Police Use of Force

I don't think it's reasonable or effective to entirely expect police to solve this problem. Here is the account from the article: Livingston said when the door opened, officers gave Finch commands to put his hands up and walk toward them. He complied for a "very short time" and put his hands back down. He raised them again, and then lowered them for a second time, Livingston said. "The male then turned towards the officers on the east side of the re

If the police aren't threatening to shoot you then you don't need a gun to shoot back.

It looks like a default approach to provoke and escalate confrontation. A few days ago I watched the video of a police officer armed with a rifle arderimg a drunk guy to crawl on the floor. The drunk crawled wrong, so he was shot and killed. Turns out he was unarmed and innocent of any crime. The officer apparently will not be charged. Here in the UK this would be completely unacceptable, but in the US it’s routine.

There is a Use of Force Contiuuum, but reaching for one’s waistband can be a short circuit directly to the top. Police usually say it is too dangerous to wait until they’re sure you’re actually retrieving a gun. This comes up pretty frequently when police kill people (typically young black men) who turn out to have been unarmed.

a) spent most of your reply talking about non-sequitur topics again. Here's a pony. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Sh...b) #4 that's not true everywhere, even in the U.S.c) didn't answer the question. How should it wo

Aren't cops supposed to be a neutral party? Shouldn't they have inquired what was happening and tried to find all possible ways to communicate without force?Cops in the US seem way too ready to snap into a confrontation. They could have spent 30 minutes discussing with the guy and it would had caused less disruption and delay to the other passengers.This concept of a comply or die mentality is a real problem.

One thing you're missing is that this isn't just calling the police. The person in the article phoned the police and described an armed hostage situation. These calls aren't just 'X is committing a crime.' They describe a compelling high risk situation to the police. It's totally understandable that the Police go to the call primed to deal with what they're told is going on: a possible armed perpetrator with the intention to kill people.The police have to go

I can simultaneously be okay with the police shooting a man coming at them aggressively with a pipe and not fear the police, because I have no intention of going after the police with a pipe.

Perhaps then you haven't been paying attention to the news. I'm not some alarmist that thinks every cop is looking to kill people but given the number of high profile fatal interactions lately I think everyone is more on edge and I wouldn't blame anyone for attempting to de-escalate a situation instead of taking some militaristic "high road" to prove a point.To be sure, I realize the initial interaction was with what presumably is a security guard and not an actual LE

My initial read of this story is the same as yours. If accounts are to be believed, these suspects are violent and the police have legitimate reasons to be after them. Bringing this as an example does injustice to those with more legitimate concerns over police surveillance.Then I start playing devil's advocate. They don't know this guy is a cop initially; if they did they probably would have been deterred by the risks and stiff penalties involved in harming law enforcement. They al