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Post 22 Jul 2016, 5:28 am

and no doubt the police will be sued.
You follow the orders, THEN you figure out if they were warranted.And then you can sue them. In a police state you are not able to sue them as they are the end all be all, we have recourse.

You have no idea why the officer is making a command and your ignoring it can very well get you into trouble, even shot. But you know that of course!

Your entire argument is completely wrong yet you persist.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 9:55 am

This bothers me this sort of deferential thinking with regard to the police. Power corrupts and police are given enormous power after going through, what, a six month academy. We need to hold all government agents accountable for their use of power. We're subject to lethal force or serious bodily injury because we don't immediately comply with orders? What the heck is this? Police are given certainly narrowly prescribed powers. Regardless of whether someone immediately complies with their orders they still must use reasonable force under the circumstances. They can only use lethal force if reasonably in fear of death or serious bodily injury.

I happened to be watching Nancy Grace (at the gym, captive audience) and she was showing a video where a behavioral therapist with his hands in the air in the middle of the street got shot along with a severely autistic adult playing with a toy truck. It was beyond ridiculous. And Nancy Grace was complaining about some police officers not caring about the lives of some members of the community. Wow.

Here is an interesting article about the legal standards for the police using deadly force.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ce/402181/
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:20 am

Are you saying that non-compliance is a better course of action? I disagree completely if so.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:22 am

I saw that as well and no doubt the police will be sued (Thank God that man shot is alive).
They do have powers to demand this and that but they must have reason to do so and are accountable. Nobody is saying they never abuse this power, nobody is saying they are always right either. The problem is, if you are commanded to drop to your knees, YOU can't decide whether you should or not and they have the right to make and expect such a command to be followed.

Again, you did nothing wrong
You are walking along and a cop jumps out shouting for you to get on your knees.
You do not get to decide if this was right or not, you must follow the orders.

Later you find out why the command was made
Maybe you fit the description of an armed psycho killer on the loose? They check you out and send you on your way...no problem. Or you find out this moron is on a power trip and simply didn't like your looks, you have recourse!

But you do not get to decide to follow or not or yes, you possibly face bad consequences.
This use of reasonable force is quite iffy, often we see that abused but more often we hear about a cop shooting an unarmed man, the part where the cop was getting beaten is lost and all we hear is an unarmed person was shot. Why are "most" (not all!) of these cases found in the cops favor? Because they are under great pressure and when people do not comply with these orders, already the situation is tense, it only gets worse from there.

If people would comply, we would see very little problems.
(That example you saw on Nancy Grace was a travesty and is an exception to the norm, that cop should absolutely be sued and the citizen WILL win)
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:27 am

Reading that link, should the cops have waited until they were first stabbed by the knife wielding bandit? He had a knife, he refused to drop it, he walked towards the officers, he got shot.

Granted FORTY SEVEN bullets is insane!
But once one shoots, the fingers already on the triggers also go off but 7 cops, that's almost 7 shots per cop! A shot or three would have been appropriate but his getting shot, he brought it on himself, mentally unstable or not, hell, a mentally unstable person is even MORE likely to stab a cop!?

Do you expect police to use deadly force only after they are shot/stabbed?
It doesn't work that way!
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:36 am

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... chief-says

So, when the black carer of an autistic man was accidentally shot, it was not an accidental discharge, but a failed attempt to shoot the autistic guy, in order to "Save" the black guy.

Neither were armed. The black carer was complying. The autistic guy was not, but it seems likely he was not understanding the situation.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:37 am

The fact is both sides are right.

1. The police are right to expect compliance from those they stop and are justified to use force to gain that compliance when someone is resisting.

2. Citizens are right to believe they have rights, namely, because they do. Citizens are also right that some cops abuse their role and use unnecessary force, especially in the case of dealing with black people, specifically men.

So now what are we going to do? Both sides are right as I see it. Neither side is wrong. So what is next?

Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, tackled similar situations via his Butler Battle Book and his parable concerning the Zax. No, I'm not making light of the situation. On the contrary, Geisel was a theologian and a very effective one. His work has been used the world over for conflict-resolution. Geisel masterfully boiled situations like the one we're discussing here down to a child's level.

I wonder what would happen if both sides were forced to play out the following scenario...

http://www.schoolcounselingbyheart.com/2012/03/18/introduce-conflict-resolution-with-the-zax/
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:43 am

GMTom wrote:Reading that link, should the cops have waited until they were first stabbed by the knife wielding bandit? He had a knife, he refused to drop it, he walked towards the officers, he got shot.

Granted FORTY SEVEN bullets is insane!
But once one shoots, the fingers already on the triggers also go off but 7 cops, that's almost 7 shots per cop! A shot or three would have been appropriate but his getting shot, he brought it on himself, mentally unstable or not, hell, a mentally unstable person is even MORE likely to stab a cop!?

Do you expect police to use deadly force only after they are shot/stabbed?
It doesn't work that way!
Hmm. Clearly it was overkill. I thought cops often wore stab-proof vests and ought to be trained in self defence. Not sure how close he was and "walking" and being shot by 7 cops suggests some distance (or the cops would have risked hitting one another) so hard to be sure that the threat was that direct.

I think a big part of the issue is reliance on firearms instead of other means. It can escalate a situation and also mean the cops then can't change to another means (eg tazer, spray, baton).
Last edited by danivon on 22 Jul 2016, 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:49 am

bbauska wrote:Are you saying that non-compliance is a better course of action? I disagree completely if so.

