"We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents"

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Bull.

Stand in front of a cop with a gun (or a knife) and ignore his commands to drop it. See what happens in Toronto, New York, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, etc., etc...

You're in denial. Start living in the real world.

When most people are confronted with cops wielding guns, they will stop. But many ordinary people will immediately panic and become irrational. This is a scientific fact. How else to explain why a 35 year old mother leads the police on an extended cat chase because they tried to stop her after she ran a red light? This actually happens, and it happens a lot more often than real terror threats.

If you allow the cops to open fire, you are sanctioning the killing of lots of ordinary people who experience a perfectly normal panic reaction. As I said before, the police know this, even if you don't.

You are just 100% wrong, NYE. The facts agree with me and so do the police. Why else have car chases been all but banned. Same reason applies in this case.

[notyoueither]

Apparently, the cops have been told to do just what this Bobby did.

If the guy has a belt on, having him on the ground is no assurance that he won't be able to set it off. Hense the shots to the head.

That is my understanding of it, and I am hard pressed to see how that is a bad procedure when dealing with someone who is a suspect and ignores warnings.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither
As I said earlier, I feel bad for this guy and his family.

At the same time, I do not feel the police did anything wrong.

It's a **** situation, and this guy got it all over him.

Of course they did something wrong. They killed an innocent person. This is probably not a failure of the individual officers involved, but poor policy on the part of the police as a whole. If we just said, "well, it's unfortunate, but these things happen", we are ignoring the possibility of improved policies making it less likely to happen in the future.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


You're in denial. Start living in the real world.

When most people are confronted with cops wielding guns, they will stop. But many ordinary people will immediately panic and become irrational. This is a scientific fact. How else to explain why a 35 year old mother leads the police on an extended cat chase because they tried to stop her after she ran a red light? This actually happens, and it happens a lot more often than real terror threats.

If you allow the cops to open fire, you are sanctioning the killing of lots of ordinary people who experience a perfectly normal panic reaction. As I said before, the police know this, even if you don't.

You are just 100% wrong, NYE. The facts agree with me and so do the police. Why else have car chases been all but banned. Same reason applies in this case.

No, I am not wrong. It happens frequently (at least twice in the past year in my city).

Someone acts like a threat (knife or gun in hand) and fails to respond to police demands to put it down. Bang. Dead suspect. No charges on cops.

I suggest you investigate the facts of police shootings and then get back to us.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


Of course they did something wrong. They killed an innocent person. This is probably not a failure of the individual officers involved, but poor policy on the part of the police as a whole. If we just said, "well, it's unfortunate, but these things happen", we are ignoring the possibility of improved policies making it less likely to happen in the future.

I'm not sure how you get better policies for handeling suicide bombers (falsely suspected or real).

Two cops on top of him when he detonates... not so good a result.

The cases where I have seen photos of the IDF making an arrest, the suicide bomber did exactly what he or she was told.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Apparently, the cops have been told to do just what this Bobby did.

If the guy has a belt on, having him on the ground is no assurance that he won't be able to set it off. Hense the shots to the head.

That is my understanding of it, and I am hard pressed to see how that is a bad procedure when dealing with someone who is a suspect and ignores warnings.

It's a bad procedure because 99.5% of people you suspect of being terrorist bombers aren't. The evidence in this case was flimsy. The possibility that you are ignoring is that more innocent people might die from police gunfire if a proper policy is not instituted.

What if there's an Al Qaeda agent living in my building? I know most of the people in my building as casual acquaintances, and I often speak with them. I wear funny clothes, because the climate here is not naturally suited to me. When I first got here I had trouble understanding people because of the new accent and the different social conventions. I am just like this guy was.

So the police tail me to the subway and try to stop me getting on the train. Chances are that the stress will be high and I will enter a fight or flight state and probably run. By your logic it is OK for the police to shoot me in the head.

That's insane... you're basically advocating human sacrifice so that you can feel safer. That's a mark of an authoritarian personality BTW.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by notyoueither


No, I am not wrong. It happens frequently (at least twice in the past year in my city).

Someone acts like a threat (knife or gun in hand) and fails to respond to police demands to put it down. Bang. Dead suspect. No charges on cops.

I suggest you investigate the facts of police shootings and then get back to us.

It also happens that a cop hesitates when someone is armed. Bang. Dead cop. That also happened here recently.

I prefer my cops alive, and my idiots dead, to the other way around. I'm sorry. I am being callous, but that's my preference.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither


No, I am not wrong. It happens frequently (at least twice in the past year in my city).

Someone acts like a threat (knife or gun in hand) and fails to respond to police demands to put it down. Bang. Dead suspect. No charges on cops.

I suggest you investigate the facts of police shootings and then get back to us.

Your city is ****ed. That's the problem. This hardly ever happens where I come from because the police don't carry guns. We're safer than you by far. And unlike Toronto, as an example, the cops don't get away with it on the very rare occasions they do kill someone.

You just seem to love the idea of the police shooting people. It's a typical right wing thing. You love the idea that we should all just knuckle under to authority, without questioning whether that always produces the best result.

