A Finnish police officer is so much better trained than a US cop. It's literally a degree there. http://www.polamk.fi/
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Campus police shoot and kill LGBT activist armed with knife at university
- Thread starter Enter The 36 Chambers
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A Finnish police officer is so much better trained than a US cop. It's literally a degree there. http://www.polamk.fi/
Charles Brandon
Member
That's much higher than I thought it would be too.
Hmm. I guess you have to factor in farmers, people who shoot pheasants and grouse as well as criminals. Still seems very high. I've never seen a gun in the UK that wasn't being held by a Policeman at an airport or to do with agricultural matters.
thanks for this post. informative. This is what sensible policing looks like.
TheAbsolution
Member
Hey, having known this person for a while and being good friends with them, I would just like it known that they were nonbinary and preferred they/them pronouns. Thank you. 
Hey, having known this person for a while and being good friends with them, I would just like it known that they were nonbinary and preferred they/them pronouns. Thank you.
Sorry for your loss
Shadow Broker
Banned
I'm sorry but if someone small or big is coming at me with a knife I'm shooting them. Im not advocating killing someone but at the same time I'm not going to risk my life to show how macho I am by taking on someone who's armed with a knife just to attempt at maybe saving their lives. Those cops may have a family of their own that they need to provide for and go home to. Hell, I was trained in the military if someone is coming at me with a knife and they ignore all verbal orders to put the knife down and stand down to open fire. This isn't just a cop thing. I'm willing to bet that foreign militaries may train their soldiers in a similar way.
QuantumZebra
Member
He easily could have been disarmed and/or taken down with a taser or pellet shot OR saltpeter shot from a CC shotgun. So many ways he could have been safely taken down and sent to a hospital for treatment.
This is a tragedy for the UGA/GT communities both.
Cops aren't trained to shoot in the leg, just FYI. That's not a thing they do.
Watch the video?
Gravy Boat
Member
And it's great, much better than how US cops seem to approach these situations. This person would most likely still be alive if they were in the UK.
MugiwaraCole
Member
It's...really depressing that it's so easy to do this in America. I've considered doing the exact thing they did, many times.
Like, it never occurs to us that we might fail when we try this. You're practically guaranteed the death you're looking for.
I'm sorry this happened to your friend. If you need someone to talk to about it and don't wanna go to a loved one or a therapist for whatever reason, please feel free to PM me.
Like, it never occurs to us that we might fail when we try this. You're practically guaranteed the death you're looking for.
Hey, having known this person for a while and being good friends with them, I would just like it known that they were nonbinary and preferred they/them pronouns. Thank you.
I'm sorry this happened to your friend. If you need someone to talk to about it and don't wanna go to a loved one or a therapist for whatever reason, please feel free to PM me.
I suppose they're more common now, but if there's a threat of a knife they don't really send a single officer.
If people want to see what happens when a UK police officer presses their panic button (accidentally in this case) then this video is illustrative. (the middle aged overweight guys in suits are detectives: one of them may or may not be related to me!). Basically half the local force runs in within 3 minutes. Pretty comical.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/shocking-footage-shows-moment-more-7711406
Hissing Sid
Member
But this person wasn't carrying a gun they were wielding a knife. Lethal force was used even though non-lethal methods for disarming peeps with knives have been proven to be effective throughout the world.
Surely this is a training issue? I understand that firearms response protocols are prevalent in the United States where gun ownership is high, but that shouldn't preclude non-lethal tactics being deployed in scenarios where firearms are not involved.
What, they just whip out their pistols at every opportunity? Sounds like a recipe for overkill, quite literally.
Then don't be a cop. Putting yourself at risk to protect the public is your job. Fact is you and cops aren't trained in dealing with suicidal individuals and deescalating situations. We deal with these situations in hospitals with no guns because we are trained in these situations.
faulty_fork
Member
Perfectly reasonable option in many countries where the police is properly trained. Many lives have been saved here because the police aim for the legs instead of center mass when possible.
