By contrast, private citizens kill
over 1500 bad guys a year. Way more than police on average. Simply a numbers game. There are way more armed private citizens than police.
Bob wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2020 12:30 pm
How many are no-quesiton good shoots, how many questionable, and how many bad? I'd like to know - but tough to dig out I suppose.
Something to consider is that because the 'layman' usually isn't familiar with violence (other than the movies) they really don't have a good grasp on what is a good shoot vs. a bad shoot. Even within law enforcement you have the administrative types that really don't have a good handle on it which is scary as they are the ones that often make policy. As an example, I was in a training class years ago where they showed videos of uses-of-force with no back story. The question was asked which was good and which was bad. Had a Sgt. (who later became a Lt.) and a suck-up Corporal who'd never been in a use in his career both say they were horrified and would have sent each to internal affairs. I was still a Deputy at the time (and an outspoken one) and told them that each was a good uses-of-force and that neither knew policy. I was right, each was in fact a good use-of-force.
Although it isn't always followed, policy usually dictates that a determination CANNOT be made based solely on video evidence. That is why I don't rush to judgement just because of a video that the MSM puts on the nightly news. I wait to see what all the facts are before making judgement. Layman will see that video and rush to judgement without knowing the full facts of the matter. And video can and is manipulated and/or the perspective changes if viewed from another angle.
One training video shows an Officer shooting a man in front of a convenient store. From the angle of the video it looks like the police shooting an unarmed man and would likely be the video the MSM splashes across the nightly news. However, dash-cam from another patrol car coming in from a different angle shows the man drawing a pistol from under his shirt. The Officer chasing him saw it which is why he shot the bad guy.
I was in a use-of-force a couple of years ago with one of my Deputies (I was a Corporal). We broke 13 of his ribs and shattered his eye socket. Joe Layman looking at it or hearing about it would probably think it was an excessive use-of-force. In fact, it was a good use-of-force, completely justified and we had a Capt. watching that told us we did an excellent job. On top of it, we were later told we saved the mans life. Why? He was suffering from excited delirium. He shattered a security window with his fist and was trying to injure/kill himself when we intervened. I tased him twice with zero result. He had super human strength and felt zero pain. It took 10 minutes for myself and my partner to subdue him (and my partner is 6'8 and 425 lbs). Only by injuring him were we able to subdue him long enough to provide him medical care that saved his life. The E.R. doctor, after the brain scan, stated the guy would have died if we hadn't intervened, subdued him and gotten him medical attention. Better to have busted ribs and be alive than not and be dead.
