[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.

[Iuz the Evil]

How are they supposed to keep up their task of committing a quarter of the homicides in the city if they actually carry appropriate nonlethal equpment?

 

With due respect to the late, lamented Lapsedgamer, I am a Seattle voter and I am on the verge of saying fire every last one of them and hiring a new force of people who weren't trained in a right-wing paramilitary camp. I'm not sure that there are any police training facilities that aren't that way; there was a newspaper story that suggested there were none in Washington state.

A quarter of the homicides appears to be an improvement, from 10 of 29 of deaths reported in 2013. Baby steps.

[Pattern Ghost]

who weren't trained in a right-wing paramilitary camp.

 

They go to the state police academy. How'd the right wingers take that over in a state that's run top to bottom by liberals exactly?

 

Here's a hint: The left wing side of the government is every bit as authoritarian as the right is. They're just backed by a different set of big money interests.

 

Edit: I apologize if that second paragraph sounded a bit snarky. It was. I know you probably didn't mean it in the same way I usually see people throw that kind of blame back and forth. This latest election cycle has made me over sensitive to how polarized our country has become. I know your smarter than that, and just had a knee-jerk reaction.

[Cancer]

This is the kind of thing I remember reading, with subsequent work-in-progress bits like this.

 

I concede that I have been drifting further and further toward the political left as I have grown older, and I perceive that conventional law enforcement is more obviously a self-interested power who feels it is their function to brutalize the economic and social underclass and accrue the same kind of popular support that the Army did in various European countries between about 1848 and 1939. Part of my prejudice springs from my experience in avoiding a few obvious entrapment situations when I was younger, and from being rubbed rather the wrong way in more recent years by relatives-by-marriage who *were* in law enforcement here in WA ("were" = recently retired) in family gatherings I hope I don't have to describe further.

[pinecone]

I'm going to need to process before I can say anything. But dang, we seem to have too many nervous people wearing badges....

OK, I've read a bit...I don't think it was Murder, or even Manslaughter. It Was a case of somebody in uniform, who never should have been. How the heck are we choosing officers? If you're that scared of getting shot, you're in the wrong line of work. (And the chances of getting shot are Very small) So, I'm just left with Dang. It is a tragic occurance, but I don't know who exactly to blame.

[Pattern Ghost]

This is the kind of thing I remember reading, with subsequent work-in-progress bits like this.

 

 

 

Sorry, I don't have time to read those at the moment, have to get ready for a thing. But I find the first article's headline amusing, and vaguely insulting. "Less military"? Then describes teaching officers interpersonal communication skills? I was in the Military Police. Even in the 80's, early 90's we were very restrained in our use of force, stressed interpersonal communication skills, and didn't run around in fear of our lives.

 

I think that last one is key. Police today seem to be running around in constant fear of their lives. Some caution is certainly justified, but in many cases where my training would tell me to calm a situation down, instead I see time and again on these police videos an officer who screeches panicked orders, sometimes too fast or too contradictory to follow, while drawing a gun. Even if the situation does call for a drawn gun, and forceful orders, the communication skills of these officers still lack. The person receiving an order needs time to comply. It takes the brain a second or two (I think 1.5 is average?) to process something and act on it.

 

I think training people to be cautious but not fearful is important. I see far too many panic reactions from police. Nearly every use of force case I've seen hit the news shows police officers in panic mode.

[Cancer]

No problem; I have kind of said everything I was going to. I have not kept up with SPD issues (I got fed up with the Seattle Times a few years back). Bluntly, I was kind of hoping for a federal investigation, but that seems unlikely to occur anytime soon.

[Doc Shadow]

Sorry, I don't have time to read those at the moment, have to get ready for a thing. But I find the first article's headline amusing, and vaguely insulting. "Less military"? Then describes teaching officers interpersonal communication skills? I was in the Military Police. Even in the 80's, early 90's we were very restrained in our use of force, stressed interpersonal communication skills, and didn't run around in fear of our lives.

