Riots in St. Louis after Police kill Teen

[Brickistan]

He had refused to put a deadly weapon down, so the officer could have reasonably believed that he would use the knife.

here we are talking about the original Ferguson shooting instead of the St. Louis shooting. I haven't really sean any argue the St. Louis shooting was unjustified once the video came out. However there is still a lot of doubt and lack of understanding regarding the original shooting.

Well, I would...

Or rather, I would argue that it was, at the very best, a horrible mistake and, at worst, completely unjustified.

Firstly, the officers do not, at any point in time, try to deescalate the situation. They drive their car straight up to him and get out with guns drawn. They could have stopped further away and approached the guy slowly. They could have tried to talk him into surrendering. They could have used a tazer or peberspray... Plenty or ways they could have avoided this outcome.

Secondly, the guy goes down with the first few shots, yet they keep on firing.

Thirdly, they obviously try to cover it up by pretending to arrest him after he was clearly dead.


One thing I think people are forgetting is that we pay cops to do a nasty, sometimes dangerous, job. It's part of their job to put themselves at risk. And that sometimes means confronting a suspect with less than overwhelming force. Two well-trained, and well-armed, officers against a single disturbed individual with a knife? There's absolutely no reason to resort to deadly force within 20 seconds of arriving on the scene.

Sometimes an officer gets hurt, even killed, in the line of duty. And that's what they're being paid for - to put themselves in danger when needed. And that also includes risking a knife wound in order to subdue a man that seems to have belonged in a mental hospital.

[Spirit of Hope]

here we are talking about the original Ferguson shooting instead of the St. Louis shooting. I haven't really sean any argue the St. Louis shooting was unjustified once the video came out. However there is still a lot of doubt and lack of understanding regarding the original shooting.

Well, I would...

Or rather, I would argue that it was, at the very best, a horrible mistake and, at worst, completely unjustified.

Firstly, the officers do not, at any point in time, try to deescalate the situation. They drive their car straight up to him and get out with guns drawn. They could have stopped further away and approached the guy slowly. They could have tried to talk him into surrendering. They could have used a tazer or peberspray... Plenty or ways they could have avoided this outcome.

Secondly, the guy goes down with the first few shots, yet they keep on firing.

Thirdly, they obviously try to cover it up by pretending to arrest him after he was clearly dead.


One thing I think people are forgetting is that we pay cops to do a nasty, sometimes dangerous, job. It's part of their job to put themselves at risk. And that sometimes means confronting a suspect with less than overwhelming force. Two well-trained, and well-armed, officers against a single disturbed individual with a knife? There's absolutely no reason to resort to deadly force within 20 seconds of arriving on the scene.

Sometimes an officer gets hurt, even killed, in the line of duty. And that's what they're being paid for - to put themselves in danger when needed. And that also includes risking a knife wound in order to subdue a man that seems to have belonged in a mental hospital.

1) They are arriving in response to a crime, until they are on the scene they don't know if the suspect is there, what he is doing or what the intuition is in general. So yes they drove strait up. Then when they did arrive they find a guy with a knife (aka a deadly weapon) procedure is to then draw your gun, so that it is at the ready. Ever heard of the 21 foot rule, stating that a person with a knife can close 21 feet before you can draw and fire? Well that is why they drew there guns, they were easily within 21 feet and couldn't risk getting charged and stated before they could respond. They then order him to the ground. You can here them say that in the video, he doesn't respond keeps pacing. Finally when he starts moving towards them they shoot. I agree they might have tried something else, but they probably did not have tasers, and pepper spray is not nearly as deliberating as people think it is and requires a relatively close range to use. Getting closer to a guy with a knife is the last thing you do.

2) Yes they keep firing, because they don't know how badly he is injured, if he is faking it, if he is on drugs, etc. If you ever take a self defense course or receive Law Enforcement training they will tell you "keep shooting". You shoot till you are sure that the threat is neutralized.

3) You always handcuff a suspect (even after you shoot him), police can not declare death, do not know if he is dead, do not know if he is on drugs, and do not know the extent of injuries. So they always handcuff the suspect, even if they have just shot said suspect. You can ask any police officer, they will tell you that.

4) A perpetrators life does not come before the life of an officer. Yes they are getting paid to respond to these situations. They are not being paid to endanger themselves to disarm a man who is not responding to their orders. I delay they would have used a ranged non lethal take down (rubber bullets, tasers, etc.) but they probably did not have those means on them, and while they may have called for back up the man started to approach them. They have a choice to make then in a split second, to shoot or not to shoot. They chose to shoot because the man was armed, with in range, not responding to their orders and clearly not acting in a clam manner. There other choice was to let him close and possibly kill one of them.

