Where do you live? Is it in the US?

Let me give you two scenarios and you tell me how you would react. These both happened to a friend of mine who is a cop.

1. It is late at night, about 1am and you get a call that a couple of guys were trying to break into someone's car. You head to the area and see two guys walking down the sidewalk. You pull over, get out of your car and talk to the guys. They are both wearing jackets and have their hands in their pockets because it is cold. You tell them to take their hands out of their pockets. One of them does while the other doesn't. You tell him again and this time he takes one hand out. As he slowly pulls the other hand out he is holding something. It is dark and all you can see is that it is is shiny and metallic. He lifts it up and points it in your direction. What do you do?

2. You and another cop go to a house to arrest a guy who has a warrant for being up his girlfriend. He has already shown a penchant for violence, but you hope he will not fight you. When you get to the house his roommate lets you in and the guy is sitting in his bedroom on his bed. You tell him about the warrant, he agrees and says he will go quietly, just let him put his shoes on. After he puts his shoes on he stands up. As you go to handcuff him he says, "I've changed my mind!" He pushes you back, takes a step forward, opens his dresser and pulls out a gun. He fires a shot. What do you do?

No, I do not live in USA. I think this place is called as Earth.

I don't understand your scenarios, I and pretty much everybody kills if necessary. But here are my answers.

1. Preferebly I would back off, since the other guy has upper hand. Or I would take my gun and order the other guy to stand down (enforcing the command by pointing with a gun). Or better yet, I would act before the situation develops to what you described.

2. I would shoot back, preferably not lethally. Or better yet, I wouldn't let the situation develop as you described. I have had military training and one important thing is not to let the situation to develop to the point where almost nothing is to be done. Being active, aggressive and decisive is important. When you are tied, blindfolded and against a wall, it's too late (literally and by figuratively speaking).

Since you don't live in the USA your opinion on police brutality in the US and US law is of no consequence. Also since you suggest "shooting someone but preferably not lethally" you obviously don't know the first thing about guns or armed confrontations. So, while the questions were both pretty stupid and have no bearing on the situations at hand, your answers are even stupider.

I can't have opinion about police in general or police in US, if I don't live in US? Or if I would live in US, maybe I would be some "leftist" or something, and again the same thing? You will always have some reason to ignore opinion you don't agree with.

I don't know about you guys, but at least in here "non US" using minimal force is the guideline and thus ending the situation with minimal injuries is preferred. Police's job is to take risks at the expence of his own life.

My answers were very good answers.

In the US we are a culture of violance and a country that is saturated in guns. Danger can be around any corner. Around 120 cops are killed on the job every year so there is a real danger to the job. That is why I ask. You likely grew up and live in a place with a different culture.

Please tell me how you would have acted before the situation developed. He pulled over and got out of his car. The guys stopped walking and he asked them to take their hands out of their pockets. What more could have been done?

Again, the guy was being cooperative. How could they have done things differently to keep the situation from developing? Should they have just ran in the room, tackled him to the ground and kicked his ass? In 1 second he went from being cool to attacking them.

BTW police are trained normally to shoot to kill. If you wing the guy in the leg he can still shoot and kill you.

When you see that there are nearly 400 people killed by the police each year, most of them are situations like this where you, yourself, admit you would have used force.

There are shitty situations where people get killed that don't deserve it. When those happen they get a lot of attention. Earlier when I said most shootings are because people are being stupid, this is what I meant. This guy was being stupid.

For the record, in the first incident my buddy drew his gun but didn't fire. It turned out to be a small thermos. The guy thought it would be funny to offer the police some coffee. In the second case my buddy jumped forward, pushed the guy against the wall and hit him with a tazer which instantly subdued him. Here is the frightening part. The other office that was with him...froze in panic and just stood there.

You can have all the opinions you want, but they are guaranteed to be ill-informed and inconsequential. As for your minimal force guideline, that may be correct however guns are for making holes in people. (this kills the person) They are used to kill and anyone who knows how to handle a firearm learns first, that the only reason ever to point a gun at someone is to kill them. Not to scare, impress, make a point, show you are serious, threaten or wound, but to kill. To use a gun for any other reason is not acceptable. This is fundamental.

In 2011 there were roughly 12.4 million people arrested in the united states. About 360 people were killed by police that same year. I would say most police encounters end with minimal force.

Right now there are no official stats on officer involved shootings. The FBI has some incomplete data because apparently 96% of law enforcement agencies in the US do not provide statistics of that nature, to anyone. The 360 figure comes from the FBI's admittedly incomplete stats and even agragators of media reports (citing only incidents that make news) show higher rates if police killings.

We have one of the highest gun densities per population in the world, but yes, the culture is differently in every way.


First of all, I preferably wouldn't be alone in the first place. In your first example it would have been a matter of speed from the moment I see something "shiny". Maybe I would be fast enough, maybe I wouldn't. Having upper hand (having unholstered gun) I would enforce my command to have hands up in the air.

In the second case I would have done the handcuffing so that he has little change fighting back, and even if a fight would occur, acting before he gets his gun (you know, "martial arts").

Around here police is trained to inflict minimal injuries (regarding the situation). Sometimes it means shooting to death, other times shooting to leg, etc.

We are talking about police, not you playing Rambo. Also our regular legislation requires using minimal force when defending whatever (besides war). Just common sense, maybe you just don't have it.

