You don’t have to read this ….
BUT?
If you are interested in digging deeper into what cops in the street REALY are trained to do and the impossibilities they have to deal with in split second decisions…Read on…..
You might understand why they are often given the benefit of the doubt in lethal force situations after the fact when people have time to review things…
And YES…
Some times cops make the wrong decision…..
They are after all human beings like you and me….
Reality for cops has little to do with cop entertainment TV show’s or the movies…
The shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio, has produced a torrent of objections to how police respond to armed suspects. Some, like MSNBC host Joy Reid, simply declare that the use of lethal force to stop a knife attack is “murder.” “The View” co-host Joy Behar thinks officers who come upon someone about to knife another person should shoot into the air, as a warning. President Biden has long maintained that police officers should shoot armed suspects in the leg.
However, there is a reason why police manuals do not say “aim for the leg” or “try to shoot the weapon out of the suspect’s hand.” It is called “imminent harm,” the standard governing all police shootings. The fact that many of us describe such shootings as “justified” is not to belittle these tragedies but to recognize the underlying exigencies that control the use of lethal force.
In the slow motion videos of shootings played on cable television, there often seems to be endless opportunities for de-escalation or alternatives to lethal force. None of us want to hear of the loss of another young life like Bryant’s. But Biden’s suggestion — that “instead of anybody coming at you and the first thing you do is shoot to kill, you shoot them in the leg” — is not exactly how it works, practically or legally.
When officers use lethal force, it is meant to “neutralize the threat,” not to kill someone. They are trained to fire for the center of the body because it minimizes the chances of a miss while maximizing the chances of neutralizing the suspect. Shooting for the hand or leg or weapon can endanger others and may not neutralize a suspect. Likewise, officers are not trained to use nonlethal force, like a taser, to stop a lethal attack. Tasers are sometimes ineffective in neutralizing suspects. If there is an imminent threat of lethal force, officers use lethal force to end that threat….