Re: Police: Multiple Victims in South Carolina church shooting [W:224]
Good grief, I'll humor your trolling and weird obsession with me:
I'm just questioning you on your own posts - that's hardly trolling or obsessive.
But, Bravo! I'm glad to see that you're finally taking an interest in why different officers respond differently.
Consistently, officers reacted the same exact way in the overwhelming majority of arrests. Here is my contention:
the facts in these cases show that if police officers can respond without the suspect ending up dead in one scenario that it is possible to do it with others where the threat is nowhere near as high.
Possible, yes, but let's examine what the reports says about officers that use force. Quotations from the report.
Some situational factors may increase the
chances that force of questionable legitimacy
will be used. For example, officers sometimes
use force on the slightest provocation follow-
ing a high-speed car chase, when adrenaline
levels are high. They may use force more fre-
quently when they are alone, because they
feel more vulnerable or believe that they can
get away with it. They may use force more
frequently as a way of emphasizing their
authority when suspects are disrespectful or when there is a hostile audience to the
encounter.
That indicates that officers respond differently in different situations. Note that one of the reasons was if they "believe they can get away with it." Yes, there are some bad cops out there. Disrespecting law enforcement in general, is just silly. Every case has to weighed on the evidence, which is why whatever parallel you were trying to draw is moot.
If the majority of police officers managed to resolve similar incidents the same way, how is it possible for others not to when the threat is not as high? Wait... there is more!
Not a bad point, actually, and you're right - there is more. From the report:
About 1 percent of people reporting con-
tacts with police indicated that officers
used force or threatened force. In the ma-
jority of those instances, respondents said
that their own actions, such as threatening
police or resisting arrest, may have pro-
voked officers.
We've seen a lot of that lately, haven't we? The resisting arrest thing. It's a good thing even suspects understand when their actions trigger unwanted force against them.
This statement shows that there is really no difference in policies. Cops across the board (and as per the study) treat people in accordance to the state of the person. So how is it possible for my statement to be wrong if the policies for that treatment and their use is the same across the board?
I don't know that poster or why you feel the need to cite his post as evidence of anything, but you didn't actually make a statement - you made vague insinuations but you never came right out and stated your theory, although I asked you to do so. You've also made the comment about the "threat being higher" in some incidents than in others, but, hopefully, you understand that it's the officers who have to determine to what extent they feel threatened - not you. In the case of the wife killer, perhaps the officers knew the shooter and didn't feel threatened.
All kinds of scenarios are in play in these incidents and drawing false parallels doesn't serve anything.