Here is someone more articulate explaining it.

[Geilinor]

here we are talking about the original Ferguson shooting instead of the St. Louis shooting. I haven't really sean any argue the St. Louis shooting was unjustified once the video came out. However there is still a lot of doubt and lack of understanding regarding the original shooting.

They drive their car straight up to him and get out with guns drawn. They could have stopped further away and approached the guy slowly. They could have tried to talk him into surrendering. They could have used a tazer or peberspray... Plenty or ways they could have avoided this outcome.

The officers drove straight up because they knew that the guy was a robbery suspect and was armed.

[Gauthier]

I added an addendum to the previous post:

ADDENDUM: When I first posed this question, I contrasted the Federal response in the Cliven Bundy standoff to our Nation's chronic problem with police officers gunning down young black men, even when those men have no weapons of any kind whatsoever. So now, let me ask: Would thise who have no problem with the actions of the police in this case (and others like it) have been comfortable with Federal agents having called up all the firepower they could muster, and then using that force to take on (and effectively wipe out) the self-styled "militiamen" who showed up to defend Cliven Bundy during THAT confrontation? I ask this because those so-called "militiamen" were heavily armed with a profusion of semi-automatic weapons and took up defensive/ambush positions from which they could have easily attacked the Federal agents in question, and they were well within effective firing range at the time of their confrontation with authorities. Under the same logic used here, they were both a danger to the Federal agents in question and an unpredictable menace, especially in light of their extremist political positions and their talk of revolutionary action; indeed, given that they were both more numerous, better armed, and positioned in such a way as to bring they weapons to bear more immediately, I would think they posed a GREATER danger.

So why was it the right call for the officers in THAT case to show restraint in the use of deadly force, but not in THIS one?

I recommend anyone disposed to answer think carefully before doing so, because your response may say more about your beliefs and values than you think...

Any takers willing to comment?

I also mentioned a few times the case of Douglas LeGuin, a white Sovereign Citizen in Texas who set a dumpster at his gated community on fire. When fire and police responded to the dumpster fire, LeGuin opened fire on them with an AK-47 in an attempt to ambush and kill them. SWAT team was called in, and by all means they were justified to take him down. Instead they let him surrender.

It speaks of a dysfunctional if not dystopian set of priorities where legitimately armed and dangerous white men like Bundy and LeGuin are reasoned with in a calm, non-aggresive manner while unarmed black men like Amadou Diallo and Michael Brown are gunned down like zombies if they so much as hold a wallet and stare at the police.

Somebody's going to reach the same conclusion about firearms that Iran has about nuclear weapons and decide blacks need to arm themselves if they expect the police to deal with them as human beings and not zombies to pick off.

[Brickistan]

Well, I would...

Or rather, I would argue that it was, at the very best, a horrible mistake and, at worst, completely unjustified.

Firstly, the officers do not, at any point in time, try to deescalate the situation. They drive their car straight up to him and get out with guns drawn. They could have stopped further away and approached the guy slowly. They could have tried to talk him into surrendering. They could have used a tazer or peberspray... Plenty or ways they could have avoided this outcome.

Secondly, the guy goes down with the first few shots, yet they keep on firing.

Thirdly, they obviously try to cover it up by pretending to arrest him after he was clearly dead.


One thing I think people are forgetting is that we pay cops to do a nasty, sometimes dangerous, job. It's part of their job to put themselves at risk. And that sometimes means confronting a suspect with less than overwhelming force. Two well-trained, and well-armed, officers against a single disturbed individual with a knife? There's absolutely no reason to resort to deadly force within 20 seconds of arriving on the scene.

Sometimes an officer gets hurt, even killed, in the line of duty. And that's what they're being paid for - to put themselves in danger when needed. And that also includes risking a knife wound in order to subdue a man that seems to have belonged in a mental hospital.

1) They are arriving in response to a crime, until they are on the scene they don't know if the suspect is there, what he is doing or what the intuition is in general. So yes they drove strait up. Then when they did arrive they find a guy with a knife (aka a deadly weapon) procedure is to then draw your gun, so that it is at the ready. Ever heard of the 21 foot rule, stating that a person with a knife can close 21 feet before you can draw and fire? Well that is why they drew there guns, they were easily within 21 feet and couldn't risk getting charged and stated before they could respond. They then order him to the ground. You can here them say that in the video, he doesn't respond keeps pacing. Finally when he starts moving towards them they shoot. I agree they might have tried something else, but they probably did not have tasers, and pepper spray is not nearly as deliberating as people think it is and requires a relatively close range to use. Getting closer to a guy with a knife is the last thing you do.