 

I think that last one is key. Police today seem to be running around in constant fear of their lives. Some caution is certainly justified, but in many cases where my training would tell me to calm a situation down, instead I see time and again on these police videos an officer who screeches panicked orders, sometimes too fast or too contradictory to follow, while drawing a gun. Even if the situation does call for a drawn gun, and forceful orders, the communication skills of these officers still lack. The person receiving an order needs time to comply. It takes the brain a second or two (I think 1.5 is average?) to process something and act on it.

 

I think training people to be cautious but not fearful is important. I see far too many panic reactions from police. Nearly every use of force case I've seen hit the news shows police officers in panic mode.

 

In that case they are definitely in the wrong line of work. Unfortunately we need officers so badly that we're accepting people who are not psychologically suited for it. The poor training and lack of public interaction with the police just make the problem worse.

 

The public assumes the cops are out to get them, and cops assume the public is just waiting for a chance to shoot them. That's a recipe for disaster.

[Pattern Ghost]

Yep, pretty sorry state.

[Ranxerox]

Still a policy issue rather than a case of police brutality, assuming she was armed.

 

I don't think that I am understanding your point here.  Doesn't that make it worse not better?  I work in health care, and I can tell you that if we tell the family members of a patient that we killed, that it was that it was not individual malpractice but instead inadequate staff training and badly written policies that killed there loved one, the family members aren't mollified in the slightest.

 

Don't the citizens of city as large and prosperous as Seattle have the right to expect a competent, well trained and well equipped police force?

 

The two officers clearly saw there options as either use a taser or use their sidearms, and since they didn't have a taser, there was nothing do but shoot the woman.  However, while I was not there, I have trouble believing that those were their only options.  They were merely the only options they saw because they lacked the competence to see other options.  Maybe they could have retreated to their patrol car and called for backup with tasers.  Maybe they could have interposed something between themselves and the woman and called for backup with their personal radios.  Maybe they could have split up so the woman could not go after one without turning her back on the other.  I don't know.  I wasn't there.  But in my experience life provides options when you have competence to know to look for them. 

[Pattern Ghost]

Doesn't that make it worse not better?

 

I never said it made it better. I said it made it something less than police brutality. The decision process that led to the death wasn't the  result of malice or racism as far as I can see*, but due to bad policy and less than competent and confident officers.

 

 

Don't the citizens of city as large and prosperous as Seattle have the right to expect a competent, well trained and well equipped police force?

 

Competence is certainly the issue. The fact that they were allowed to let their incompetence put them into the situation is the core of the issue. They should never have been allowed to not carry an additional less lethal option.

 

Here's how I understand the situation:

 

• The woman called them to her apartment, claiming there was a burglary. Apparently, she also made a claim that she had gone to the store or somewhere else. These were both lies, as evidenced by video camera footage from her apartment building. Heard that on local news while driving to the thing in Seattle earlier.
• Dispatch was aware that the woman had called police to her apartment the prior week and threatened them with a pair of scissors, so sent two officers. I don't know whether the officers responding were informed of the prior incident or not.
• When the woman answered her door, she was armed with at least one knife (the article linked in this thread says two, local news has only mentioned one as far as I recall) and used vaguely threatening language towards the officers. ("Get ready .... rest censored by news), The latter part referenced in the article linked above.
• The woman had two children in the apartment with her.
• The officers ordered her to back off.
• One of the officers asked the other if he had mace/pepper spray, to which the reply was no.
• After the woman failed to comply, she was shot. I don't know if she took any actions that weren't on audio. The news hasn't mentioned that level of detail.

 

So, what do I take from this?

 

The officers severely limited their options to respond to the situation. Had they been willing to take a small amount of risk and exercise basic teamwork, or even better interpersonal skills, they should have been able to resolve the situation either peacefully or without loss of life as a minimum. I think striving for "no loss of life" rather than "no loss of police life" is a pretty good goal, personally. But that's not how police in this country have been indoctrinated for a very very long time. I'm going to set that date as roughly the 80's and the war on drugs era. But back to the topic at hand:

 

Retreat does not seem to be an option. The officers were (I'm assuming, though I haven't seen hard confirmation) dealing with an armed, disturbed woman in a doorway. Had she been alone, just walking away may have been a reasonable temporary response. But she also had two children in the apartment with her. So, I'm fairly certain the officers didn't judge that to be a situation where they were going to yield the doorway and let the woman lock the two kids in with her in an agitated state while armed. It's about the only sound judgment I can see that they may have shown.

