sundin13 said:
I don't think it is. Often, police brutality arises due to the escalation of situations that did not require an armed response in the first place. This can be mitigated by utilizing trained social workers instead of police in these situations to provide the community assistance that an individual needs without resorting to force or violence. We just saw a black man killed last week after the cops were called on a him for sleeping in a Wendy's drive through. Does someone sleeping necessitate an armed response? Could this have been handled better and differently by individuals with a different goal and response tactic? |
After watching the bodycam vid of Wendy's incident, I think the cops handled the situation fairly ok until the man suddenly went crazy. If anything, they were too relaxed but that just tends to happen with routine stuff like this.
The difference is that police in Finland for example wouldn't have shot him when he's fleeing and already discharged the taser. But those cops did what I'd expect them to do in US. Seems to me US is overall admissible to guns and use of lethal force, and it reflects to police too. It's not healthy.. The whole mindset of how and when to use a firearm is different.
At least in some police departments. As far as I know, there are cities where police doesn't shoot people often and those departments do things more similarly to police here.
I don't see a reason why US police couldn't handle situations like these like police here does. Sending social workers, mental health professionals etc to respond may put them in danger. To me that idea is absurd and here they refuse to go before police if there's any possibility of threat.
Also I don't think US cops do a shitty job as a whole. There's over 600 thousands officers making 10 million arrests a year and WHO knows how many responses. "Only" a quarter of them discharge a weapon on duty during their careers. I'm absolutely certain majority of them are good people doing their work professionally.
That's why I think, in the end, it won't take that much to set things right about how they use force. Underlying issues in society like crime-rates, mental health problems, alchohol & drug abuse etc are another thing. I'm sure most cops would like to see these adressed as it would make their job easier and less risky. There's around 50 officers killed in gunfire a year which sounds insane. Plenty of things are fucked up in USA. And there seems to be hardly any constructive discussion going on imo.
