gun and shoving their face into the sidewalk and kneeling on their neck, the UK cops would see that as an absolute last resort and a massively unprofessional failure because they have found out that surprisingly, people are a lot more compliant if you refrain from gratuitously intimidating/physically assaulting them.
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree.
Police are supposed to protect the peace--not be thoughtless killing machines. We live in a time, when anyone wants to die, that's all they need do, is antagonize a police officer. They are that reliable.
We checks and balances were supposed to be on police officers have obviously failed.
I witnessed firsthand police aggression, when a police officer tried coercing me to take his version of the truth while taking a statement. I had to raise my hands and step back because I thought he was going to kill me. Try dealing with that after you have been hit by a car.
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course sometimes force, even lethal force, is needed.
Why? If you have a non-lethal immobilizer that's more effective than a gun (which is what were trying to find here), what justification would you have for killing someone outside the normal justice process?
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Picture that instead of a taser, the police officer has a Star Trek type Phaser.
Why would he use a gun, and why would he ever use the "lethal setting" on the Phaser?
If you can just stun the person who has a gun, do that. Why ever kill them?
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Usually the police sees the other guy reach for something [into pocket say] which may be a gun. So here it's a question of kill or get-killed situation. In a split second the office has to decide if his life is more important or to use a non-lethal like taser and avoid a killing.
You can't solve this with non-lethal unless office knows for sure he can't be harmed (ie 100% sure.. just a bullet-proof vest won't cut it]. This can only happen if the officer is fully armoured or say sitting in a safe building and operating a robot like machine [like a remotely operated drone attack]
That is why when you are stopped by a police officer you move slowly and in a non-threatening manor and tell him where and what you are reaching for before you do so. If you have a weapon in the vehicle/on your person tell them in a non threatening manor and tell them where it is and give them your concealed carry permit (if you don't have permit why are you carrying a weapon stupid). I was taught this by my parents when I was growing up. If you don't give them a reason to suspect they are in life or death
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is why when you are stopped by a police officer you move slowly and in a non-threatening manor and tell him where and what you are reaching for before you do so. If you have a weapon in the vehicle/on your person tell them in a non threatening manor and tell them where it is and give them your concealed carry permit (if you don't have permit why are you carrying a weapon stupid). I was taught this by my parents when I was growing up. If you don't give them a reason to suspect they are in life or death danger they are far less likely to shoot you.
So you treat a cop like you treat a poisonous snake or a wild animal. That all fine, but it doesn't seem like a good reason to encourage cobras or bears to wander through our neighborhoods. You described a problem, not a solution.
Also, you missed a very important one; when you're stopped, try not to be of an inappropriate race. Otherwise it may not matter how you behave.
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The sheepdogs are always going to be more dangerous than the sheep.
When the "sheepdogs" are dangerous to the sheep, we tend to call them "wolves".
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, almost as many police officers are killed in car accidents than by firearms. This is greatly exacerbated by the fact that most police officers don't wear seat belts. So lets make cops safer by making them wear seatbelts, rather than letting them gun down people anytime they feel unsafe.
Also, the number of police killed by firearms has been going down for decades; it's at a very low point. So as an excuse, that's kinda thin.
Look, I respect police and I appreciate what they do. I have greatly benefited by living in a society where the police are, on average, helping me. But that doesn't mean I don't question them when they misbehave, and it doesn't mean I don't try to improve how they work. Police need to be able to defend themselves, but we've seen many, many examples where they kill without any evidence that they were in danger, and they need to be called on that.
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Hardly seems reasonable to mention exaggeration over the number of people killed by police [nbcnews.com] without also mentioning the exaggerations on the other side [thedailybeast.com].
