Interesting commentary on the decline toward police state

[JayC]

While concerning, the fact is this isn't new...  Police Officers have had poor firearms performance at least as far back as the 1970's (when they really started collecting data)...  While firearms training budgets have drastically increased over the last 40 years, like many other government ran programs the results are lackluster at best.

 

Police Officers are 5 times more likely to kill an innocent person in a justified shooting, than an untrained citizen.

 

What has changed is the lack of punishment from the police department in these shootings...  in the 70's and 80's if you shot an innocent person by mistake, it was a career ending move, you'd be lucky not to be fired within 48 hours.  Today, firings are rare at best for the same.

 

We can do a lot to reduce these mistakes, but they will come at a slightly elevated risk of more crime...  Requiring that warrants only be served during daylight hours, and by uniformed officers knocking on the front door...  for example would help a lot.

 

Sorry for the slight thread drift, but my concern is not only of the militarization of the police forces, but the training received.

 

A lot of stories have been published lately about trigger-happy officers/deputies shooting first and asking questions later.

 

1. In the manhunt for the "rogue cop," LAPD officers riddled a truck that they thought said rogue cop was driving.  Turns out the occupants were a couple of ladies delivering newspapers.

2. A few weeks ago, a Fort Worth homeowner was shot and killed by the police on his property when they went to the wrong house while investigating a burglar alarm.  The two officers were rookies.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/07/robert-farago/wrong-house-raid-cops-kill-texas-homeowner/

 

3. Last week in FL, an unarmed man was shot (but not killed) on his property by deputies who fired 17 rounds at him.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/08/robert-farago/self-defense-tip-three-ways-not-to-get-shot-by-the-police/ 

 

This kind of crap has got to stop - now.

 

I don't know if the issue lies with no training, bad training, or what.  But too many mistakes by the police are putting too many citizens in harm's way lately.

 

Why does this concern me?  Because I home carry and I could be getting ready to go fishing at any time of the day or night.  What happens if I am putting around my garage at o'dark thirty getting my fishing gear together and some neighbor calls 911 about a prowler?

 

I would hope that the responding officer would get the correct address and use common sense before making a terrible mistake, like in the examples above.

[TMF]

Police Officers are 5 times more likely to kill an innocent person in a justified shooting, than an untrained citizen.

I think that is a very misleading number since it's comparing apples and oranges. Law enforcement is an offensive force while civilians are strictly defensive. I'm not excusing shoots like the one in LA where they shot up the women in the truck, but by default police are going to be exposed to regular situations that citizens would likely never encounter in their life.

[DaveTN]

 

Police Officers are 5 times more likely to kill an innocent person in a justified shooting, than an untrained citizen.

 

 

So you want us to believe that if we randomly pick X number of cases of shootings where the Police Officer was justified in shooting, and compare those to the same number of cases where a citizen was justified in shooting; the Police will have a number that is 5 times higher than the citizens numbers of shooting a person they did not intend to shoot?

 

yeah, okay facts...