RE: Miami cops shoot black therapist over autistic patient
A few things:
1. Apparently, they got a call that said: "armed man that is suicidal" (the autistic person). That's gonna put anyone on edge. That's a very unpredictable dangerous situation on it's own. Will the person shoot civilians randomly? You? His/herself? Better keep some distance when I show up.
2. Cops these days are especially on edge for any situation that has the potential of being a set-up for ambush and/or a race-baiting escalation event to garner publicity, a lawsuit, or just to start shit up and act violent. Cops are VERY justified to be a bit paranoid given the course of the events these past few weeks.
3. The Use of Force model says to use the minimum force necessary to deescalate a situation. The situation in this cops mind could go either way at this particular moment in a split second from the looks of it. From what I've seen, the moments before shooting aren't shown so we can't know for sure what compelled the officer to shoot a second before. Also, is it reasonable to assume that the cop could identify what's in the autistic person's hand from the distance he was at?
4. There are 300+ million people in the US - all kinds of similar incidents happen to police all the time where deadly force is perfectly acceptable and required (crazy unpredictable person with a weapon starts hurting people suddenly or perfectly normal innocent sounding guy flipping the next moment and whipping out a gun, etc). Most cops know the situation can flip in a second and that's the second you're dead if caught off guard.
5. Almost all cops get 6-12 months of initial training, including a lot of use of force training, and with at least annual firearms training each year thereafter normally. Quality of training and enforcement of standards is very department by department based.
6. There are bad cops - Stupid, negligent, arrogant, etc. It's not a widespread problem but given the size of some police departments (I think NYPD has 35,000 cops!), some people are gonna slip through the cracks or become shitty after being on the beat for a while. People forget that cops deals with the WORST of society daily and that really can color one's perception of reality.
Also, bad cops are gonna happen when you demonize police, foster a atmosphere of anti-police sentiment, make every shift a potential career-ender over a bullshit complaint, and pay them in most jurisdictions jack shit (so they aren't attracting the best talent). That doesn't justify shooting someone unarmed obviously but it's not hard to understand how a department can get or develop a few bad apples over time.
7. Accidental discharges do happen for a variety of reasons (bad apples, poor training, someone losing their nerve, someone too pumped up, etc). People are not suppose to keep their hands on the trigger. That seems to be the case here. A twitch away from firing a weapon.
8. When you add up all the above however:
Unfortunate shit is gonna happen from time to time. And that ultra rare event is gonna be blown up by the media as a symbol that there are widespread problems with the police, the police are racist, and blah blah.
But again, shit happens and that's all there really is to this. Deal with the individual and focus on trigger safety/use of force guidelines in that department and move on. Realistically, there isn't much else that can be done about it except give ALL cops body cams so officer context/truthfulness can be better determined.
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