If he's a thug without a badge, I could be dead. We cannot expect the police to keep us safe, and we can't protect ourselves if we have to assume that every thug has a badge.
@Ken Anderson Your post is focussed, I understand, upon specific cases, but still reveals the trend toward a "police-state", as such types of police killings seem to have become far more prevalent lately. Frank
@Ken Anderson You missed one exceedingly important consideration, one that has entered the equation very often: the cops entering often are non-uniformed, unidentifiable on sight by the homeowner, who is exposed only to commands issued by "POLICE" claims, which may be FALSE. Surely criminals are fully aware that claiming to be police subdues victims. They even often wear uniforms. Frank
@Shirley Martin See my post to @Ken Anderson : Intruders very often identify themselves as "POLICE", STAY WHERE YOU ARE, DON'T MOVE!" How do you as a terrified unassuming and helpless individual instantly differentiate between the two possibilities of real or fake police? Unless you are dead certain (no pun) they are real police, you shoot before they do, if possible. A horrible scenerio, yes. But one establishing between the possible death or continuation of the life of a completely innocent citizen. Frank
I’ll have to do some research to prove it, but there is a possibility that we simply hear more about it rather than it being more prevalent. Of course, there is the distinct fact that our nation is becoming more violent overall so if some individual police officers are caught up within that well..................... As far as my own personal fears, I know all of the law enforcement officers that come into our neighborhood plus a couple of detectives and some of the swat members so a bad guy knocking on my door and identifying himself as “police” would not fare well at all.
I think that the whole situation has gotten really bad, to the point where neither civilians or police offers feel safe anymore. There are probably as many cases where police have been shot/killed by an unprovoked attacker who just wants to kill law enforcement officers, as there are cases where police have over-reacted and killed someone who was the wrong person, or who had a cell phone instead of a weapon in their hand. The days when police could handle a situation without needing to shoot someone seem to be becoming less and less, as there are more armed criminals who are shooting at police. There was an article in the news about a woman who was shot and killed by police in the little Idaho town where I grew up. Usually, this town is pretty laid-back, and not the kind of small town where police are having to shoot someone. The woman had been hysterical, and her husband drove her to the local hospital, and left her sitting in their car while he went inside to get help for her, and maybe some medication to calm her down. Because she was in a hysterical state, she got out of the car and was screaming in the street, and police were called. She somehow had a little kitchen paring knife, and was waving it around while screaming, and didn’t respond when the police told her to drop the knife, but instead , she was terrified and started running. The police had her surrounded, and any way that she ran, it would have been towards a police officer, and they shot her repeatedly and killed her. This seems to me like something that could have been handled without shooting this distraught woman. There were enough police officers on scene to have overpowered her, and it should have been obviously to them that she was not in a sane mental state, but still not dangerous to anyone, except maybe herself.
We saw so many times in training a person with a knife (rubber training one) able to injure an officer before they were stopped usually with a firearm 7 yds away or less most every time, as close as you have to be with a knife there are few misses. Most new recruits could not believe that until shown. The attacker lost in the end but not without hurting someone.
And if described lady had a firearm and did not drop it as instructed? Same ending. Some things are just not healthy to do. Wondering just how many officers as if 1 missed or has a shoot through the danger to others? My 1st thought there. Surrounded to me means what it states.
I was just reading an article about what is called the “red flag law”. This is a weapons confiscation ordinance that is now being passed in several different states, and will probably be passed in even more places, especially if the gun control people have any say-so about it. Theoretically, this would seem to be a possible good idea, because what it entails is reporting a person who is unsafe to be owning firearms. However, this report can be made by anyone, friend, family member, or even a stranger, and then it is up to the accused person to defend his right to own weapons; but first, all of the weapons are immediately confiscated. The latest report is that a gun owner was shot and killed by the police because he didn’t want to surrender his weapons. He had no criminal record, had not threatened anyone with his weapons, but apparently had an argument with someone, and so in retaliation, they reported him to the police. At 5 in the morning, police were pounding on this 60 year old senior’s door, and he (not knowing who was out there) answered the door with his weapon in his hand, but put it down when he saw that it was the police. When they told him that they were there to confiscate his gun, he refused, and a fight broke out, and a weapon discharged, and after that, the police shot and killed the homeowner. I totally agree that there are people (maybe a lot of them) who should NOT own weapons, but I do believe that we need something better than this, where anyone can report a person, and they can lose their weapons, and sometimes, their life. https://conservative-daily.com/2018/11/06/breaking-first-gun-confiscation-killing-reported-maryland/
That is a prelude to full banning, as it puts anyone in a position to deny you a right to own a weapon, whether it be an angry child, a neighbor who you may have a dispute with, or anyone, really. You can bet that anti-gun activists, such as school teachers, will be encouraging such actions.
Noticed where Nancy Pelosi wants to focus on common sense gun control. Won't that be fun? https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/9/nancy-pelosi-common-sense-gun-control-priority-dem/