"To Protect And Serve"...Er...Uh
In yet another chapter in my book on the subject of excessive use of force by our nation's finest (see Your "Protection" At Work), we find a philosophical conundrum on two points.
First, and most basic, shooting a person armed with a crochet hook. That's right, apparently a cop-killing, street-sweeping crochet hook. So let me pose this reductio ad absurdum to you folks...Let's say you are awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone breaking into your home. You grab your gun (of which you had to provide everything but a fecal sample to prove your ability to possess) and see a bad guy lunging at you, so you shoot and kill the assailant. The police come to investigate and find you killed a person lunging at you with a...Oh, let's say...Crochet hook. In the world of civilians using excessive force, which do you think is going to happen: 1) The police pat you on the back and say they understand your fear and need to defend your family in your home or 2) You are arrested for using a gun on a person wielding a crochet hook. I'll give you a hint...Make sure your spouse has bail money and a good lawyer available.
Yet apparently if you have been sworn to protect and serve the public, given enough weaponry, body armor and back-up officers to make an Army Reserve unit happy, you can go ahead and shoot a person "coming at you" with sewing device. Nice.
The second issue I take umbrage with is the fact that the police officers involved reported thinking the crochet hook was a "knife or pick axe". Are you kidding me?! In case you don't know what a crochet hook looks like, comparing one to a knife or pick axe is like comparing a #2 pencil to a baseball bat! Yet, if you go to trial in a dispute with a police officer, the courts have determined these well-trained professionals are well-trained witnesses and, as such, the judge will always take the word of a police officer over a civilian. Think about that next time you see a crochet hook and stand it next to a knife or pick axe.
What's more, this woman had already been stabbing herself in the neck...The "professional witnesses" saw that! Now, given their previous testimony, perhaps she was actually just crocheting something and the cops thought they saw her stabbing herself, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Was there blood? Could they have maybe just stepped back slowly and let herself bleed out as she approached them with the pick axe...Er, crochet hook? If they needed to act, why not just reach into their golf bag of weaponry and grab a taser or a billy club or whatever other selection of non-lethal choices available to them? I guess the trigger finger is a little itchier when you know there are no legal consequences to your actions. Oddly enough, two "well-trained" officers who came to a scene to keep a woman from killing herself simply provided her a better method to complete her task.
So, who's going to protect us from the "protectors?"
First, and most basic, shooting a person armed with a crochet hook. That's right, apparently a cop-killing, street-sweeping crochet hook. So let me pose this reductio ad absurdum to you folks...Let's say you are awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone breaking into your home. You grab your gun (of which you had to provide everything but a fecal sample to prove your ability to possess) and see a bad guy lunging at you, so you shoot and kill the assailant. The police come to investigate and find you killed a person lunging at you with a...Oh, let's say...Crochet hook. In the world of civilians using excessive force, which do you think is going to happen: 1) The police pat you on the back and say they understand your fear and need to defend your family in your home or 2) You are arrested for using a gun on a person wielding a crochet hook. I'll give you a hint...Make sure your spouse has bail money and a good lawyer available.
Yet apparently if you have been sworn to protect and serve the public, given enough weaponry, body armor and back-up officers to make an Army Reserve unit happy, you can go ahead and shoot a person "coming at you" with sewing device. Nice.
The second issue I take umbrage with is the fact that the police officers involved reported thinking the crochet hook was a "knife or pick axe". Are you kidding me?! In case you don't know what a crochet hook looks like, comparing one to a knife or pick axe is like comparing a #2 pencil to a baseball bat! Yet, if you go to trial in a dispute with a police officer, the courts have determined these well-trained professionals are well-trained witnesses and, as such, the judge will always take the word of a police officer over a civilian. Think about that next time you see a crochet hook and stand it next to a knife or pick axe.
What's more, this woman had already been stabbing herself in the neck...The "professional witnesses" saw that! Now, given their previous testimony, perhaps she was actually just crocheting something and the cops thought they saw her stabbing herself, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Was there blood? Could they have maybe just stepped back slowly and let herself bleed out as she approached them with the pick axe...Er, crochet hook? If they needed to act, why not just reach into their golf bag of weaponry and grab a taser or a billy club or whatever other selection of non-lethal choices available to them? I guess the trigger finger is a little itchier when you know there are no legal consequences to your actions. Oddly enough, two "well-trained" officers who came to a scene to keep a woman from killing herself simply provided her a better method to complete her task.
So, who's going to protect us from the "protectors?"
Labels: excessive force, police brutality
posted by Invictus | 2:14 PM
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