Quote:
Originally Posted by competentone
And police officers have ended up dead because they pulled a weapon with a manual safety and forgot to release the safety because of the stress they were experiencing.
Yes, one could blame such a "mistake" on "inadequate" training, but even with significant training, stress can be a wild card.
Additionally, do we really want a police force made up of only "highly trained weapons specialists," who handle their firearms with absolute precision no matter how stressful the situation, or do we want officers with broader skills -- especially social skills?
Odds are, you wouldn't like living in a world where all the police officers were just those with unique "high stress capable" skills.
Again, one needs to accept that we are living in an imprecise world.
That doesn't mean we ignore a shooting like this, or excuse the officer's behavior just because "accidents happen." It does mean we don't display the "lynch mob mentality," expressed by some on this thread, when a police shooting like this occurs.
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The world I want to live in holds police accountable for their actions the same as citizens. It doesn't matter if this cop was reaching for his gun, a taser, or a doughnut. It doesn't matter if the kid is dead or alive and it doesn't matter if he limed up and shot the whole lot. What does matter is that he will not be punished for what he did because he has a badge. That is the problem. Cops can kill citizens with no repercussions and the only people who will ever look into the shooting are more crooked cops.
Like this one where a cop was shooting at a snake of all things and killed 5 year old fishing with his Grandfather. No charges filed.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292168,00.html
This is a video of a cop hitting and killing a child on a bike while traveling 30mph over the posted speed limit. No charges filed.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Police_Say_Speeding_Cruiser_Struck__Killed_Boy_Dal las-Fort_Worth.html
In this case plain clothes police shot a man 12 times in the back. No charges filed.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/09/new.orleans.shooting/
If citizens can't prosecute in a case like this when will we ever see justice?