 

So, how do you deal with a woman armed with a knife in an enclosed space?

 

First, you take a chance. Remember the guy who killed the people in Oregon? He probably didn't wave his knife around and talk trash at the people he stabbed. If he got all three in that short space of time, he almost certainly went to town with no warning. Most of the time people using a knife as a threat aren't quite ready to actually use it. This woman was mentally unstable, but I'd have taken the bet that since I hadn't been stabbed yet, that I had at least the option to extend the verbal phase a bit.

 

Unless she moved to attack them, I think the officers could have put a minimal effort into talking her down, rather than shout orders in her face. I didn't see any mention of such an effort in the article mentioning the audio of the incident, just orders given. The officers (at least one, IIRC) were said to be trained in crisis intervention, but don't seem to have put those skills to use.

 

Second option, you take her down. Which is what the SPD did. They did it with bullets. Pepper spray would have been great here, but hey, the other guy didn't bring it! Kind of f-ed up when the police of a large metro expect the other guy to bring less lethal options to the call. But since they had sticks and she had a knife, their reasonable options were severely curtailed.

 

They may have had room to take a shot at her traps or collar bone (or noggin, which is technically lethal force but still better than a bunch of bullets), or they may not have. A thrust would have put them at risk against a knife. The knife in that space is strictly superior to their batons. If they screwed up, they stood a fair chance of getting cut or stabbed.

 

Pepper spray or a Taser would have been better. At the very least, getting sprayed is going to be a huge distraction, letting the other officer take physical control. And if the officers eat some pepper spray blow back? Tough crap. They're trained to fight through it.** The last time someone hit me with the stuff, I disarmed the idiot and smacked them repeatedly about the head and shoulders. It's something any soldier has experienced (though with CS in my time), and it is not a fight ender if you know what to expect.

 

IMO, police training needs a good hard look from the ground up, everywhere in this country.

 

 

 

* So far. Who knows what will come to light after this is investigated. It's not like SPD has a great track record in that regard.

 

**(Or should be. One of the articles Cancer linked made it seem like this training was new. But it was also pretty clear that the author had no prior experience, so I'm not sure which bits he mentioned were actually new. Every other state certification for pepper spray I'm aware of requires the person to at the very least take a shot in the face from it. I don't see why WA state would be different in that minimum standard since so much is copied/shared among states. Police training is actually fairly standard across the country AFAIK.)

 

Edit Apologies if this seems a bit rambly. It's late for me. I tried to clean it up and keep it on topic as best I can.

[Cygnia]

This seems pertinent...

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/?utm_term=.7d4766aef5b5

[Pattern Ghost]

This seems pertinent...

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/?utm_term=.7d4766aef5b5

 

That's one seriously twisted individual.

[Cygnia]

That's one seriously twisted individual.

And apparently very popular when it comes to police training.

[Pattern Ghost]

And apparently very popular when it comes to police training.

 

I heard a bit of the press conference on the shooting on the car radio today. Apparently, had the officers used less lethal options were they available, they'd have been in violation of department policy.

 

Other bits from that radio segment:

 

The woman apparently had been released from care by a mental health court. The police representative said she should not have been and that they believe it was a case of suicide by cop. He's probably correct on both counts, but a policy that forces officers to be used as tools of suicide instead of use their own judgment to help the person doesn't do anyone any good.

 

Seems SPD has a long way to go from the top down.

[sinanju]

They may have had room to take a shot at her traps or collar bone (or noggin, which is technically lethal force but still better than a bunch of bullets), or they may not have. A thrust would have put them at risk against a knife. The knife in that space is strictly superior to their batons. If they screwed up, they stood a fair chance of getting cut or stabbed.

 

This is fantasy. In the real world, you aim for center of mass. Period. Anything else increases the risk to you, and to anyone behind the target, because it vastly increases the chances that you'll miss completely. Meaning that you could hit a bystander, and/or the target could close and attack you with the knife.