I have not heard of anyone saying "the police are killing everyone!" except for law-enforcement fans setting up hyperbolic straw-men, but there is concern over the numbers. It's hard to say how much validity there is these concerns, since many police departments and states decline to release consistent (or any) numbers on people killed by police; I suspect t
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com] :
Although traffic-related incidents have consistently been among the leading causes of officer deaths, law enforcement seat-belt compliance has hovered around 50%. The compliance rate among the general public has been estimated at 86%,
Hardly a research paper, and "most police officers" was an exaggeration, but it seems that the argument is:
* Many police care so much about their safety that they should be (are) excused for using lethal force at the least sign or impression of danger.
* Many police care so little about the (admittedly quite low) number of police shootings and traffic deaths that they choose to not wear vests and seat belts.
Both of these may be true; people are
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Alas, a lot of them that are killed on the job are killed while assuming that the person they're approaching isn't going to be violent.
Statistics show that while "a lot of" is hard to define, it isn't the majority of cases. https://www.odmp.org/search/ye... [odmp.org]
And it's not just 2014 (a particularly bad year for police misconduct resulting in the death of an unarmed suspect). Feel free to look through the past few years and also note that firearms are never more than around 1/3 of police officer fatalities. Police have an irrational fear and you can tell if you've ever been pulled over. You get this feeling that you must comply with even an unl
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Reform of policing so citizens actually trust the police?
Recently I saw a comment that described how in the present environment in the US, the only interactions a person has with the police are typically of a "negative" context. There are now fewer or no "positive" encounters with police anymore.
Combined with overt militarization of the police force (why the hell does a police department even need an MRAP - let alone a department in a rural area?), its going to take a lot of reform to fix the police.
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Recently I saw a comment that described how in the present environment in the US, the only interactions a person has with the police are typically of a "negative" context. There are now fewer or no "positive" encounters with police anymore.
It goes along with the decline of neighborhoods. You used to live in an area where the people generally worked in the same industries and rode the same mass transit to get there and back, shopped in the same neighborhood stores, and had one or two police officers patrolling the neighborhood who'd been on that beat for years, and everyone knew each other. Now, when everyone gets in their cars and drives off in different directions to go to work, shop in supermarkets scattered all over, and the police officer
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that the militarization also amplifies the bad eggs in police departments. Years ago, a potential bad cop who gets off by enforcing his power over others might get a gun to play with. That was good for them, but had limited impact. Now, he can essentially be part of a paramilitary organization with all the equipment a group like that would have. This attracts more people who want to be cops not to enforce the law or help people, but to wield power over others which leads to peaceful protests being met with military-style responses.
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Drones ? (Score:5, Funny)
3D printed laser drones should be the perfect solution, as long as they aren't running systemd.
I wonder how much it will cost in Bitcoin.
False assumption (Score:2)
No, guns are used to STOP the target. Which looks a lot like "immobilize", but isn't quite. "Stop" includes a lot besides "prevent it from moving".
Such as "maim" or "kill", to provide a couple examples....
As for me, I think I'll go with Frederik Douglas' advice "a good revolver and a steady hand"....
Would No Lethal Force Work? (Score:2)
You have to wonder what the effect would be on the criminally minded if they believed that the worst case scenario with the police was that they would be immobilized.
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Exactly this... to some, only the threat of death is enough to make them take pause. Knowing they will be tazed and "live to crime another day" is enough to convince them that they are invincible. Sorry, but you can't remove the threat of death from a confrontation.
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That's why all those other countries are crime ridden hell holes compared to the US. The only way to turn the world into a paradise on Earth is guns, more guns and extra guns!
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Polite request (Score:2, Insightful)
What will be more effective than a gun?
How about a polite request.
Just as the pen is mightier than the sword, lemonade is generally preferable over lemons. Let's get rid of the hostility, or at least have one side (the people who are getting paid... the cops) at least do their part in trying to remove at least one side of the cause for hostility.
Remember the old phrase "to serve and protect"... notice how that phrase mentioned "protect" second, as if that was the secondary role.
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Just as the pen is mightier than the sword,
Maybe. Maybe not [gocomics.com].
