Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirty Dane
It was reported he smashed windows.
Point is, he didn't shoot to protect others, but to protect himself. He could drive forward and no one had to be killed.
I don't think the officer should be charged unless he killed intentionally. He was first at the scene and obviously not trained good enough to handle that situation. He needs better training or they have to let him go. Kill should always be the last resort for skilled officers.
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Well, I personally won't make that kind of call without knowing exactly what went down. We see the video, but once the guy moves towards the driver's side of the car you hear breaking class, but you don't know what happened. We don't know what the guy did. Was he just standing there? Did he charge the cop? Was he breaking the windows out of the driver's side door of the cop car trying to get at the cop? We don't know. I'll restrain from assuming he was under-trained and could have had better options without knowing that stuff.
Here is the problem with most police. Almost all police are vastly under-trained. They go through the academy and then are lucky if they get once a year follow-ups. The cops in the town I live in get once a year hand to hand tactics, 2-3 times per year where they qualify with their guns and 1-2 times per year doing what the call con-sim. This is where they have real guns that shoot paint bullets and you do live shoot/non-shoot scenarios with them. Most of the scenarios they do are taken from real life instances where officers have died. The idea is that they arrive on scene with only a little information from dispatch and then end up in a situation where they have to decide if and when to shoot. They follow the scenario out until the bad guys are dead or the situation is defused. That amount of training is about twice what the the average cop in my state gets. There are guys that work for some of the bigger cities who have never had con-sim training and only do the gun once per year and hand to hand once per year.
That is it. That is all the training. Occasionally they get a class here and there, but those are normally for specialized things like DUI etc.
Here is the kicker. Con-sim used to be mandatory in all the reserve academies. They would get at least 3 days of this before being allowed to become a reserve cop. That just got cut so all the new reserves from here on will not get that training.
It's not the cops fault. It is the politicians who keep cutting budgets and wasting money everywhere but where it is needed. In the end all the training in the world can't prepare you fully for the real thing so with most of these guys you have no idea exactly how they will react until they are in the situation. My buddy (who is a cop in my town) tells me that of the 12 officers they have there are only 4 of 5 of them that he really feels safe backing him up. It's pretty sad, but that is how it works.