 

Otherwise, though, I pretty much agree. A former cop friend of mine (he worked corrections, and was on the corrections SWAT team) swears by tasers. He says (and I believe him) that he's read all the reports claiming tasers can kill people, and that he's also searched out and read the primary sources they cite--and it's bogus. In pretty much every case there's at least one and usually several other far more plausible causes of death. And, having to extract a homicidal AND suicidal prisoner from a small cell which he's covered with his own blood and sh*t to make it slippery, while waving around a sharp piece of the *steel* mirror he shouldn't have been able to break in the first place...yeah, a taser is really useful. Nobody does anything useful while they're being tased, which gives them a chance to grab and subdue him with minimal risks.

 

So, yeah, if the cops are already carrying a firearm, a radio, handcuff, possibly a flashlight, and a baton--a taser or a can of pepper spray isn't that much more, even if you have to worry about 'tactical girth'.

 

On the other hand, having heard his stories of dealing with stupid policies imposed by politicians (real politicians and the upper management who might as well be), it may well be that the Seattle cops would agree that having pepper spray and or a taser would be a good idea--but they're not allowed. So they do the best they can with the tools they're given.

[Nolgroth]

I wish we had tasers for forced cell moves. We had a plastic shield backed up by five annoyed brutes who were torn between irritation at having to the FCM in the first place, yet looking forward to the adrenaline high once it started. Usually not a good outcome for any of the inmates we moved. A taser might have saved some pulled muscles and bruises.

 

I'm not going to comment on the Seattle shooting.

 

As for the article about the police trainer, on its face it looks horrible. Heck, the whole thing about video games training an entire generation to be killers is so absurd as to make me chuckle at the levels of close-minded stupidity involved in that opinion forming process. On the other hand, the article is filled with histrionic tone and seemingly cherry picked quotes used to support the opinion of the author. On the balance, it sounds to me like a professional speaker who knows how to wind up his audience by using inflammatory remarks, opinions and whatnot. He also is probably, in part, in need of some counseling or perhaps a moderate dose of Haldol. 

[Pattern Ghost]

This is fantasy. In the real world, you aim for center of mass.

 

That wasn't in the least bit fantasy. It was probably skimming on your part.

 

I was talking about baton options, not firearms. Trust me, I used to do the job, not just play one on TV. (Thankfully, I never had to do the job as a civilian, as they have it much worse.)

[sinanju]

That wasn't in the least bit fantasy. It was probably skimming on your part.

 

I was talking about baton options, not firearms. Trust me, I used to do the job, not just play one on TV. (Thankfully, I never had to do the job as a civilian, as they have it much worse.)

 

Yeah, I missed that. Okay, then. We're in violent agreement.

[Pattern Ghost]

Short article on officer's statements from that Seattle shooting.

 

From the article:

 

 

The two officers say they had no choice but to use lethal force after Lyles, a mother of four, tried to stab Officer Jason Anderson in the stomach and cornered Officer Steven McNew in the kitchen.

 

So, they're saying she went on the offensive.

 

I still think they should have had better less lethal options available to use in the window before she went on the offense.

[Nolgroth]

I think they should have gone all Battlefield Hardline on her and tapped her preemptively with a headshot so that they could get the bonus points. Violent video games are, afterall, training an entire generation to be killers.

 

Maybe I should let that go and blow some stuff up in Fallout.

[wcw43921]

Sacramento Police Shoot And Kill 22-Year Old Man Armed With A Cellphone

 

The Root: Why "He Should Have Just Complied" Does Not Apply

[Ragitsu]

Twenty shots? Christ almighty...

[Old Man]

Well, black men in the dark are really terrifying.  /s

[wcw43921]

California Proposal Would Limit Police Use Of Deadly Force

[megaplayboy]

 

Charles M. Blow

 

@CharlesMBlow

·

Apr 2

 

 

I never cease to be amazed by the lengths to which some readers will go to try to convince me that some unarmed black person shot dead by the police needed to be shot dead. It’s almost like they are trying to insulate themselves from societal guilt and societal shame.