2) Yes they keep firing, because they don't know how badly he is injured, if he is faking it, if he is on drugs, etc. If you ever take a self defense course or receive Law Enforcement training they will tell you "keep shooting". You shoot till you are sure that the threat is neutralized.

3) You always handcuff a suspect (even after you shoot him), police can not declare death, do not know if he is dead, do not know if he is on drugs, and do not know the extent of injuries. So they always handcuff the suspect, even if they have just shot said suspect. You can ask any police officer, they will tell you that.

4) A perpetrators life does not come before the life of an officer. Yes they are getting paid to respond to these situations. They are not being paid to endanger themselves to disarm a man who is not responding to their orders. I delay they would have used a ranged non lethal take down (rubber bullets, tasers, etc.) but they probably did not have those means on them, and while they may have called for back up the man started to approach them. They have a choice to make then in a split second, to shoot or not to shoot. They chose to shoot because the man was armed, with in range, not responding to their orders and clearly not acting in a clam manner. There other choice was to let him close and possibly kill one of them.

Here is someone more articulate explaining it.

1) Yes, I have heard of that rule. Which, surprise surprise, is why you do not get straight into the face of an agitated man with a knife.

2) And so what? As I said, overwhelming force is not an appropriate answer to such a situation. And even if it was, when a guy is hit several times and goes down, then it's over. If you can't subdue a wounded man who's already on the ground, then you need to hand in your badge.

3) So why wasn't, for example, the Ferguson victim handcuffed? This whole idea is just bull...

4) Yes, in fact it does. They're paid to take such chances. A man who seem to be somewhat mentally unstable is to be subdued so he can be brought to a hospital, diagnosed, and then treated. And the cops are supposed to go very far indeed to make sure this happens.
Of course there'll be situations where there's no option but to draw a gun and shoot. Unfortunate, but that's life. But it should always be the very last resort, used only when all other means have failed. You do not drive straight up to a guy like this, get out with drawn weapons, and then fire within twenty seconds. There was absolutely no attempt made to defuse the situation, and that's where the cops went wrong.

[Spirit of Hope]

1) They are arriving in response to a crime, until they are on the scene they don't know if the suspect is there, what he is doing or what the intuition is in general. So yes they drove strait up. Then when they did arrive they find a guy with a knife (aka a deadly weapon) procedure is to then draw your gun, so that it is at the ready. Ever heard of the 21 foot rule, stating that a person with a knife can close 21 feet before you can draw and fire? Well that is why they drew there guns, they were easily within 21 feet and couldn't risk getting charged and stated before they could respond. They then order him to the ground. You can here them say that in the video, he doesn't respond keeps pacing. Finally when he starts moving towards them they shoot. I agree they might have tried something else, but they probably did not have tasers, and pepper spray is not nearly as deliberating as people think it is and requires a relatively close range to use. Getting closer to a guy with a knife is the last thing you do.

2) Yes they keep firing, because they don't know how badly he is injured, if he is faking it, if he is on drugs, etc. If you ever take a self defense course or receive Law Enforcement training they will tell you "keep shooting". You shoot till you are sure that the threat is neutralized.

3) You always handcuff a suspect (even after you shoot him), police can not declare death, do not know if he is dead, do not know if he is on drugs, and do not know the extent of injuries. So they always handcuff the suspect, even if they have just shot said suspect. You can ask any police officer, they will tell you that.

4) A perpetrators life does not come before the life of an officer. Yes they are getting paid to respond to these situations. They are not being paid to endanger themselves to disarm a man who is not responding to their orders. I delay they would have used a ranged non lethal take down (rubber bullets, tasers, etc.) but they probably did not have those means on them, and while they may have called for back up the man started to approach them. They have a choice to make then in a split second, to shoot or not to shoot. They chose to shoot because the man was armed, with in range, not responding to their orders and clearly not acting in a clam manner. There other choice was to let him close and possibly kill one of them.

Here is someone more articulate explaining it.

1) Yes, I have heard of that rule. Which, surprise surprise, is why you do not get straight into the face of an agitated man with a knife.