It is not always a choice (my examples of stroke, deafness, autism bear this out). And if the police are overstepping their authority, it's not necessarily easy to accept. If they demanded to search your house with no warrant, do you just let them in?

If the commands are contradictory - eg provide ID but not move - how can you follow that?

By the way - more cops are killed by white assailants in the US than black.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 10:54 am

For self-preservation I am going to obey police orders even if I think they are full of it. But there will be situations where people don't comply for many different reasons (on drugs, drunk, mentally ill, confused, suicidal, they committed a crime and trying to get away from police, police have acted aggressively against them, they are angry at their spouse or that they just got fired, officer-induced confusion, etc.) We don't excuse unlawful force in those situations by saying that people should comply with a police officer's commands. We don't say that we would not have any problems with unlawful force if only people complied with police commands. Those are red herrings.

I don't like it when people point to excessive force situations and say there would not have been a problem if the person complied, because that is essentially saying the police have carte blanche to do whatever they want when someone does not comply. We did not give them that power. They have to do what is reasonable under the circumstances. And given the inexactness of what is reasonable I am certain that police will be given a certain amount of slack in making these calls. But clearly there are some police that are making some very poor decisions out there.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 11:09 am

freeman3 wrote:I don't like it when people point to excessive force situations and say there would not have been a problem if the person complied, because that is essentially saying the police have carte blanche to do whatever they want when someone does not comply. We did not give them that power. They have to do what is reasonable under the circumstances. And given the inexactness of what is reasonable I am certain that police will be given a certain amount of slack in making these calls. But clearly there are some police that are making some very poor decisions out there.


This.

And I have done it before, but here is a link to the Peelian Principles, named for Robert Peel, which are the basis for how British and other Commonwealth policing approaches the relationship to citizens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

There are 9. I think they all apply, pretty much. It is not about how the public have to obey commands, but how the police and public need to respect and trust each other so they can assist each other. Force should be proportional and a last resort. The police are members of the public, and rely on the public to help them. The police should not move away from executive functions - the should avoid becoming the judiciary which hands out punishment. The goal of policing is reduced crime, not more active policing.

It never took off in the US, and you are reaping the results. A police force that fears citizens enough to justify pre-emptive killings, which means citizens are in fear of the police. Not just habitual criminals, but ordinary people.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 1:13 pm

Nope, the problem is people who feel "entitled" and do not comply!
Notice I said we would have FEW problems if they complied, there will always be a few problems of course, but the vast majority would simply go away.
Of course we all agree the two sides should work together, of course we agree force should be proportional, etc but the cop must assume some things and their life is on the line. What we have are those who refuse to listen to officers and are getting shot because of it.

What do we do?
Get people to comply!
I would have no problem with educating people WHY they need to comply and the reasons for it, let it be known that citizens do have recourse for unlawful demands and the police are accountable but compliance is paramount. we currently have a lot of thugs who think they are above having to listen to an officer, they also have no problem assaulting an officer. That behavior will get you shot, armed or not yet they keep doing it and when harmed we hear how an unarmed man was shot by a cop, nothing more. Disobeying these orders does not give police carte blanche to do as they will, nobody ever said that but it certainly puts that person at risk of having serious consequences follow and depending on the circumstances, yeah, it could include being shot. Police sometimes go too far, absolutely and again, you have recourse for this!

as far as the link and feeling the cops had 'stab proof" shirts...really?
You want to let them lunge at an officer before being stopped? I don't believe their faces are stab proof nor their necks, arms, legs, etc.
any sort of "armor" is for protection only and not meant to actually welcome attack. If a cop is wearing a bullet proof vest should he allow himself to be shot at before retaliating? ...absolutely not!

Attempt to hurt a cop and you get shot!
Courts also see it this way.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 1:43 pm

Let me see if I have your position right, Tom:

(1) People should comply;
(2) if they don't comply then whatever happens is their fault (if they're still alive they can sue if they are still sore about what happened...)
(3) We should not really care about what police do when people do not comply because that would have never happened if they did comply.

Some people are not going to comply with officer's orders. That is probably going to happen more in minority communities where there is already tension with police. People are human; not robots. The penalty for non-compliance with an officer's orders is not death. A citizen's mistakes do not justify an officer's ones. I will stipulate that it in general it is wise to comply with an officer's orders. Ok, let's get to the issue at hand where that does not happen. You can't get around the issue by saying it should never happen--of course it is going to happen. You appear to give officers somewhat of a free pass to do what they want once a person is non-compliant. Is that the way you see it?
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 2:05 pm

danivon wrote:
bbauska wrote:Are you saying that non-compliance is a better course of action? I disagree completely if so.

It is not always a choice (my examples of stroke, deafness, autism bear this out). And if the police are overstepping their authority, it's not necessarily easy to accept. If they demanded to search your house with no warrant, do you just let them in?

If the commands are contradictory - eg provide ID but not move - how can you follow that?

By the way - more cops are killed by white assailants in the US than black.


YES. You let them in, and take their butts to court and live to enjoy the spoils of the lawsuit.
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Post 22 Jul 2016, 2:09 pm

More likely is the officers claim you consented to let them in. Your word against theirs. Good luck on that.