>Those other 3 officers (and the entire department) need to have skin in the game in that situation.
Lot of arm chair cops here today.
Did you read the autopsy report? He died because of drug overdose in his system and his heart condition. Nothing about lack of oxygen. But we want to charge the cops no matter what. In addition to no obeying officers and resisting the arrest.
Go ask the innocent individuals who have lost their life's hard work in riots because there are no cops protecting innocent people, as they have been told to stand down.
This is just willful ignorance. The entire problem with police is the lack of accountability. They don't get fired even when they commit murder, let alone go to jail.
> The entire time, the officers' job is to protect themselves and their fellow officers.
>This is unpopular, but I believe it to be true, I think.
Your belief is simply wrong. The risk of dying in a line of duty for cops is quite low, being a LE is not even in the first top 10 dangerous professions. Most deaths are due to the traffic incidents.[0]
>Aaron was a great kid, but the majority of people brought into the station aren't.
Who defines that? Police? Nice circular logic you've got there. Until the court says otherwise they are citizens whose rights should be upheld as much as possible.
Also it's great that US has such upstanding citizens as you, protecting the real opressed minority - policemen. If Aaron would be wearing his shoes, who knows what grave harm could he do to a police station full of armed cops?
EDIT
I digged a little deeper and found out that number of police deaths in the line of duty during latest years had been around 100/year[1].
At least 1450 were people killed by police since May 2013[2].
I don't wish that on you but there would be a certain ironical justice if police apologists like you would experience non-lethal brutality themeselves. Maybe then you would learn something.
>The cop is within their right to stop someone they find to be doing bad things
No they aren't. A cop has no right to kill someone unless that person is an immediate threat to the safety of others. A person calmly walking away is not a threat. Considering the number of guns in this country and the laws of many jurisdictions a person with a gun in not necessarily a threat either. Cops in this country are way too trigger happy.
>Their. Life. Is. Over. For iPod theft.
Prison does not mean their life is over. Suicide means their life is over. Plenty of people live happy and fulfilling lives after getting out of prison. Acting like this person's life is over because of potential jailtime is an insult to anyone who has served time.
And you are also ignoring that this person hasn't even been convicted or sentenced yet. As other people in this thread have stated, it is unclear if Swartz would have even served time for this even if convicted. The treats of the maximum penalty were potentially a bargaining tactic to get a plea deal. That is something that happens constantly in this country and another facet of our legal system that I don't support.
> If anything, the better defended our cops are, the less excuse they have to use lethal force. If a cop knew his life was never in danger, he would have almost no reason to use lethal force.
On what grounds are you making this claim? There are countless families of slain, unarmed citizens shot by police who would say otherwise.
> When a cop is murdered by a civilian, there's very little in the way of good reason why the civilian should be willing/required to use lethal force; The proper remedy for abuses of power by the police is a day in court, as broken as that can be.
The cop never gets his day in court. Go on, look it up. Almost no cop-on-civilian homicides ever go to trial. Charges are never filed. It's not in the interests of prosecutors to cross law enforcement.
By the way, look up Randy Weaver. He was acquitted of murdering law enforcement officers on the basis of self-defense. Unfortunately, the FBI sniper who shot his wife in the head while she was holding their baby was never charged.
> When a cop murders a civilian, there's a very plausible reason: He felt his life was threatened, and is authorized to use lethal force in that situation.
It's the right of everyone, not just cops, to defend themselves with lethal force. The difference is that I, as a civilian, would not get away with shooting a woodcarver to death just because he was holding a carving knife. Someone who volunteers to protect civilians for a living should have an equal or higher bar for self-defense, not a lower one. It's the duty of a police officer to risk his life to protect a civilian, not the other way around.
> a significant part of that is assholes like you who seem to think that violence against police officers is justified
I don't think violence against police officers is justified, you fascist pig. I think what's justified is for killer cops to have their day in court, not just suspension without pay followed by a graceful early retirement.
> I didn’t supply any examples. You have me confused with someone else.
Noted, and the previous comment has since been edited to reflect this correction.