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The Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no responsibility to protect you. This came about when (as I recall) a lady was in a position where someone was shooting at her. She called the police. The police came and then sat around waiting for it all to end. She sued. The Supreme Court ruled that the police only have responsibility to society as a whole. So in other words, if you are in a shoot out or someone is breaking into your house, the police can go write parking tickets instead of assisting
Life is not a comic book (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the faulty premise in the question.
How about "What can we do so that cops shoot people who aren't doing anything wrong less often?"
Prosecute them. Hold them to a HIGHER standard than the rest of us, not a lower one.
Re:Life is not a comic book (Score:4, Insightful)
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Government-employed police are never going to be prosecuted much by the government legal system, because there are too many close connections.
The only way to realistically accomplish that is to replace a lot of police and security functions with private security companies; those companies are liable for their actions, and they do compete against each other.
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It's funny. You answer your own question in your very first sentence. Thousands of people join the military every year and become soldiers, sailors, marines, etc. When they sign on the dotted line and take the oath, they become subject to the UMCJ; which subjects them to a significantly higher standard of discipline than any civilian is required to adhere to.
blockchain? (Score:2)
*ducks*
Tasers? (Score:2)
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Seems like the easy solution here is to increase the FPS of the barbs to go through the neoprene.
Re:Tasers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tasers are the defacto standard for inflicting pain as a punishment by the officer. It's followed in a close second place by pepper spray, though pepper spray would probably be used more if the officer wasn't also exposed to it. The beauty of it is Taser use isn't even questioned, and in most departments it's not even tracked. An officer can use a taser without any expectation of punishment for using it, even under the flimsiest of circumstances. On the other hand using their gun will net the officer desk duty and a full review. Taser use won't even get them a note in their personnel file even if they use it against an innocent person for the fun of it (though they'd probably get reprimanded if it was just for fun).
What's interesting about the #blacklivesmatter movement is that police reaction that this movement constitutes police harassment. It's apparent from this that the movement is having at least some cursory impact on policing in the form of reviews of use of force.
The hope is that one day police will be held at a minimum to the same standard you or I would be held to if we did exactly the same thing. Because there should not be a waiver for police to use force in a circumstance where the public at large couldn't use the same force. And the quickest cleanest solution to this is body cameras where the public has access to the footage such that police abuse can be used to revoke the officers certification to be a police officer with such lists shared nationally along with immediate and harsh punishment for violating the standards. If a cop shoots someone and it would be murder if you or I did it they should also be charged with murder.
Use your words (Score:2)
People need to embrace the power of dialouging and negotiation instead of violence. Recently there was a jumper on top of a building in SF. Police talked him down by bringing his housecat to the scene.
It starts with the youth. Teach children to express themselves through language instead of acting out. Set a good example!
Radio (Score:2)
They already have the only weapon they really need...a radio. They can call backup, nobody else they run into can really do that, and the few that can, can't do it like they can on the scale they can.
There really is no need for every cop to be armed at all when they can call in armed backup as needed.
A partner to back them up (Score:2)
Many would be shooters wouldn't try anything if they knew it was 2 against 1. It would give the arresting officer much more confidence in his safety and thus he would less likely to draw his sidearm.
We should go back to the model where police are always out on patrol in pairs.
Tasers (Score:4, Interesting)
We have the capability without high tech gadgets (Score:2)
The problem with using it is legal and ethical.
Look at North Korea. Their police rarely have a need for guns, and in fact, most conflicts that occur seem to be at the behest of the government and not the other way around. Their policing is proactive, reducing the number of conflict events.
You just have to remove all personal freedoms and justify everything as being better for society, for a given definition of better. Our two major political parties in the US have already been making inroads on this, we
Wrong question (Score:2)
This question is illustrating for the problem the US has. The solution is not technological, it's psychological. Law enforcement agencies in many other countries rarely need to use their guns or tasers so why do US police officers kill so many people?!
