“Bang-bang, you’re dead.” Death without counsel

[Sudsy]

I agree that a de-escalation approach would have been the right way to go. The FBI should use this first. Surrounding the house for months would be better than what they did. Sadly, too often, what was done is standard law enforcement procedure. It is inappropriate no matter what the suspect's politics.

At the end of the day, despite most people being willing to say a human life is important and priceless, the FBI can't afford to blockade houses long term. Society already complains we pay our law enforcement too much and they can't maintain those teams on constant guard of a house.
Be easier to gas them and lock them up if you get that desperate. Of course, thats assuming they don't have a gas mask, most gas masks can neutralize non deadly gases. At that point, the best you can do is lacrimal agents and hope you can destabilize them enough to take them alive.

Police have a pretty poor reputation for taking anyone alive. They have even shot people who don't threaten sitting in the road with hands above their head. Although that one was a little funny after the fact. (Man) "Why did you shoot me?" (police) "I don't know"

To the underlined - My guess is that statistically speaking there are far more people with guns taken alive than there are killed. I think police, too often, get judged overall on those few among them that are more 'trigger happy' (for lack of better words). If there are stats otherwise, I guess I will have to change my opinion. But then again, perhaps this is more of an American issue than here in Canada.

[Bootstrap]

My guess is that statistically speaking there are far more people with guns taken alive than there are killed. I think police, too often, get judged overall on those few among them that are more 'trigger happy' (for lack of better words). If there are stats otherwise, I guess I will have to change my opinion. But then again, perhaps this is more of an American issue than here in Canada.

My guess is that we simply do not have accurate statistics on this. We should. There is no central database for all police killings. That makes it hard to research. There are some statistics from third parties.

https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/ ... d-research

The Police Use of Force Project, created through the efforts of civil rights activists and researchers, found police use of force policies vary in their requirements. In a review of 91 of 100 police departments in the largest U.S. cities, they found that only 34 of the 91 departments required officers to de-escalate situations prior to using force. Only 21 departments explicitly prohibited chokeholds and strangleholds, and only 56 required officers to provide a warning before deadly force was used. The project concluded that police department policies can have a great effect on how and when force is used by officers and that more restrictive policies can both protect officers and reduce police killings.

In fact, there's not even a whole lot of useful data to clearly say what works.

https://www.ojp.gov/files/archives/blog ... t-officers

Depending on whom you ask, “de-escalation training” is either a miracle cure or a four-letter word.

As high-profile, deadly confrontations between law enforcement officers and civilians continue to generate widespread public concern, de-escalation training has been hailed as the solution for this seemingly intractable problem. Public officials and policy makers from across the political spectrum have embraced de-escalation training as the key to safer interactions between police and the public.

But for some law enforcement officers, "de-escalation" is a loaded word. "What they hear is, 'You're teaching me to hesitate, and that's gonna get me killed,'" said Robin Engel, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. "When we go in to implement this, we have to call it something else."

Engel, a nationally respected criminologist, has conducted years of research on de-escalation training and its role in law enforcement. What she found early on surprised her: Despite the conflicting claims and strong emotions, very little was proven and consistent in de-escalation training. There weren’t many standards regarding what de-escalation training should teach or how it should be implemented, and absolutely no studies examining whether or not it worked.

I find that frustrating. If we really care about saving the lives of both officers and suspects, this seems like an area where we should prioritize research to find out what works.

[Josh]

At question is whether police and federal agents are seen as an integrated part of the community, or an armed, occupying military force.

[Sudsy]

I find that frustrating. If we really care about saving the lives of both officers and suspects, this seems like an area where we should prioritize research to find out what works.

One TV series I watch at times is called Flashpoint -

Inspired by the real-life Emergency Task Force of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, this taut police drama chronicles the efforts of the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), an elite and highly skilled group of cops charged with rescuing hostages, defusing bombs and breaking up gangs. The series title comes from another part of their job, however: getting inside a suspect's head and discovering his emotional `flashpoint' that triggered the crisis in the first place.

I find it interesting how they try to get into a suspects head and take certain risks to keep from using deadly force.

[Szdfan]

Don't the TV cops shoot a lot of people their trying to arrest and it's almost always justified?

You must be watching the WRONG shows!!

You've never seen "Dirty Harry?"

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... IWillShoot

The phrase "Stop or I'll Shoot" embodies a common idea, popularized in fiction, that a police officer need only identify himself to a criminal suspect as an officer of the law, and that after this, if the suspect resists the officer, the officer is justified in containing the situation by any means he sees fit, up to and including deadly force.

This idea is flawed. In real life, police officers are required to use a reasonable amount of force, ideally the minimum necessary to contain a situation; they can't just begin shooting or swinging their nightsticks willy-nilly whenever a perp runs or tells them off, or even if a suspect fights back. Many, many lawsuits against police departments are grounded on the alleged use of "excessive force" and "Police Brutality". Indeed, in the United States, since 1985, police are not allowed to shoot a fleeing suspect unless he or she can be shown to pose a threat of death or dangerous injury to others.

However, in Hollywood, the instant a person defies a police officer, he automatically forfeits any protection against the Long Arm. As mentioned, this can include shooting him (typically, but not always, in the leg). This is the reason Suicide by Cop works so well in fiction.

[Ken]

At question is whether police and federal agents are seen as an integrated part of the community, or an armed, occupying military force.

No, that's not really a question. Most Americans trust the police and want to see MORE police spending. Pew does research on this: https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/polit ... ce/police/

As for what deranged cultists like this individual think? Who knows. They obviously shouldn't have weapons in the first place.

[Josh]

At question is whether police and federal agents are seen as an integrated part of the community, or an armed, occupying military force.

No, that's not really a question. Most Americans trust the police and want to see MORE police spending. Pew does research on this: https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/polit ... ce/police/

As for what deranged cultists like this individual think? Who knows. They obviously shouldn't have weapons in the first place.

A lot of people would like an occupying armed force to police “other” people… but folks definitely don’t like being the target of occupying police forces.

Compare the popularity of speed traps and speed cameras, for example.