KiigelHeart said:
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. |
I think this is a problem with our justice system. There is so little trust in both the police and the justice system as a whole. Like, it doesn't shock me that someone would try to run away from a cop. They are afraid, not just for their immediate situation, but for the fact that being put into the justice system can fuck your whole life. I don't think an arrest of someone who was sleeping in their car with a 0.1% BAC is a situation that requires putting someone in handcuffs and arresting them. This may be a personal philosophy thing, but I think if the individual was encountered by a social worker they would be able to actually provide the individual with positive resources to prevent similar actions in the future instead of just saying "We 'bout to ruin your life". In my opinion, the public would have been more safe in the absence of an armed response here.
And again, I just want to emphasize that I have no issue with individual cops as a whole. I believe that there are fundamental issues with the system which make abuses both inevitable and common. If we try to address this at an individual level, we will fail. That is why the changes that are being asked for seem so large. They are asking for broad, systemic changes which may seem a little scary at first, for the people who feel safe under what is essentially a military force patrolling our streets.