Not having trigger happy cops, not creating trigger happy criminals that have nothing to lose because of your ridiculously long jail terms could be a start. Legalizing all kinds of mundane things like drug use would also help greatly. And, obviously, the numbe
Training and weeding (Score:2)
There going to be situations when lethal force is the only choice. Thats that that.
Vast majority of situations don't need to be.
And the only way to improve odds of non-violent conflict resolution is training the cops that want to do that right thing and weeding out those that don't.
This isn't an overnight panacea but i'm afraid there simply isn't one.
Guns aren't used to immobilize people (Score:3)
Honestly better recruitment and enforcing use of de-escalation techniques is probably the best bet.
Absent sci-fi tech (Score:3)
Whatever happend to millimeter wave? (Score:2)
I thought this sounded promising. If you feel like you're on fire, it is a strong incentive to stop/drop/roll. https://youtu.be/dmuyLIrSjxI [youtu.be]
We just need to get this into a handheld size.
Wrong question (Score:3)
Correct one is what technology will protect the public? Answer is less paramilitary training of cops. Less training to twitch react and kill somebody. Less freedom to put themselves in the way as an excuse for lethal force. A LOT more training on how to use firearms. A lot of training and expectation to defuse situations that a firearm is their last resort.
Accept that slightly more cops will die while far more of the public will live. That is part of their job that they chose to do. They should be held to a higher bar regarding using force for their personal safety than the public not a lower one. The butcher's bill for cops shot in the line of duty is 26 this year. Comparatively cops in the US kills far far more people than all other first world countries combined at approx 3 a day. The UK had 4 fatal shootings by officers in 4 years. Canada killed 14 people in 2014. In contrast police have killed 2 17 year old girls "in fear for their lives" one through the side door of a stolen car and one with a butchers knife in the PD's lobby.
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Make love, not war.
Hey, is that you Julian Assange?
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
The one with the highest profit margin.
A wooden stick works well in many places around the world.
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
and those cops dont panic and murder 12 year olds with a bb gun. If you are a cop, suck it up and stop putting YOUR live above someone elses. you chose to pick a dangerous line of work, so act like you are a public servant.
Every time a cop even touches his gun he should be required to write a 20 page report as to exactly why and justify it or LOSE the privilege of carrying one. IF it was a licensed civilian citizen that would have killed that kid, you know they would have been in ass pounding prison.
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Informative)
This is exceptionally dishonest.
Do those states have more leniency if you can prove motivated self defense? Yes. Are they shooting galleries? No.
The castle doctrine and family of laws is a (perhaps over reaction) to discretionary prosecution. Many states still have the legal doctrine that you must attempt to flee before you are allowed to respond with deadly force. There are examples of prosecutors who take self-define cases to court after the defendant has retreated all the way to a room like a bathroom, then while their assailant was attempting to come through the door finally returned deadly force. The prosecutors would then take these people to court making the case there was a window they could have attempted to squeeze out of.
Unfortunately the only easy way to say "hey ... really? That was them attempting to flee first." Is to make the laws around the definition of when lethal force can be returned very liberal and remove the discretion from the prosecutors.
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Nowhere can you drive a car on to the grass (already illegal for a civilian),
Police on a call can do many things that civilians can not do. Speeding for example.
pull a gun on a 12 year old
The kid did have what appeared to be a gun.
and fire first.
It is difficult to fire second if the first shot killed you.
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We also don't pay the cops to shoot/kill people, but they seem to be doing plenty of that with insufficient justification.
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
There are definitely the "person should have done X differently" scenarios, but there are also scenarios where the officers enter the encounter already expecting it to go south and itching to use whatever they have available to them against their alleged perpetrator (e.g. taser guns, regular guns, choke holds, etc.). In this case, there should also be mandatory training for officers on how to deal with people who don't immediately comply. Sometimes, the people might not be able to for some reason and responding by pulling out the taser or the gun might not be the best method to resolve the conflict. Furthermore, officers who do use inappropriate levels of force should be tossed out and not simply "given a desk job" or "transferred to another department."