QuantumZebra
Member
This never should have happened. Especially with campus police where they often have to de-escalate whacky college kids. Should have every nonlethal measure available.
Charles Brandon
Member
The guy you quoted is correct, that is what unarmed policing looks like. That's how tactics evolve when you can't resort to lethal force. It's not surprising that US police tactics have not evolved in the same way. But the lesson is, now that those tactics have been developed by European police forces, there is no reason they cannot be adopted in the US (and a previous post suggests that that is actually happening with some US police departments).
It would be great if this death was the one that triggered a debate that lead to a change of approach in these situations.
Shadow Broker
Banned
I never said nor will I ever be a cop. Seen and been through too much in my time with the military. I was simply responding to the other poster with my opinion on it.
Gravy Boat
Member
I don't know why you've responded like I was disagreeing with him. I'm all for unarmed policing. Saying that, I live in the one part of the UK where police are always armed and we still don't have an issue with stuff like this.
holygeesus
Banned
There are more armed police in the UK than ever, yet still hardly anybody is killed by them. It's not an excuse.
If we had the same environment, officer to person ratio, same area to cover, it would be a lot different here.
When I worked nights, we had two officers. That's 1 officer per 2500 people in my city. During the day shift, there is a chief, two captains, and two officers there. Not much better considering. Our deputies, 4 at best on duty for 15,000 more people outside city limits, and trying to cover 557 square miles.
Bring a shift of UK cops over here, and let them try and do the same policing here.
Here's some interesting info to read:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ccfea4653ee_story.html?utm_term=.a636d65a5022
ReplacementPelican
Member
Its reasonable to be afraid.
It isn't reasonable to shoot them. Your police need to be better trained than that. You're aware that in the UK we had a terrorist run into a tube station, stab a load of people and our police still apprehended him without killing him?
Shooting someone because they have a knife isn't acceptable in a lot of countries and by a lot of police forces
Yeah, this can be broadly true.
Like, some UK bobbies having to deal with the kinds of gang criminality that the US has festered probably wouldn't be able to do much.
But I want to know how, in this case, what you've said is relevant.
Maybe you're not saying it is, that's fine, but the way UK police operate could easily be applied to this particular situation.
Temeculan3000
Member
How many citizens are armed?
Charles Brandon
Member
I wasn't disagreeing with you! Just jumping in the conversation
Where the fuck do live where the bizzies are always armed though? Never heard of that.
Watch it now be something obvious making me look stupid
Maybe, but the average copper is not armed. Anyway, it's not supposed to be taken as an excuse, more of a neutral explanation.
Sure, we can sit back afterwards and say that. We don't know what resources they had to try and surround this person, etc. If this happened where I worked, at most during the night, we would have four total officers being able to respond IF they weren't already working other calls/cases.
Linkstrikesback
Member
I'm sure they do.
However police officers are not soliders and should not be trained as such.
I'm surprised no-one's posted this documentary from a while back on how some US police chiefs came over to our side of the pond and had a look at how British policing handles something similar. Quite a stark contrast in the two ways of policing.
https://youtu.be/66pr23xUKZc
https://youtu.be/66pr23xUKZc
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
Boy I wish our country's police force got a better cut of funding dedicated to centralized training programs and de-escalation equipment, instead of pumping money into excessive wannabe military garbage like sonic cannons, automatic weapons, and heavy artillery.
Sigh, a man can dream, right?
(note: not to referring to the military's use of these items as garbage, just the fact that local police forces playing military is garbage)
Sigh, a man can dream, right?
(note: not to referring to the military's use of these items as garbage, just the fact that local police forces playing military is garbage)
Gravy Boat
Member
I wasn't disagreeing with you! Just jumping in the conversation
Where the fuck do live where the bizzies are always armed though? Never heard of that.
Watch it now be something obvious making me look stupid
Northern Ireland. Every police office has a Glock 17 which they're even allowed to carry when off duty.
