Bofferbrauer2 said:
Like I said, that's US policy. Like I said, shooting is normally considered the very last resort, and fatally shooting someone is generally very frowned upon unless it's a hostage situation in most civilized countries (the last one of those happened 22 years ago here btw). Our policemen and -women are trained to shoot in the legs to incapacitate the suspect, and only if that fails will they even consider shooting to kill. And they will only shoot if the suspect is armed and trying to severely harm or even kill either them or other people around the person. If he isn't armed, they have no right to shoot and would forfeit their badge (and weapons license) instantly and forever if they did. I know this isn't the case in the US, but that's also a big part of the reason why we don't have BLM-like protests here - our policemen don't kill people unless they absolutely have to. While we're at it, most policemen here are not armed in duty unless they have a special mission which warrants weapon usage (like close protection of our grand-duke or prime minister) and are not allowed to keep their weapon off-duty. This ensures that they will stop and think and try to deescalate or even defuse the situation instead of simply trying to shoot mindlessly like US police seem to be overly happy to do. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Luxemburg has a homicide rate per 100.000 inhabitants of 0.30. The United States of America has a homicide rate per capita of 4.96. That's a difference. Homicide rate in the USA is by far not the highest. Amongst western countries it is comparatively high. Mexico is at 29.07 and their police patrols often look like this...
"Shoot'm in the legs, José!" said no mexican police officer ever.
There might be a correlation between crime rate, availability of firearms to criminals and willingness to use them and the extent to which law enforcement is permitted to use deadly force to stop a threat. Always keep in mind, cops are humans, too. Not only is the permission to use firearms in dangerous situations to ensure puplic safety, but also to make sure expensively trained and hard to replace experienced officers stay unharmed, able to do their job and are willing to do so. Why US cops are so shootyshooty, unload half a magazine, whereas in Germany for example the count of bullets shot by police is lower on average? The same reasons. An incapacitated perpetrator with a knife downed on the ground can't do much. With a gun he/she can still be a deadly threat. A recent event demonstrates it perfectly...
Detroit Police Chief James Craig released video of the officer-involved shooting that left a man dead at McNichols and San Juan.
...
Littleton drew a handgun from his left pocket, fired at police and missed. Three officers returned fire. Littleton continued to fire his weapon as he was on the ground. There were eight shots fired in five seconds, according to Craig. Four of those shots were fired from three officers; one officer fired two shots, one officer fired one shot and another officer fired one shot. Craig says the other four shots were fired by Littleton.
Even though Hakim was hit by one bullet or more and face down, he was still not done and pulled the trigger of his gun a couple of times more.
I imagine US cops are trained to fire this many rounds. It reflects in the use of their firearms in the field. According to training. Needless to say, that doesn't mean it's always justified.
The incident that is referred to in the next video was the (2nd°) murder of Walter Scott.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott
Hunting Season is done...
