I am not saying that police officers don't have the right to defend themselves--but I am also glad that more police departments (mine included) are led by forward-thinking chiefs who train their officers to deal with mental health issues and, when a mentally ill person is detained, (s)he is sent to a short-term mental health unit where diagnoses can be made, prescriptions dispensed or adequately adjusted, and therapy initiated.
I also know that police have more to fear with the proliferation of guns, where even a routine traffic stop can turn into a dangerous situation.
I know it might not exactly be clear from the OP....but the problem I'm trying to highlight is a particular sort of mentality. It is something along the lines of....
1. If a police shooting occurs, the police are assumed guilty (by a significant section of the public) until they produce evidence of their innocence. This department even gave the names of the officers involved in the shooting. This makes them a target for anyone who thinks them guilty no matter what evidence is later produced.
2.
There's never anything to be done when we are deciding not to do anything.
Well I can understand why the idealists on the left still point out gun control as the problem...but it's not the reason for the spike in crime that being seen across major cities in the US. I tried to be a bit more subtle and hint at what the problems are in the OP.
Consider that a lot of these major cities had reclassified certain crimes that used to be "violent crimes" as "nonviolent crimes" while at the same time enacting "bail reform" laws or other soft on crime laws like raising the price tags on stolen goods for crimes like shoplifting and theft.
After depleting and demoralizing the police with just endless scrutiny and needless demonizing....along with making it abundantly clear that any mistake a cop makes, even in good faith, even in high pressure, high stress environments, will be prosecuted as if the cop were a criminal....police are extremely reluctant to respond to any risky or dangerous situations. The mentality of the second article makes it clear....the people in that community don't blame the man pointing his gun at the police, they blame the police. It's suggested they made a mistake or should have handled the situation differently. They didn't.
In the meantime no one is going to change the laws so that cops can't shoot people aiming guns at them.
That doesn't mean they won't be run out of the police department or prosecutors won't try to charge them anyway. Recruitment is down across the country....and left wing policies haven't improved anything for the communities they were intended to improve.
If your city passed a bail reform law that ensures "non-violent" offenders are back on the streets moments after being arrested....there's no reason not to loot a store. You got caught walking down the street towards the school with a gun? Well that's a nonviolent offense....turn that guy loose the next day, he doesn't need to pay bail. He may have lost his gun as evidence for his day in court 2 years from now but it's not like he's going to be showing up anyway....and the bounty hunters who would be hunting them down for skipping court aren't going to be hunting them down anymore because they don't have to pay bail. I can't remember if it was San Francisco or LA that the police finally busted and arrested an organized shoplifting ring only to have the local DA turn them loose without even charging them bail. The police are demoralized because bad Justice reform policies have made their efforts pointless and frankly....needlessly dangerous for themselves. There's a Democratic councilman in DC requesting that the National Guard patrol the streets (which won't likely happen) because murder, robbery, and violent crime are out of control.
I get why a lot of these reforms seemed like good ideas at the time. I understand that certain movements that people thought were both necessary and righteous were pushing for a lot of this stuff. I even understand that people were taken advantage of by these movements and have a hard time admitting these weren't good faith actors and the ideas they pushed were frankly, just really stupid.
There's a myriad of issues contributing to the problem. When people are losing their jobs over having the "wrong politics" people hesitate to speak out about what the actual problems are. Even worse, politicians who pass bad laws or make bad institutional policy changes can't just throw their hands up and admit "Hey, all those things we did to reform the justice system had terrible unforeseen consequences and we need to reverse course on basically all of them." Police and racism were never the biggest issues plaguing the big city black communities. Crime was. The people who argued that instead of prioritizing the rare case of police getting away with murder, we should instead focus on all the criminals getting away with murder were correct. Perhaps the reason why we gave police the benefit of the doubt in the past was because they need it to be able to take risks and do their jobs correctly. If you doubt that, ask yourself why the cop who watched the Uvalde shooter walking towards the school with a rifle and pistols decided to call his supervisor first to get permission to shoot instead of just shooting him? I'd suggest it's not unrelated to incidents like Breonna Taylor where the police returned fire after being shot and the public still wanted them jailed. Incidents like the 14yo Columbus, Ohio girl who was gunned down just before gutting another girl with a butcher knife didn't result in thanks but scorn from the people on the scene, protests from the local college students, and subtle threats from big name celebrities like LeBron James.
The two cops in this shooting were named....even though they did nothing wrong. Thankfully BLM is essentially defunct because they used to literally harass innocent cops in their regular lives. I wouldn't be surprised if these two cops decide to quit and move anytime in the next two years.
It's this mentality that criminals are actually victims of some nebulous system and cops are guilty until proven innocent. Criminals are either memorialized or celebrated like heroes when killed....but cops die and then forgotten the next day after their funeral.
When you consider how many stories were written about Tamir Rice, and how the police shooting him was this horrific problem that needs addressed because it's not an incredibly rare thing but part of a larger systemic problem, and then consider how few people heard the story of the 9yo robbing cars at gunpoint and leading police on high speed chases....
Montgomery police say a stolen vehicle chase resulted in a child’s arrest.
www.google.com
Try to consider why one story gained so much attention compared to the other. Perhaps the 8yo's story happened because of systemic issues....not racism, or lack of educational or employment opportunities, but because he's in an environment that celebrates criminals as heroes, and now sadly memorialized them with statues and marches. Perhaps the cops, while far from perfect, did far more good for his community than the movement that blamed them for everything ever did.
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