Another person killed by the cops

Nathaniel_B

Ahhhh here we go again. Cops killing people as usual, and no wonder people don't support or feel safe around them. 

MayCaesar

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the police system in the US is extremely low training standards. A police officer is a very important profession, it is a core of law enforcement in any society. They should, at the very least, receive education equivalent in time and effort to getting a Bachelor's + Master's degree at a decent university, have to regularly train in martial arts, shooting techniques and psychological drills, and take periodic law and physical shape tests. Look at how Navy Seals are trained, starting from enrolling in the army and ending with retirement - while I am not saying that every police officer should be held to THAT kind of standards, it does give some ideas on what we should learn to expect from officers.

On the other hand, what we have is questionable 6 months long programs, barely any professional standards past the graduation point and the "everyone who enrolls will get a job, no matter how poorly they do" system. You will often see overweight, if not outright obese, officers having trouble walking from their car to yours - how can you expect them to perform professionally in a dangerous situation?

A well trained all-rounded police officer should be proficient in melee and ranged combat, and should be able to keep calm under stress. Such an officer, should things get hot, will be able to resolve the situation the best way possible, making use of every tool in their possession to achieve the bloodless outcome. 
But as it stands, when the biggest effort an officer has to make daily is to choose which burger to buy at McDonalds - then, of course, as soon as things get anywhere near danger, they will panic and overreact just to ensure their own survival.

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I have a very high degree of respect for any police officer, including American ones, and my experiences with the police so far have been exclusively and overwhelmingly positive. At the same time, I live in a very quite and safe neighborhood, and rarely anything bigger than a wallet theft happens around here. I imagine the experiences may be quite different for people living on the outskirts of Chicago or Detroit.

Applesauce

Nathaniel_B said:

Ahhhh here we go again. Cops killing people as usual, and no wonder people don't support or feel safe around them. 

A bit extreme if you compare Chicago this past month to unjustified police cause deaths in the whole U.S.  Afaik there's not a national standard for law enforcement training or perhaps the standards are just that low.  There's also a shortage so to make it more difficult or burdensome to enter the field seems counter productive.  Not matter what the system you can weed out the nut jobs who actually join so they can bully people and even shoot them.  In this case it would have been easy to block the tractor or impound it.  If he tried to drive over the police cars he would have been shot (probably) and ruled justified.  Cops like these want to also be the judges (Judge Dread) and dole out the punishment or at the very least maximize it.  Consider the amount of funds collect from tickets, fines etc and what the money is used for.