Excessive force is completely subjective
Actually, it's not as subjective as you'd think. Police are trained (or at least they're supposed to be) in the "Use of force continuum."
There are
six levels of force an officer can use, and the idea is, whatever level the suspect is using, the officer goes
one level higher -- and that's it. More than that is "excessive."
There are plenty of areas you can look this up, and indeed, they vary from department to department -- here's one:
https://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/officer-safety/use-of-force/Pages/continuum.aspx
There is no way any human being can he expected to 100% of the time act completely appropriately under the conditions which police are often faced with. I guarantee you couldn't do it. It's foolish to expect that.
No argument there -- but when
I screw up, there will be consequences on
me. Blaming the victim for
my mistake is not the answer.
Serious excessive force where a person is truly damaged is far a few between. And cops who do that should be prosecuted for it.
Any cop should be disciplined for excessive force -- the more excessive the force, the more severe the discipline.
A few shoves might get a dressing-down from my lieutenant, a few kicks might get me a written repremand... but when an unarmed civilian ends up dead because of me, I'm in
serious trouble.
And I would put money on the criminal activity by cops take place in the big cities where criminal activity runs rampant in the government as a whole. Stop the criminality of the government and it will filter down to the police as well.
Drain the swamp, and the righteousness will trickle down? Good luck.
The other part of that is the really poor hiring practices of those cities in trying to fill the need for police positions and hiring crappy people just to get bodies. When you lower standards you get lower standards people. When you hire criminals you get criminals.
Agreed. Police work is a thankless job -- we need to give better incentives for the right people to join up, so we can weed out the wrong ones when they get caught.
Yes there is justification for shooting an unarmed man. It's based on the totality of the circumstances on what the cops saw, heard, understood and believed at the time. It does happen. Just like Brown in St Louis.
I can see if the police made a legitimate error in judgement and
thought a man was armed when he actually wasn't... but police have a variety of tools and techniques available to them... No unarmed man, no matter how belligerent, is going to be a problem once he gets a face full of pepper spray or a taser to the chest.
Consider the military -- any soldier in a combat zone is kept aware of the ROE (Rules of Engagement) in force at the time -- the specific set of circumstances that determine exactly when, and at whom, they are allowed to fire their weapons. Even in the most stressful combat conditions, Heaven have mercy on a soldier who ignores the ROE... because his superiors will not.
A police officer's job is stressful as well -- no doubt about that... but surely we can expect them to adhere to the same level of fire discipline as a soldier?