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Informative)
You are 100% correct... Too many times police have what is called "contempt of cop" syndrome. Anyone who doesn't comply to their demands is just spitting in their face, from their point of view, and needs to be "taught a lesson".
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"Hand wringing second guessers would say that the cop was wrong to lie and threaten excessive force"
So to you, it is acceptable for police to lie and threaten excessive force in certain conditions? And those conditions include a "youthful suspect" running away?
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
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The training obviously isn't very effective for the circumstances they encounter... The fire department probably doesn't get training on how to blow out a fire despite it being effective in limited circumstances.
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a 2 hour course for high-schoolers in the inner cities called: How to behave around the police? Nearly every high-profile death by police officer would not have occurred if the person had simply complied with the police doing their jobs.
So your solution to bullying is to teach the victims that they should submit to the bullies?
There is a huge body of evidence that shows a hell of a lot of police abuse their powers and violate peoples constitutional and legal rights all the time just for the hell of it. Not addressing this aspect of policing escalates the problem.
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen... Just because someone doesn't want to go to jail or feels they are being treated unfairly doesn't mean the cop should instantly pull out a taser or gun and escalate the situation.
Point: Would a 15 year old kid who just stole a candy bar from a store, stopped by the police, but who panicked and ran, deserve a tasering?
I hope everyone's answer would be "no".
If we assume that the answer to that is "no". then you have to remove it as the "automatic" option. Clearly someone in the process of a serious crime should be stopped, with force if need be, but that is the other extreme.
Where do you draw the line?
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Point: Would a 15 year old kid who just stole a candy bar from a store, stopped by the police, but who panicked and ran, deserve a tasering?
What they hell do you expect? "Maybe we'll get 'em next time?". If all it takes to avoid being prosecuted for shoplifting is to run then that's just what everyone will do (including adults, because until they make a contact, there's no telling how old the suspect is).
No, if you rob a store (regardless of the total value of goods stolen), and the police see you, you will be stopped. It's your choice as to whether or not that stop is going to be relatively painless (ie, submit), or painful (they forcibly e
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Then you get to the courts and find your word is worth nothing and the cops word worth everything (and any exculpatory evidence has vanished). You may as well fight for your rights at the scene of the arrest; you'll still lose, but it's the last chance you'll get to do it where anyone will notice.
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When the bully has a gun, and a legal right to use it, you have two choices: you can submit now and contest the issue later in court, or you can be dead right. Which would you choose?
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So your solution to bullying is to teach the victims that they should submit to the bullies? When the bully has a gun, and a legal right to use it, you have two choices: you can submit now and contest the issue later in court, or you can be dead right. Which would you choose?
Your whole argument is a ridiculous strawman. Those are NOT the only two choices that free citizens have when confronted by police malfeasance, nor should they be. The police do not have the legal right to use their gun under any situation they determine to be right. Police procedure is very specific about the use of deadly force and they are trained in where it is and isn't appropriate. Threatening someone with a gun is NOT their first taught, nor first line of defense and the officers that choose to act i
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
most cops do a good job, but there are bad cops that teach kids that dealing with the police is always an unfair proposition. so they run, fight, resist
we don't need a course for police on how to deal professionally with the public, because most do know how already. but we do need cops to stop protecting the bad apples in their dept that make their job harder, and we need an IA dept that is not staffed by the same cops who are out to protect their own. us vs them makes a bunker mentality that escalates all interaction with the public unnecessarily
civilian oversight is also problematic as this comes with unrelated inquisition style agendas
i think the solution is a more european style approach. where getting a job as a cop is far more rigorous, far more difficult, and the higher barrier to entry most certainly involving psychological evaluation, to weed out those types of people who will go to go on to abuse the public
but we do have a problem in the usa with too many bad, unprofessional cops
if your first reaction to this statement is hostility, or blaming the public instead, like the comment i am responding to:
congratulations, you're part of the problem
because in 2015, after recent events, to pretend bad cops don't exist and don't have a detrimental effect, is severely unintelligent and dishonest
Re:Highest Profit (Score:5, Funny)
2) Avert your eyes - initiating eye contact is sign of defiance and will be punished
3) If police officer deigns to address you, immediately drop on the ground face down. Delay over 50ms will be punished
4) If you think law matters and you deluded enough to assume that you have some civil rights, you are an idiot. The only source of law is a guy with a gun
5) Remember that police officer can kill you if he feels like it, and it is very unlikely he will be even indicted
6) Everything can be 'resisting arrest' - including trying to breathe when police is choking you to death or bruising officer's knuckles with your face
7) Tasering is like saying 'hello'
Here is a rough sketch of the lesson.