2) And so what? As I said, overwhelming force is not an appropriate answer to such a situation. And even if it was, when a guy is hit several times and goes down, then it's over. If you can't subdue a wounded man who's already on the ground, then you need to hand in your badge.

3) So why wasn't, for example, the Ferguson victim handcuffed? This whole idea is just bull...

4) Yes, in fact it does. They're paid to take such chances. A man who seem to be somewhat mentally unstable is to be subdued so he can be brought to a hospital, diagnosed, and then treated. And the cops are supposed to go very far indeed to make sure this happens.
Of course there'll be situations where there's no option but to draw a gun and shoot. Unfortunate, but that's life. But it should always be the very last resort, used only when all other means have failed. You do not drive straight up to a guy like this, get out with drawn weapons, and then fire within twenty seconds. There was absolutely no attempt made to defuse the situation, and that's where the cops went wrong.

1) They have no choice. They are arriving at the scene with little to no information, they only know that there was a robbery and that the perpetrator was armed. So they drive right up to the scene of the crime, get out and find themselves confronted with the perpetrator. Additionally they can't do the slow approach you are suggesting because the suspect could turn on a bystander, they have to be right there to control the situation.

2) Injured men can still stab you. Injured men can still kill you. If you start firing you finish firing. You can take this up with the police if you want to but you aren't going to change their mind.

3) How do you know he wasn't handcuffed? Do you have video or pictures from right after the incident that shows that he was shot and then not handcuffed? Plus different departments might have different rules for what to do. I simply know most departments require that the person be handcuffed.

4) Cops are paid to protect the peace and uphold the law. Where possible they will try and do bring the people back alive. They are not paid to take unnecessary risks (which is what you are suggesting).

In conclusion the cops arrived at the crime scene like they were supposed to, they ordered the suspect to drop his weapon like they are supposed to, they only opened fired when the suspect began to close with them like they are supposed to. They had no time nor the ability to deescalate, and asking cops to risk their lives over this situation is silly of you. Priority of life is bystander, cop, suspect.

[Brickistan]

1) Yes, I have heard of that rule. Which, surprise surprise, is why you do not get straight into the face of an agitated man with a knife.

2) And so what? As I said, overwhelming force is not an appropriate answer to such a situation. And even if it was, when a guy is hit several times and goes down, then it's over. If you can't subdue a wounded man who's already on the ground, then you need to hand in your badge.

3) So why wasn't, for example, the Ferguson victim handcuffed? This whole idea is just bull...

4) Yes, in fact it does. They're paid to take such chances. A man who seem to be somewhat mentally unstable is to be subdued so he can be brought to a hospital, diagnosed, and then treated. And the cops are supposed to go very far indeed to make sure this happens.
Of course there'll be situations where there's no option but to draw a gun and shoot. Unfortunate, but that's life. But it should always be the very last resort, used only when all other means have failed. You do not drive straight up to a guy like this, get out with drawn weapons, and then fire within twenty seconds. There was absolutely no attempt made to defuse the situation, and that's where the cops went wrong.

1) They have no choice. They are arriving at the scene with little to no information, they only know that there was a robbery and that the perpetrator was armed. So they drive right up to the scene of the crime, get out and find themselves confronted with the perpetrator. Additionally they can't do the slow approach you are suggesting because the suspect could turn on a bystander, they have to be right there to control the situation.

2) Injured men can still stab you. Injured men can still kill you. If you start firing you finish firing. You can take this up with the police if you want to but you aren't going to change their mind.

3) How do you know he wasn't handcuffed? Do you have video or pictures from right after the incident that shows that he was shot and then not handcuffed? Plus different departments might have different rules for what to do. I simply know most departments require that the person be handcuffed.

4) Cops are paid to protect the peace and uphold the law. Where possible they will try and do bring the people back alive. They are not paid to take unnecessary risks (which is what you are suggesting).

In conclusion the cops arrived at the crime scene like they were supposed to, they ordered the suspect to drop his weapon like they are supposed to, they only opened fired when the suspect began to close with them like they are supposed to. They had no time nor the ability to deescalate, and asking cops to risk their lives over this situation is silly of you. Priority of life is bystander, cop, suspect.

With attitudes like that, it's no wonder that the police is so hated in the US. Take no chances. Get straight into his face. If he does not comply immediately, kill him...

Must be why they require all that surplus military hardware...

Jeeezzz...

So glad I don't live in America.

