Does this incident scare people who like and respect the police?

What is going on here? I hear lots of gunshots, and there are lots of cops crowding the front.

I used to like the police, but lately I’ve been feeling less and less safe around them. I have never been arrested, or committed any crime but In different parts of the US, I have been threatened with arrest for trying to report a crime, tailgated, witness to horrific brutality, and in my new hometown, I have been advised to never look at a policeman if they’re in a car.

If that’s the case, they are no longer trustworthy in my book, and I’ll certainly think twice before I call 911. Anyone have any ideas about alternatives to 911?

@snowberry take an approved concealed carry course and buy a handgun.

@snowberry this

@WestRiverrat Yeah, I think you’re right. Hadn’t thought of that.

@flip86 sorry, your link didn’t open.

There are people who respect the police?

@cheebdragon I used to…

The police officer that did the shooting has been charged with murder. @WestRiverrat there had to be a dozen armed officers standing near the entrance to that bus. If the kid had drawn a pistol in that situation, the whole lot of them would have opened fire on him, and for good reason. He’d be dead anyway, and the rogue cop who started it would skate away scott free to have more fun gunning someone else down. I’m not saying that having a CCW license is a bad idea, just that it isn’t some panacea that will solve every situation you ever face.

@ETpro The CCW course I took spent at least half a day on how to interact when you have contact with the police.

I have no reason to not respect the police where I live. They haven’t harmed me or anyone I know. They are here to help and arrest people making meth two blocks from the grade school.

Just because some cops are jerks doesn’t mean they all are.

sorry, didn’t look at the video, I have a bandwidth limit.

Most cops are good folks, a small percentage are psychopaths, the problem is how do you know? I fear cops more than criminals for that reason and this is a sorry state of things really. I don’t think the psychological filters for entry into law enforcement are adequate. Criminals I can deal with, they usually just want your money and are actually cowards and will run when threatened with bodily harm. (get a CCW permit, carry pepper spray, don’t vote for politicians or give the time of day to anyone who who would vote take those rights from you…) Anti-gun people are quite literally idiots or are ruled by fear of what they do not understand. Educate or alienate them for your own good…and mine. Cops can literally ruin your life for just about nothing if they want, that said…I generally respect most of the cops I meet after talking to them. They are a special type of person who we need and rely on to keep the veneer of society in place. For that other percentage…they need to be found out and purged….and made example of. We should not put up with trash like that. For the good guys…thank you so much!

Were the officers unsure what he was holding? Did they think it might be a gun? People need to keep in mind cops are worried for their life, and the life of others and holding a weapon, not showing your hands, etc. is going to put a police officer on edge. There might be a cop that reacts incorrectly and shoots you dead if you are not obedient to his demands and he fears for his life or the life of others. I am not really commenting on this video, I don’t really know what happen so I would not try to defend the cop. But, it does seem like the guy with the knife should have dropped the knife.

I have always thought there are good cops and bad ones. Some people want to be cops becoase they are controlling, seek power, and like driving fast and carrying a gun. But, I think the majority want to help others, and take their job seriously.

Most of my experiences with the police have been good ones.

Growing up I was taught not to trust the police in terms of being vulnerable as a woman. When I moved from MD to FL, my grandmother didn’t like the idea of me driving throught the south with NY plates on my car alone. She paid for my ticket on the auto train to get down there. Part of her fear was that a cop might pull me over for out of state plates and then possibly harm me. Not that there are more bad cops in the south, she just felt my NY pate was a target down there.

What @jonsblond said. They’ve never been anything but helpful to me.

I think some people become police officers because they love having power/authority over other people and get off on being able to bully people (either they were bullies in school, or were picked on-themselves and have a grudge against humanity). They need to be screened out early from the police academy with psychological profiling and polygraphs. And internal affairs should maybe be beefed up to help reduce this problem.

I remember when I was a kid an off duty out-of-uniform cop caught my sister (who was probably about 7 at the time) throwing empty peanut shells at his parked car (not a police cruiser). He started yelling at my father saying he was a horrible parent, got in his face and kept saying “Come on, hit me! Take a swing at me!” My dad isn’t an idiot and walked away without taking the bait. This hot-head was obviously not mentally stable enough to be wearing a badge.

I’ve had a few issues with police officers in my life, one of which included an officer lying his ass off in his testimony against me for a drunk in public charge—I was just barely over the limit to drive and was waiting for my designated driver in the parking lot of the bar. I refused to show him my ID, citing my constitutional right to privacy (I was over 21) and he arrested me, looking surprised that I was of legal age. He lied through his teeth to the judge saying I was very drunk and slurring my speech to justify his illegal arrest. Instead of fussing up to what amounted to him wanting to search me and inventing probable cause.

I think the majority of police officers are probably good people who want to make a positive dent in the universe by stopping bad guys and helping people in need. The problem is that a bad cop can do a lot of damage before he/she is stopped.

@ARE_you_kidding_me ‘Most cops are good folks, a small percentage are psychopaths, the problem is how do you know?’ That seems like a good argument against guns in general, as long as you substitute ‘cops’ with ‘people’.

I agree with @gorillapaws. GA.

No, this doesn’t scare me.

But laws which allow police to confiscate cell phones and or make it illegal to video record them do scare me.

Being a cop is a job and, like any job, some folks are good at it and some folks suck.

I’ve never been scared of the police. Then again, I’m white.

@longgone Oh jeeze… did not want to get this started. It’s actually one of the arguments FOR them. Good folks will usually follow the rules and the psychopaths will not. Now you have a world where only the psychopaths are armed.

I respect firefighters.
“Fuck the police.”

I haven’t read the answers yet I just came in to post the story. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/08/19/toronto-police-shooting-yatim-officer-charged.html

Hate to be a drag, but does anyone have any info on why the boy was holding a knife? It clearly seems the use of police force was excessive but something was going on in the minutes before that video was shot.

@ARE_you_kidding_me We currently live in a world where the only people who have access to anti aircraft missiles are terrorists, do you think we would be better off if everyone had access to them?

You just don’t mess with the cops or the IRS, they both can jack your life up.

@ARE_you_kidding_me You’re right, we shouldn’t get into that here…but I have to point out that – instead of replying to my point – you simply repeated your original assumption.
Also, what @gorillapaws said.
I’ll shut up now.

“Excessive” is an understatement by the way it was excessive before those last shots.

@drhat77 I don’t know why he was holding a knife, something was very wrong. But all those policemen didn’t subdue him after the first shot, or without even without bullets. And then tasing him after the last bullet?

@gorillapaws One of the weakest arguments ever on this subject… Guns and Anti-aircraft missiles are not even in the same ballpark, hell even on the same continent…..but anyway, we should stop now. All these discussions ever do is piss off everyone including me.

@ARE_you_kidding_me It’s called a reductio ad absurdum argument. My argument is absurd in exactly the same way yours is… which is the entire point.