Pattern Ghost

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Playlist of English (mostly) language covers:
 

Can there be anything greater than a serious news report with a real groaner of a pun for a headline?
 
Calibri in spotlight as Fontgate could leave Pakistan sans Sharif

They'll probably find an unknown who will work for peanuts.

They'll probably find an unknown who will work for peanuts.

They'll probably find an unknown who will work for peanuts.

They'll probably find an unknown who will work for peanuts.

There's a Hero 5er joke in here somewhere, but probably in poor taste.

Smells like a retcon to me...

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.

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.
 
 
 
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.

Privatization tends to deliver services more efficiently in terms of economic bottom line. But it does this because its priority is profitability, not serving the public (which is what all capitalism is necessarily based upon). Private companies will eliminate elements of their business which aren't profitable whenever possible. This frequently has a negative impact on people who use those services. OTOH serving the public is (in principle) the priority of government, at least representative government.

Government run healthcare, in the form of public mental health systems in California, measurably perform better in terms of access, timeliness, and outcomes than private sector counterparts.
 
That's a fact. Part of my job is the data analysis for those programs in my region. They generally serve 40+% of eligible populations for serious mental illness, versus private sector plans serving 5-6% of eligible population (with moderate or lower levels of mental illness).
 
That's the case across the board. Better targeted treatment options for specific needs, better outcomes for patients.
 
I would jump at the chance to enroll my own kids into that service model instead of the private insurance plan we have (Kaiser). But that's not an option, because of means testing.
 
I'm all for single payer. The profit motive in our healthcare system makes for a model that prioritizes insurance company profits over access and quality of care. I don't even see how that's debatable at this point.
 
Also, Medicaid is the largest insurance plan in the country. Incredible numbers of people depend on this for basic access to care (including medically necessary specialty care).
 
But the mythical benefits of privatization for all things is strong in our culture. Be a while yet before we get there I fear, but in the meantime I'll do my part to mitigate the disaster of this plan coming out of Washington.

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.
 
 
 
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.

What can I say, universal health care works in my country. It doesn't work perfectly. There are flaws that certainly could and should be improved, and many Canadians talk about reforming elements of it. But no one is denied basic health care because they can't pay. No one here seriously suggests the system should be scrapped. None of us want to change to any of the American models. And we devote a smaller fraction of our GDP to health care costs than the United States does.
 
A system that relies on "the fundamental goodness of people" can work. Whether a particular formula works is an entirely different discussion.

Behold: America, the shining city on a hill.

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.
 
 
 
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.

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.
 
 
 
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.

There's a Photoshopped version of Paul Ryan's presentation that summarizes it accurately. 

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.

You left out the "with knife" part there. Two, according to the article.
 
Seattle needs to look at its requirements for less lethal force. According to local radio, Seattle PD officers have a choice of carrying (at least, I assume, since I've seen cops carrying all three in Seattle) one of three less lethal options (Taser, pepper spray, baton). Both officers appear to have chosen baton. A reason given by several officers interviewed by the local talk radio guy is legal complications for Taser (stats showing more likely to be sued), and pepper spray blowback. IMO, both of those reasons are BS, but they seem to be the prevailing reasoning of officers in Seattle given the choice of what to carry.
 
IMO, police should be required to carry either the pepper spray or Taser in addition to the baton. You don't fight a knife with a baton. In this case, I probably would have myself, but it's unreasonable to ask officers to risk getting knifed by going into melee with a knife. That only left these officers with their sidearms as a response. I think had they had pepper spray or a Taser, they could have settled it with no loss of life.

Well, he is until he's fired.

Well, he is until he's fired.

You're new to this internet thing, aren't you? 

Careful Old Man, you're almost sounding idealistic there. Your reputation as a cynic is in danger.