Here in Denmark, simply drawing your weapon in the line of duty will lead to an official inquiry into what happened. Yes, it does happen now and again that the police is forced to shot a suspect, but it's so rare that it draws major headlines in all papers for days.

That was why the riots on the 18. May were so shocking. So shocking, in fact, that even a handful of reports and inquiries later, some done at the very highest levels of government, has not quelled the unease of what happened that night.


Remember that, first and foremost, the police is here to serve and protect. And that does not include gunning suspects down at the drop of a hat. In addition, as Gauthier pointed out, there's a highly disturbing race-issue underlying the whole thing.


No, rioting is not the correct way of protesting. But I can certainly understand why black communities are sick and tired of this.

[Spirit of Hope]

1) They have no choice. They are arriving at the scene with little to no information, they only know that there was a robbery and that the perpetrator was armed. So they drive right up to the scene of the crime, get out and find themselves confronted with the perpetrator. Additionally they can't do the slow approach you are suggesting because the suspect could turn on a bystander, they have to be right there to control the situation.

2) Injured men can still stab you. Injured men can still kill you. If you start firing you finish firing. You can take this up with the police if you want to but you aren't going to change their mind.

3) How do you know he wasn't handcuffed? Do you have video or pictures from right after the incident that shows that he was shot and then not handcuffed? Plus different departments might have different rules for what to do. I simply know most departments require that the person be handcuffed.

4) Cops are paid to protect the peace and uphold the law. Where possible they will try and do bring the people back alive. They are not paid to take unnecessary risks (which is what you are suggesting).

In conclusion the cops arrived at the crime scene like they were supposed to, they ordered the suspect to drop his weapon like they are supposed to, they only opened fired when the suspect began to close with them like they are supposed to. They had no time nor the ability to deescalate, and asking cops to risk their lives over this situation is silly of you. Priority of life is bystander, cop, suspect.

With attitudes like that, it's no wonder that the police is so hated in the US. Take no chances. Get straight into his face. If he does not comply immediately, kill him...

Must be why they require all that surplus military hardware...

Jeeezzz...

So glad I don't live in America.

Here in Denmark, simply drawing your weapon in the line of duty will lead to an official inquiry into what happened. Yes, it does happen now and again that the police is forced to shot a suspect, but it's so rare that it draws major headlines in all papers for days.

That was why the riots on the 18. May were so shocking. So shocking, in fact, that even a handful of reports and inquiries later, some done at the very highest levels of government, has not quelled the unease of what happened that night.


Remember that, first and foremost, the police is here to serve and protect. And that does not include gunning suspects down at the drop of a hat. In addition, as Gauthier pointed out, there's a highly disturbing race-issue underlying the whole thing.


No, rioting is not the correct way of protesting. But I can certainly understand why black communities are sick and tired of this.

Actually this probably would have gotten the same reaction in almost any country where the officers are armed. The time line is rather simple, police arrive on scene, suspect does not cooperate, suspect begins to close with police, police open fire.

The police couldn't have known where he was, and had to arrive at the scene of the crime. Your idea about approaching hims slowly is admirable, but impossible unless the police could somehow know where he was.

The suspect wasn't shot for non compliance (though compliance would have kept him from getting shot) he was shot because he began to close the distance with the officers. There only choices at that time were shoot or not shoot. Not shooting means a armed criminal, who has not complied, who is showing signs of disturbance of some type, gets close enough to bring harm to an officer.

What I find funny is that you are mixing this shooting up with Ferguson. Ferguson is where the riots and protests were, Ferguson is where the story made national headlines, Ferguson is where the cops shot an unarmed man apparently as he was surrendering Ferguson is where race probably played a part. The only reason the St. Louis shooting got any headlines is because of the geographic close proximity to Ferguson, not because the two situations are anything similar.

As to the "military equipment" (which is really just body armor, armored cars and assault rifles) they have that for situations like the North Hollywood Shoot Out, where everyone complained because they didn't have "military equipment". Notably most of what I have seen the police use at Ferguson was the usual stuff of shields and batons with a small number of officers having heavier equipment in case the situation went bad. Which it incidentally did on two nights when someone began shooting during the protests.

In St. Louis they didn't "gun gown a suspect at the drop of a hat" they opened fire when that suspect became a threat to them.

[Salandriagado]

Safety conscious mentally stable citizens are perfectly capable of using and owning firearms, as it should be.

Possible, but I come from a country where guns are illegal so we view Americans as crazy rednecks for the most part.
Seriously SK, which is one of the major US allies views it as a nation filled with gun crazy cowboys.