That attitude makes people less safe.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon

It's a bad procedure because 99.5% of people you suspect of being terrorist bombers aren't. The evidence in this case was flimsy. The possibility that you are ignoring is that more innocent people might die from police gunfire if a proper policy is not instituted.

What if there's an Al Qaeda agent living in my building? I know most of the people in my building as casual acquaintances, and I often speak with them. I wear funny clothes, because the climate here is not naturally suited to me. When I first got here I had trouble understanding people because of the new accent and the different social conventions. I am just like this guy was.

So the police tail me to the subway and try to stop me getting on the train. Chances are that the stress will be high and I will enter a fight or flight state and probably run. By your logic it is OK for the police to shoot me in the head.

That's insane... you're basically advocating human sacrifice so that you can feel safer. That's a mark of an authoritarian personality BTW.

More bull. I suggest you stick to Plato and leave psychology alone.

If you are behaving like a threat and you ignore warnings, the police very well may shoot you. What is so hard to understand in that simple equation?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither

It also happens that a cop hesitates when someone is armed. Bang. Dead cop. That also happened here recently.

I prefer my cops alive, and my idiots dead, to the other way around. I'm sorry. I am being callous, but that's my preference.

You are being callous, and extremely stupid. People who get into these situations are mostly not idiots. Most of them aren't even criminals. Criminals tend to be more rational because they expect the stress. We are talking about normal people who go a bit crazy. Unlike you, I think that there are other options.

If your police weren't armed as a rule, criminals would find less need to carry guns, and situations would not escalate. It's a straightfoward Prisoner's Dilemma. Good policing attempts to prevent situations escalating. Having armed police frustrates that goal.

Why don't you come back when you actually know what you are talking about, instead of pretending this is the Wild West.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
You just seem to love the idea of the police shooting people. It's a typical right wing thing. You love the idea that we should all just knuckle under to authority, without questioning whether that always produces the best result.

That attitude makes people less safe.

No, that attitude results in live cops.

Your attitude results in dead ones. It is typical of arm chair lefties with no clue that you would value the lives of criminals over the lives of cops.

Let me know which one is more workable next time the police try to recruit new members, OK?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


You are being callous, and extremely stupid. People who get into these situations are mostly not idiots. Most of them aren't even criminals. Criminals tend to be more rational because they expect the stress. We are talking about normal people who go a bit crazy. Unlike you, I think that there are other options.

If your police weren't armed as a rule, criminals would find less need to carry guns, and situations would not escalate. It's a straightfoward Prisoner's Dilemma. Good policing attempts to prevent situations escalating. Having armed police frustrates that goal.

Why don't you come back when you actually know what you are talking about, instead of pretending this is the Wild West.

You think gangs would do without guns if the cops didn't have them?



What a fool.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


Your city is ****ed. That's the problem. This hardly ever happens where I come from because the police don't carry guns. We're safer than you by far. And unlike Toronto, as an example, the cops don't get away with it on the very rare occasions they do kill someone.

You're safer due to unarmed cops, are you? What about this fella?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/sep2000/nz-s07.shtml

New Zealand police exonerated in the killing of young Maori
By John Braddock
7 September 2000
Use this version to print

A police inquiry into the killing of a young Maori has exonerated the police officer involved on the basis that he acted in self-defence. The report, made public nearly four months after the young man's slaying, has provoked demonstrations and anger from Maori protesters, who accuse the police of racism. It has also left the victim's family vowing to fight for an independent inquiry into the killing.

The events leading up to Wallace's death began at about 3.30am on Sunday April 30, when, after coming home from a New Plymouth nightclub, he exploded into a rage and drove to the local fire station where he smashed several windows. The young man proceeded to a supermarket, smashing more windows, before heading to the police station where he broke more windows. He then drove wildly along the main street of the rural township of Waitara, until his car collided with a taxi. Leaving the car, he walked along the street, smashing shop windows with a baseball bat and golf club.

What happened next was initially the subject of conflicting accounts. Wallace was confronted by two police officers, one of whom shot him at close range, firing at least four bullets into his chest. The cops claim he had broken the windscreen of a police vehicle, then advanced towards them, still wielding the baseball bat and threatening to kill them. According to the police version, Wallace was shot while continuing to approach them after a warning shot had been fired over his head. An ambulance arrived shortly after 4am and took Wallace to the main provincial hospital in New Plymouth, where he later died.

[Asher]

I am utterly amazed by the inability of many people on this site to figure out the difference between hindsight and what decisions have to be made in realtime.

The cops made the correct decision based on what they knew, all of this noise from mentally impotent moral crusaders is just grating. They'll keep harping that "they killed an innocent man", but they don't seem to comprehend what would've happened had the police not done what they did and the "innocent man" was just like the other 8 men -- taking out dozens of people with him.

Can you imagine these same people's fury if that happened? "They should have shot him as soon as he left the building if they thought he was a terrorist!"

[Wiglaf]

Asher, they should have arrested him as soon as he left the building if they thought he had a bomb.