Take the case of Officer Wilson in Ferguson: a police officer on duty. Alone. Confronted by a law breaker who refuses to cooperate, who is belligerent, and who is significantly larger than he is, the cop is left with few options. His badge and the force of law have no effect upon the law breaker other than to instill rebellious anger, actually goading the officer. Would you be happy to be in his shoes? What do you expect the officer to do! Run? Hide? He represents the law. Unable to reason with the larger man who has already attacked him, the officer fears he has few options other than to use the only tool he has been given to deal with these situations... his gun. And there-in lies the trigger for tragedy.
Wilson knows his “back-up” will not arrive in time to be of any help. Monday morning quarterbacks expect the officer to psychologically out-wit or reason with an angry law breaker in the heat of the moment. Assuming Wilson even had them, pepper spray and taser cannot be relied upon to stop an arrestee intent on fleeing or further harming the officer. Yet the officer’s duty is to arrest the law breaker. He cannot simply allow the perp to run away. His verbal commands to stop do not suffice; so, a warning shot. If this doesn’t work, he is forced to escalate. The autopsy suggests that Wilson’s first shots were aimed to disable, not to kill. Even they did not stop Brown. So...
I suppose quarterbacks could argue that even before the officer confronted Brown and his accomplice, the he might have stayed in his vehicle, out of sight until back-up arrived. Or, failing that, let the suspects run away, following them, unseen, until back-up arrives. But allowing the public to see the law backing down is an unseemly sight. Cops are out there sworn to protect the community from law breakers.
What is missing here is an alternative non-lethal tool which will guarantee to stop a belligerent arrestee without doing serious bodily harm to him. Something more restrained but more effective than a bullet. Something which will enable a cop to disable and cuff even the most maniacal perp. If only there were such a tool.
Such a device might have also avoided tragedy in the Garner incident. Still, how does an officer get a mountain of a man, even if cuffed, to voluntarily walk to a police car if he does not want to? Asking politely? Beg? Promise a burger? Threats? Of what? Cranes or other force seem to be the only options.
Murphy’s Law of unintended consequences is always at work. So even if officers had such a device, chances are that an arrestee would find a way to get himself injured, with all the attendant accusations of police brutality, and legal suits.
Cops are human beings. Putting on a badge and a uniform does not make you non-human, or super-human. No sane cop goes to work looking to hassle, abuse or kill a citizen, black or white. That takes a genuine nut. If there are such nuts or known bigots in any police force in the nation, they must be weeded out, and quickly. Preferably before they are sworn in.
Cops are human beings. Putting on a badge and a uniform does not make you non-human, or super-human. No sane cop goes to work looking to hassle, abuse or kill a citizen, black or white. That takes a genuine nut. If there are such nuts or known bigots in any police force in the nation, they must be weeded out, and quickly. Preferably before they are sworn in.
Serious questions remain about both these real-life cases. In watching the video of the incredibly clumsy arrest of Eric Garner, I can’t help but wonder about the African-American female police sergeant who appears to the rear of the fallen Garner. There she is, supervising the “take down” as if she were a wrestling referee, hunched down watching to see if a wrestler’s shoulder has been pinned down. Why isn’t the media asking why she, hearing Garner yell that he could not breathe, didn’t command her men to stop that awful business on the spot? She couldn’t possibly have believed Garner would jump up and run away at that point. Obviously she thought it was a good take-down. Doesn’t she bear at least some responsibility for this needless death? How does the supervision of this arrest by a black cop fit the “white cops hate black men” narrative served up by Sharpton et al.?
No cop should be patrolling alone in precincts where crime is at a high level. Firstly, law breakers are far less likely to try to challenge two cops and avoid arrest. Secondly, there are two pairs of eyes on each situation. Thirdly, if one cop loses his cool under pressure, the second one can cool him down, perhaps avoiding decisions made under duress, which lead to tragedy.
If the rationalization for solo patrols is budgetary, compare the cost in dollars of sitting an additional officer in Wilson’s cruiser with the cost in dollars and public relations of the ruination rained down upon Ferguson and its residents and leaders by an avoidable killing.