Only legit gun legal nation we see is Switzerland. (that isn't crazy)

Switzerland's gun laws aren't as lax as most people think.

[Tahar Joblis]

What ASB is saying is that with two officers using tonfas or batons, they could be on either side of the knife-wielder and if he turned toward one, the other could take him down. If only one officer is on the scene, he could call for back-up. Shooting should be a last resort.

But he could also be slashed rapidly and fatally - why are you not using guns or tasers if they're available and the suspect has an edged weapon? IIRC Edged Weapons elicit an ARV response from UK Police, where shooting is the last resort only if an Officer's life is in danger. Hell, two police on their own tackling a guy with a fucking car key can result in serious injury to the Officers.

Do you know how many police officers in the UK or US have died from being attacked with an edged weapon?

I do.

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

[Allanea]

But he could also be slashed rapidly and fatally - why are you not using guns or tasers if they're available and the suspect has an edged weapon? IIRC Edged Weapons elicit an ARV response from UK Police, where shooting is the last resort only if an Officer's life is in danger. Hell, two police on their own tackling a guy with a fucking car key can result in serious injury to the Officers.

Do you know how many police officers in the UK or US have died from being attacked with an edged weapon?

I do.

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

This is entirely unrelated, of course, to the fact that police officers tend to shoot assailants with knives.

[Spirit of Hope]

But he could also be slashed rapidly and fatally - why are you not using guns or tasers if they're available and the suspect has an edged weapon? IIRC Edged Weapons elicit an ARV response from UK Police, where shooting is the last resort only if an Officer's life is in danger. Hell, two police on their own tackling a guy with a fucking car key can result in serious injury to the Officers.

Do you know how many police officers in the UK or US have died from being attacked with an edged weapon?

I do.

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

Want to bet why that is? Because they make sure to stay out of range of a suspect with a knife, while an unarmed suspect they are much more likely to have to struggle with. Getting closer always increases the risk that you get injured or killed, no mater what your opponent is carrying.

[Allanea]

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

From the article you posted, 1 police officer in 2011 was killed with a knife, and 1 was killed with his own weapon.

Over the past 10 years, 28 officers were killed with their own weapons (no news to whether all of these 28 weapons were lost to unarmed suspects), and 3 were killed with knives.

It should be noted that this does not speak to the effectiveness of police firearms as a tool of self-defense, because it does not speak to the number of times police have successfully shot armed attackers.

FBI statistics suggest police have shot 390 suspects justifiably in self-defense. (Police have also stabbed two suspects to death in self-defense).

Even if we excluded police firearm use that does not kill - i.e. every time a police officer uses a gun to injure or menace a suspect - it pretty clearly shows police use their guns effectively in self-defense all the time.

[Tahar Joblis]

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

From the article you posted, 1 police officer in 2011 was killed with a knife, and 1 was killed with his own weapon.

Over the past 10 years, 28 officers were killed with their own weapons (no news to whether all of these 28 weapons were lost to unarmed suspects), and 3 were killed with knives.

Yup. About ten times as often, in other words.

Considering the proportionate rate of knife crime in the UK vs the US, the record of UK police getting stabbed to death is fairly comparable. There's not particularly strong evidence suggesting that police have a statistically significant increased survival rate by having guns ready when dealing with suspects not known to be armed with guns.

What UK police demonstrate is that careful regulation of when police have guns at hand ready to shoot does not, in fact, put officers in much extra danger. The only curveball on that claim is that the UK has 1/40th the firearms homicide rate and about 1/12th the firearms ownership rate: There could be a significant additional danger posed to police in the case that suspects are armed with firearms with intent to kill, something fairly rare in the UK compared to the US... but which is also the situation in which police in the UK are authorized to bring in the guns.

It should be noted that this does not speak to the effectiveness of police firearms as a tool of self-defense, because it does not speak to the number of times police have successfully shot armed attackers.

FBI statistics suggest police have shot 390 suspects justifiably in self-defense. (Police have also stabbed two suspects to death in self-defense).

Most armed attackers attacking US police are, in fact, attacking with guns rather than knives.

Note, incidentally, that the FBI figures are not a very good estimate of how many people are killed by police per annum. See here.

Even if we excluded police firearm use that does not kill - i.e. every time a police officer uses a gun to injure or menace a suspect - it pretty clearly shows police use their guns effectively in self-defense all the time.