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A dubstep version of "Call me Maybe" ought to do the trick
Do you mean like this one? Call Me Maybe [youtube.com]
Re:really? (Score:4, Insightful)
> So you whackos want to disarm cops too now?
Yes. It's time to take away their SWAT gear.
It's one thing to have a special action squad for the occasional well armed robber or kidnapper but it's gotten to the point where it's the day to day SOP.
There are plenty of liberal weenies crying for the disarmament of the American citizen right now. They've forgotten about the need to demilitarize the cops.
If you are afraid of civilians with guns then you need to be even handed about it and take them from cops too.
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Those justifications are crazy.
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I would have a hard time respecting a cop without a gun
So do you have respect for the cop or are you actually scared of his gun?
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I don't think that anything will replace the gun as a general-purpose tool. Guns are simple- basic Newtonian physics. The nature of how the projectile is launched might evolve over time (as it already has, starting with loose powder poured in through the muzzle to the modern cartridge ammo, to the upcoming caseless ammo where the charge is bonded to to the round like "Metal Storm" uses) b
Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
They all know who the bad ones are and don't dime them out.
Ergo they are all 'bad ones'.
I'm with Frank Serpico, '10% of cops are absolutely crooked, 10% are honest, 80% wish they were honest'. Even the honest ones are dirty IMHO. They should turn in the crooks in blue, but don't.
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In defense of the honest cops who don't rat out the dirty cops, there seems to be a "protect your own" atmosphere in police stations. What happens there is immense pressure not to finger a fellow officer no matter what they did. Breaking this code can result in your life being made a living hell - and considering the powers most police get, they are well equipped to make someone's life a living hell.
This isn't meant to excuse the honest cops' silence, but to explain why it'll take more than a couple of ho
Re:Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
They all know who the bad ones are and don't dime them out.
Ergo they are all 'bad ones'.
I'm with Frank Serpico, '10% of cops are absolutely crooked, 10% are honest, 80% wish they were honest'. Even the honest ones are dirty IMHO. They should turn in the crooks in blue, but don't.
The problem is the 80 percent will still protect the crooked 10 percent against the ten percent honest as they can be viewed as a shared threat to the "police tribe". Cops are a job that society needs, without the honest 10 it would be much much worse. The only option the good cops have is to play along in many cases so that they can continue to do the good the can.
Re:Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. any good cop that does not turn in and testify against a bad cop is also a bad cop.
The fucking "boys club" they have going is 100% identical to a street gang. The courts need to be enemies of the police not their friends.
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The answer, obviously, is a hot grits cannon.
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The answer, obviously, is a hot grits cannon.
Yes, but only Natalie Portman can fire it, so what's the point?
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The answer, obviously, is a hot grits cannon.
Yes, but only Natalie Portman can fire it, so what's the point?
The point is having a justification for using taxpayer dollars to clone Natalie Portman.
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Reminds me of the traditional British unarmed-bobby approach: "Stop! Or I shall have to yell 'Stop!" again!"
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But how will eurocops do anything with a soccer ball?
Seriously baseball sucks, but at least the games don't end in 0 0 ties.