Shooting someone doesn't mean that the other guy always dies. You might have heard about wounding. Not to mention about pointing a gun. Your rule says that whenever police points his gun he would have to kill. LOL. Your rules are very fuckt up. How in fuck killing is better option than threatening, do you think that you do some sort of favour to the other guy? LOL, really.

The problem is in the USA cops have

1) Guns
2) Impunity
3) Near complete disdain for the communities they "serve"
4) Near complete disdain FROM the communities they "serve"

If we remove #2 (civilian review boards) #4 will eventually follow and #3 will be less of a problem as well.

OK so you are a prime example of someone who shouldn't own a gun, so I hope you don't. It's not my rule, it's the first thing you learn about handling firearms, gun safety 101 etc. Right up there with "the gun is always loaded, even when it's not loaded" etc. I don't have time to explain it all to you because as I mentioned previously, your opinion does not matter.

I have a gun or two. And really, I haven't heard about that kind of gun safety that you have to kill. LOL. :)

"My opinion doesn't matter". Yeah, go for it, you might be this year's "conversationist".

In most places, especially small towns, cops will be in the car alone. Even in big cities most will be alone. In this case the city he works in there are only two officers on duty at night. There is a country officer they can call for more backup, but they may be a ways away.

But then you shouldn't need to worry. Remember, this guy was just being funny and being macho and where you live the police just laugh at that kind of guy, they don't need to draw guns.


The guy ties his shoe, stands up and puts his hands behind his back. You go to cuff him. He changes his mind and slams his body into you pushing you far enough back that he can jump forward the 2-3 feet needed to get to his dresser. You react immediately, but in that second he has his gun out and is firing. Police get defensive tactics training, but they are not martial artists (although some may be).

I would bet, based on how the thing went down, 99% of people wouldn't have been able to stop this guy from getting to his gun.

Police here are also trained to subdue someone in the least harmful way. Sometimes that ins't an option. You don't here about the millions who are arrested every year without incident or injury, you only hear about the situations where things go bad.

What a fuckt up practices. In here police moves always as pairs. Same is in the military, don't wonder around alone (land, sea or air). These are basic tactical practices.

Glad to hear that, that Mr. Rambo got me worried.

we have to wait to see if brown was shot in the back. :disgust my guess is they want to cool shit down :2 cents:

The town my friend works in has about 7,500 people. They have about 15 active duty officers and a few others like an evidence officer and a detective. Most of the time there are 2 of them on patrol at any given time. Sometimes during the day there will be more and sometimes they will have reserve officers riding with them. My friend has even said at times on graveyard shift the cover shift person leaves at 3am so the graveyard person is actually alone in the town until 6am when dayshift comes on.

I also know several city and county cops. Most of them are alone in their cars. It all has to do with budgets. They get budgets cut, but still have to cover the same amount of area and time so personnel and training are cut.

Here is something interesting. My buddy's department does what is called active shooter training. This is where they use guns that have paint bullets and they train for scenarios where deadly force may be needed. In almost every case the scenarios are ones taken from real life where officers were killed. Each officer will get run through 4 scenarios during the 1 day training. His department does this once per year which doesn't seem like very much. Most departments in the state will only do this every 3-4 years and some don't do it at all.

I get that cuts thing, but around here the solution is to cut down cars patrolling. 1 police per car is too little. That is tactical choice, but also very important mental and also physical health factor for the polices. Wondering around alone is not good.

In a perfect world you would be correct, however, if you have two officers on duty and two calls come in at the same time, but they are sharing a car, what do they do? One person will have to wait for service.

I saw a show the other day about the city of Stockton, California. They have such budget problems that they have cut the police force down to next to nothing. Of course crime has gone up. At the 911 call center they showed at the moment the guy was in there with his camera they had 25 officers on the road all of whom were answering calls and another 45 calls on hold waiting for the next available officer.

Sadly, it is often a political ploy. They cut police and fire because that is what people notice and feel. This way when they ask for a bigger budget and more money in the next election people will be more likely to vote for it.

It's not about "sharing a car", they move in pairs. Tactical choice. If there are multiple possible missions, they take one at a time. Just like that 2 man with 2 cars won't split up, to be half mans and half cars, if there are 4 missions. And it's not about a perfect world, we use it in this world, right now. It's a matter of choice.

About the budget, how about reducing the military or spying budget? You can reallocate your resources, not just to raise those.

Again you are talking about a perfect world. You can't have a legit discussion about seriously reducing the US debt without being willing to cut the military budget. However, there are a ton of people who think you are a committing treason just for suggesting it. So I don't see a significant cut in defense spending anytime in the near future.

It isn't always possible to have two people at every call and making calls wait on 911 is just asking for lawsuits. In a perfect world if it takes 10 patrol cars each shift to adequately cover a city they would have 20 officers on duty for each shift so you had two officers per car. This would likely cut down on police violence because you are accountable to someone else, and having another officer there with you at all times means you won't feel the same level of danger in situations. But, most cities can't afford that. Maybe some day they will be able to, but it is unlikely.

You are again talking about some "perfect wold", but it is reality in many other countries, or I would even say in most other countries, even without knowing it. It's a matter of choice. Same goes with the military budget.

True. We choose to fun the massive military as opposed to other things. Personally I think we could cut the military in half and still be plenty safe and either cut taxes or find better ways to spend that money.

A white police officer in the United States killed a black person on average of twice per week from 2005 to 2012, according to homicide reports offered to the FBI. But this data is limited, as only about 4 percent of law enforcement agencies contributed.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/loc...ar-minorities/