It pretty clearly shows that police are judged to be using their weapons legitimately when they use them ... generally not by an independent panel, which is one of the reforms that the people concerned about this are pushing. Did you know that the state of Wisconsin only now requires that police shootings be investigated by an outside party, and not simply the same police department at which the shooter works?

There are three problems highlighted by the recent highly-publicized police brutality incidents:

1. US police are very horribly likely to judge a young black man to be a dangerous criminal. This is not a new issue.
2. US police are responding with excessive force and exhibiting "us vs them" far more than "protect and serve." The militarization of police forces is a (relatively) new issue.
3. US police are routinely not held accountable for wrongdoing. This is not a new issue.

[Tahar Joblis]

Do you know how many police officers in the UK or US have died from being attacked with an edged weapon?

I do.

Police officers are about ten times more likely to lose their gun to an unarmed suspect and then get shot with it than they are to get killed by an assailant with a knife.

Want to bet why that is? Because they make sure to stay out of range of a suspect with a knife, while an unarmed suspect they are much more likely to have to struggle with. Getting closer always increases the risk that you get injured or killed, no mater what your opponent is carrying.

The basic reason is that firearms are over an order of magnitude deadlier than knives. US police officers are assaulted with knives over a thousand times a year. They are injured only a little more than a hundred times a year, and a US police officer dies to a knife wound very rarely. US police officers are very often getting close to people with knives... they're just not dying because of it.

They're also more likely to get shot accidentally by a fellow officer. Simple basic fact: Guns are really deadly and rather indiscriminate weapons when the shooter is twitchy.

[Allanea]

For a whole new definition of 'indiscriminate'.

Also, according to the link you've posted, while firearms are more often used than knives to assault officers, when a knife is actually used it's more likely to do the officer injury (9.3% of police attacked by firearms are injured, and 12.7% of those attacked by knives).

I agree with the general thrust of your argument, though.

P.S. What is 'other dangerous weapon''?

[Ravenflight]

I'm against this and i'll tell you why but firstly I'd like to say I will ignore any comment made to this whether your a mod or a normal member because I am tired of people who have committed the same crime of me being overlooked because of their view.

I truly disagree with Ferguson because I believe as a human in the american constitution. I believe in freedom of speech and the police not shotting Journalists or civilians who's only crime was protesting the death of a boy they knew. If a boy was shot dead for a reason you don't know on your street corner how would that make you feel? If you don't care why? There is looting but not everyone is looting. I myself have not been looking at the big picture and nor have the people who have been opposing me. Do you not agree with freedom of assembly or speech? Do you not agree with the ideas your nation was founded on?

[Yumyumsuppertime]

I'm against this and i'll tell you why but firstly I'd like to say I will ignore any comment made to this whether your a mod or a normal member because I am tired of people who have committed the same crime of me being overlooked because of their view.

I truly disagree with Ferguson because I believe as a human in the american constitution. I believe in freedom of speech and the police not shotting Journalists or civilians who's only crime was protesting the death of a boy they knew. If a boy was shot dead for a reason you don't know on your street corner how would that make you feel? If you don't care why? There is looting but not everyone is looting. I myself have not been looking at the big picture and nor have the people who have been opposing me. Do you not agree with freedom of assembly or speech? Do you not agree with the ideas your nation was founded on?

In other words, you're not going to engage at all. I assume that the incoherence of your post was in order to encourage that.

[United States of The One Percent]

Somebody's going to reach the same conclusion about firearms that Iran has about nuclear weapons and decide blacks need to arm themselves if they expect the police to deal with them as human beings and not zombies to pick off.

This, pretty much.

[Geilinor]

With attitudes like that, it's no wonder that the police is so hated in the US. Take no chances. Get straight into his face. If he does not comply immediately, kill him...

Must be why they require all that surplus military hardware...

Jeeezzz...

They got into his face because they knew he was armed. After the police asked him to put down his weapon, he did not do so. The reason some police departments are receiving surplus military hardware is because of the powerful weapons some criminals have. The hardware is not always necessary and they did not use any of that hardware in this situation.

[Tahar Joblis]

For a whole new definition of 'indiscriminate'.

Also, according to the link you've posted, while firearms are more often used than knives to assault officers, when a knife is actually used it's more likely to do the officer injury (9.3% of police attacked by firearms are injured, and 12.7% of those attacked by knives).