> Daniel Shaver wasn’t armed and therefore is not an example of someone exercising their 2nd amendment right and being killed by police.
I think my point still stands, and is perhaps even stronger. How does the contrast between police killing an armed (legally armed, but armed nonetheless) black man and the police killing an unarmed white man demonstrate racial bias?
> He was killed with impunity because the person who killed him was not punished. Well, not in any meaningful or commensurate way.
The government attempted to punish the police officer. But we live in a country with checks and balances, and the jury did not convict. Again, what more do you want the government to do? Send in goons carry out extrajudicial punishment?
> but you have to admit that the first few protests and property damage drastically influenced the quick arrest of an officer that may not have been arrested or even fired if it didn't happen.
Why, is there evidence of this? It isn't very obvious to me that he wouldn't get arrested and charged otherwise, this case is way clearer than any other controversial police killing I've seen.
> I’m not sure I agree with that. I don’t think a good cop should have his pension harmed because a different cop in some other precinct did wrong.
Quite the opposite. Police are paid tax money to enforce the law and prevent crime, regardless of perpetrator. If they can't do this, they don't deserve the money.
They should be scrutinizing their own ranks first and foremost, as they are granted special privileges (i.e. weapons) that make breaking the law easier and more convenient.
> Your entire claim is a red herring, unless you're claiming it's somehow better that cops murder non-black people and get away with it.
It's not a red herring. The implication that "police murder blacks" is that there is a racist component in police murder, but the data show that this isn't the case, at least not in the last decade. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not this is better or worse.
> So I ask you: are you defending cops murdering people and getting away with it? If not, why are you posting? I suppose it's academically interesting if cops murder all the races evenly, but it sure comes across as if you're defending cops murdering people and getting away with it.
No, of course I'm not defending murder. I'm posting because fixing problems requires properly understanding them. I understand that many people have no qualm with worsening the problems they purportedly care about so long as it lets them get a punch in against some group of people they dislike; however, that's not really my style.
> I made it VERY clear this officer seems to be out of line. My comment was more on officers in general being extremely cautious in the US .
It isn't caution. It is a lack of consequences combined with political propaganda consumed by a small minority of police officers.
Most police officers are fine. The problem is a small subset have realized they don't face consequences if they act this way and the propaganda they consume encourages that behavior.
> And no matter how you slice it, police work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities and murders of police have been falling for decades—per resident, per officer and even in in absolute terms.
> In 2016, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous
> Of course, this type of specious reasoning is ludicrous. A perfunctory look at the raw numbers might be enough to influence the easily persuadable into believing that no war on cops exists, or that there hadn't been a better, safer time to be a police officer in decades, but as with any data set there is more to the numbers than meets the eye.
> Since the outgrowth of unfettered, anti-police rhetoric took hold of the public discourse in the wake of Ferguson and Baltimore, the job of the average police officer has become more difficult and dangerous.
"Ignore statisics, we feel its more dangerous because of anti-police rhetoric"
> When greater numbers of officers remove themselves from inherently dangerous self-initiated enforcement situations, the likelihood of injury or death correspondingly drops. That doesn't mean that society is any less dangerous or that the job of the average street cop is any safer, however.
Aka "We take less unnecessary risks, everyone is safer" somehow became in the mind of the article's author "more dangerous" for everyone.
They shouldn't be taking these "self-intiated enforcement actions" (like what happened to the OP) in the first place because what the OP experienced is what these sorts of things look like. They are dangerous to everyone involved and make everyone less safe.
Its really quite frightening the level of doublethink the political supporters of police engage in. Its also quite frightening when you realize a substantial percentage of police officers with similar political beliefs share that behavior.
This is a new argument that you didn't make previously and one I was not refuting. I'm not sure why you stated this.
> He died of a drug overdose.
And this is not true no matter how much you downvote me.
https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNHENNE/2020/06/...
> Cause of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression
> Manner of death: Homicide
Literally the coroners release states that although he had fentanyl in his system, that did not kill him.
reply