Let me make this absolutely clear: POLICE OFFICERS SHOULD NEVER RESORT TO THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE UNLESS THEIR OWN LIVES ARE IN IMMINENT JEOPARDY OR IN ORDER TO SAVE A CITIZEN FROM BEING KILLED BY AN ASAILANT.
In a recent op-ed about the police shooting of an unarmed naked former football player, LA police chief Charlie Beck started out by saying: Every day when Los Angeles Police officers pin on their badges and prepare to protect and to serve, they're reminded of what they learned as Academy recruits: a reverence for human life. Los Angeles Police Department officers are never trained to “shoot to kill,” only to stop a deadly threat in order to keep the community and themselves safe. This isn't a rhetorical turn-of-phrase or semantic contrivance, but a real world reality: taking a life -- anyone's life -- is never our intent. It's a tragedy when it occurs for everyone involved and for the City of Los Angeles.
Never trained to ‘shoot to kill.’ Trained ‘only to stop.’ It ‘is never our intent’ to take anyone’s life. What a crock of supreme shit! Whenever a cop confronts a person who appears ready and capable of killing the officer or inflict serious bodily injury right then and there, he better damn sure shoot to kill! And at the moment he shoots while defending himself, he has every intention of killing his assailant, make no mistake about it.
Because the public has been watching so many cowboy movies and TV action shows, they’ve come to believe that all a cop has to do to defend himself from someone shooting at him is to shoot the assailant’s gun out of his hand, or barring that, shoot him in the shoulder. That is so far removed from reality that it’s laughable.
The reality is that most officers are not really that good at shooting. Besides, there is a world of difference between shooting at a stationary target on the firing range that is not shooting back at him and shooting under the life-threatening stress of street combat.
That’s why cops are trained to ‘double tap’ - that is, to fire two rounds in quick succession every time they fire their weapon. And they will keep on double tapping until their assailant drops. Thus, perpetrators are often shot multiple times. If they are spun around when hit, they may get shot in the back, but that was not the officer’s intent. As long as the assailant does not go down, he continues to offer an imminent threat to the officer’s life. That’s not the way it is in the movies or on TV, but that’s the way it is on the streets.
I never played any word games like Chief Beck. When I used to train police officers and teach criminal justice students, I always emphasized that officers should never resort to the use of deadly force unless it was to eliminate an imminent threat to their lives or the lives of some citizens. But I always taught them that when it came time to defend themselves against what they perceived to be an immediate threat to their lives, they had better SHOOT TO KILL. And I am not about to apologize for that!
6 comments:
"This isn't a rhetorical turn-of-phrase or semantic contrivance, but a real world reality: taking a life -- anyone's life -- is never our intent."
I dunno. We were always taught to "shoot center of (body) mass.
What's in the center of mass on a human? Lungs, heart, stomach, kidneys, liver, not to mention the large arteries and veins which tend to bleed out rathe quickly when hit...
The point being...a shot to "center of mass" is likely to prove fatal. But a shot to an extremety or an attempt to "shoot the gun out of his hands" is likely to miss, and possibly...hit and innocent person.
"Rhetoric"? "Semantic contrivance"?
I dunno. I decided long ago to aim where I was told to stop the threat and worry about the consequenses later.
I wonder what Dorina would do?
MAD DOGS -- MAD MAD DOGS --
'Center Mass' and 'To Stop' both mean 'To Kill' any way you look at it.
And Anonymous, you're right, most of those killed by cops were 'Mad Dogs -- Mad Mad Dogs.'
Mad dogs indeed....
Very well written, Howie! Engrossing and revealing!
Sanjiv Singh
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