The fatalities are much more for guns, though. I suspect that brandishing a firearm threateningly from a fair distance away is probably logged as an assault (legally, just a credible threat of imminent harm is required), whereas with a knife, you can be waving it around and frothing at the mouth like a maniac, but you actually have to be close to the officer before you start posing a credible threat.

I agree with the general thrust of your argument, though.

P.S. What is 'other dangerous weapon''?

AFAIK, "other dangerous weapon" is the grab- bag category for everything else. "Personal weapons" means someone's body (punching, strangling, etc). Trying to hit someone with a car probably counts, as would swinging at an officer with a shovel or a crowbar. The car thing I can actually remember hearing come up - cop pulls someone over, walks over, they decide not to stay pulled over, cop gets the scare of their life from a two-ton death machine going vroom.

[The Lone Alliance]

I also mentioned a few times the case of Douglas LeGuin, a white Sovereign Citizen in Texas who set a dumpster at his gated community on fire. When fire and police responded to the dumpster fire, LeGuin opened fire on them with an AK-47 in an attempt to ambush and kill them. SWAT team was called in, and by all means they were justified to take him down. Instead they let him surrender.

Seeing how he was a Sovereign citizen nutcase, they most likely wanted him alive in case he was part of an actual terror group.

Plus if he was hiding trying to kill him would risk exposing themselves to his own weapon that is unless you were suggesting that they get him to surrender and then shoot him?

It speaks of a dysfunctional if not dystopian set of priorities where legitimately armed and dangerous white men like Bundy and LeGuin are reasoned with in a calm, non-aggresive manner while unarmed black men like Amadou Diallo and Michael Brown are gunned down like zombies if they so much as hold a wallet and stare at the police.

Is that what the evidence is showing?

Somebody's going to reach the same conclusion about firearms that Iran has about nuclear weapons and decide blacks need to arm themselves if they expect the police to deal with them as human beings and not zombies to pick off.

I don't believe there was much trust towards the police in the first place anyway, that could have been an influence on the victims mindset as well.

[Tahar Joblis]

With attitudes like that, it's no wonder that the police is so hated in the US. Take no chances. Get straight into his face. If he does not comply immediately, kill him...

Must be why they require all that surplus military hardware...

Jeeezzz...

They got into his face because they knew he was armed. After the police asked him to put down his weapon, he did not do so. The reason some police departments are receiving surplus military hardware is because of the powerful weapons some criminals have. The hardware is not always necessary and they did not use any of that hardware in this situation.

There are very few criminals running around with high-powered weapons. This comes up when discussing assault weapon bans. The criminals who come out armed to the teeth are, in general, the spree shooters, who usually in turn have little prior criminal history.

The excuse for police militarization has generally been gang violence. Gang members are usually armed with handguns. There are very few areas where gangs have used assault weapons to kill police, and I don't think St. Louis is one of those areas. Cops who die are killed, overwhelmingly, with handguns. For that matter, we've seen a sharp increase in the use of military equipment by police since 2001; and violent crime in general has been falling since around 1991. Police departments turned to more firepower and more body armor in a period where we had less, not more, violent crime.

[Jocabia]

I think it's very telling that there is a reduction in the use of force by a dramatic amount (60% in Rialto, CA, for example) when cops know they are being filmed. There is clearly a problem in either the way police are selected or the way they are trained if the only way to make them behave more cooperatively with the community is by filming them. And when you're talking about that significant of a percentage change, you cannot attribute that to just a few individuals. It's systemic.

Now couple that with the systemic way in which the use of force and other aggressive behaviors are found to be so much more frequently focused on minorities and you have a problem that should be considered embarrassing for most Americans, especially police officers.

And the problem is so nefarious because minorities don't trust officers, with good reason, and because of that officers have a lot of bad experiences with minorities, giving them the impression that minorities are the problem. However, if there are clashes occurring between officers and civilians, it's clear who is under the highest requirement for good behavior. The officers simply cannot be permitted to blame individual citizens or all minorities for a problem this systemic. It's obvious that officers need to be held to a higher standard. The first step in doing so is not just investigating the officer who shot Michael Brown but investigating all of the officers who are walking around pointing their weapons at protesters, or harassed reporters, or who have threatened or attacked protesters, etc. The only solution is to show officers that the full force of the law is going to be used to enforce good behavior.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Further evidence of police making a bad situation worse. In the hours after the shooting, when a makeshift memorial had been set up in the closed-ff street and his mother had laid flowers at it, police not only allowed their dog to urinate on the memorial, but ended up driving over it and smashing the flowers.