The vast majority of interactions with the public can be taken care of with non-lethal means, tasers, etc… (if any are even necessary).
Lethal weapons should be in a remote lock holster in their cruiser, and must be unlocked remotely by a supervisor on a per-case basis depending on the facts at hand (suspect’s history, potential risk, etc…)
Maybe that’s pie in the sky optimism, I don’t know.
ACAB, first of all. However, and please bear with me;
I remember very vividly the video of a cop in Brooklyn minding his own damn business in his cruiser, probably eating a doughnut, when some dude walked up to his open window and blew his brains out. So how much time does that guy’s partner have to radio HQ and request the weapon be unlocked before he is also looking at a new breathing hole in his skull?
I do agree that not nearly every cop should have lethal weapons. The temptation to go for it when frightened is just too high, especially for the type of people that tend to become cops in the US. However, having them remotely locked and requiring explicit permission also entirely defeats their unfortunately very real excuse for being out there in the first place. Let them all have tasers and batons as that’s far more than enough for the vast majority of interactions as you pointed out, but to have the one lethal option perpetually out of reach even when its available and in that one in ten thousand case where it is actually required? Not entirely sure I agree there.
And just to be sure, I haven’t forgotten OWS, so NYPD can choke on an entire bag of dicks one at a time and I’ll sit back and watch sipping on an Arizona.
what does that have to do with being a cop though? plenty of civilians face that reality every single day and we’re just supposed to deal with it.
that’s really just a ‘shit happens’ scenario that just happens to involve the police.
it would make more sense to examine why this is an everyday reality in the USA and take steps to fix the underlying issue.
but, you know…even when a problem doesn’t involve the constitution you aren’t allowed to fix it. we’re the best, don’t question it.
I loathe the way things are in this country. Please don’t put words in my mouth to the opposite effect. I don’t own a firearm and veyy deliberately choose not to.
However, you go ahead and convince cowboy hat wearing rednecks with more pickup trucks than teeth that the system is fucked and their guns are part of the problem.
And adding barriers to voting is also very obviously not the answer either. Its not that I don’t want to change the system or think it can’t or shouldn’t improve. I’m living inside the shit hole. I smell it every day.
There’s also still reality, and we must all accept it like it or not. Decidedly not here.
How many times have cops been murdered like that? And how many innocent people have they murdered?
Right, which is why one in fifty cops gets to keep a gun. To hunt down the psycho who thinks that’s a good idea and come home afterwards for doing what his job actually is as per the social contract.
I can hate cops as they are today but still want for the actual safety of the public through the proven institution of “policing.” No, not the glorified slave-catchers American cops are, but real police.