Skellig Gra
Member
Ideally, of course. I just can't speak on what equipment is available to these officers and if they have any say at all in it.
This actually happened right next to me. The sound of their death/others screaming so far is not leaving my mind.. :/
A lot of the media is running away with this/editorializing the shit out of it. Campus police has always been awesome here, and they begged them to stand down over and over.
A lot of the media is running away with this/editorializing the shit out of it. Campus police has always been awesome here, and they begged them to stand down over and over.
Widdle Puppy
Banned
Absolutely terrifying how people in here are rationalizing this. Police violence has been normalized in the US so much that even would be victims are willing to make excuses for this. yall are at the mercy of them. Not to mention Racism at play which further affects Black Americans.
Temeculan3000
Member
Charles Brandon
Member
Of course. Now I look stupid.
Shadow Broker
Banned
I agree and believe in that anyone who's in the arm forces and are employed to be officers should be held to the highest of standards because their/our actions can affect the lives of others. In the military we are drilled, in the civilian world it's called training but when you're going through it in the military it's a drill into muscle memory, what's expected, and the standard that we MUST uphold. With that said, I really do feel that the police union in the United States must be weakened to end that whole protect our own mentality and the US police force should be trained in a newer standard to reflect this new age of American citizens. How police do their work is outdated but as of right now it's still a knife wielding person ignoring orders and going towards the police.
Uh, so? If officer one tries a taser and misses with the smaller target or it doesn't work and officer two still ends up having to shoot him what's the problem?
Uh, so? Fuck it, why not, if you're just going to go and shoot the person otherwise might as well try it. :shrug: Who knows, right?
Uh, so?
Look here. Your wording is fucking terrible. The end result was essentially putting down another human being like a dog and you say hitting them with pepper spray probably wouldn't have helped the situation. What situation? Shooting them? How could it hurt the "situation," assuming you mean keeping the person alive more than shooting them in the chest? This is INSANE.
Everywhere else you're like reliable this, reliable that, get this, nobody would give two shits if it was tried and didn't work and the end result was still this person dead. Wouldn't be a fucking issue outside of friends and family, everyone else would say they(the police) tried and carry on.
Do you not see the absurdity in this?
My guess, you're not going to be in a situation where you think it's reliable enough to be your first choice am I right? Probably have to be a naked handcuffed person lying face down on the ground before using a taser would be reliable enough to use.
The point is, is that as a cop you know in the end that you might have to shoot a person, right? So how is trying something that might not work worse than not trying at all and just shooting that person? You come up with all these excuses not to try something, for what? Why? Like I said, if they didn't work and they still had to shoot it is what it is.
This comes back to my previous question. One on one I get it. I wouldn't pull pepper spray or a taser first when responding to a call about an armed person I'd have my gun out too. I get it. Once more people show up though I'd feel like there were more opportunities to try something else. So why don't you? Is it because of your weapon's reliability, afraid everyone but you would miss or have their guns jam and the one person who tries an unreliable non-lethal use of force first was the only one who's weapon would have worked and hit the target?
So it comes back to my question of how many cops would it take before it's safe enough for them to try something unreliable? How many?
Now again, these guys apparently didn't have anything else so just did a poor job of stalling, or perhaps intentionally stopped stalling to purposefully end it.
Violence Jack
Member
This happened at my alma mater. When I attended, I never heard of campus police ever having to pull their guns. The most they would get calls for were to escort students back to the dorms late at night, noise complaints, and just general monitoring. While most of those officers have likely come and gone since I graduated 12 years ago, it baffles me that 4 police officers came to the conclusion to shoot a 21-year old mentally ill person. Yes, a knife can maim or kill, and these officers want to avoid that possibility of happening to them. But if there were 4 officers, shouldn't one or a few of them have been able to distract the person long enough for another officer or two to come up on them from behind and wrestle the knife away from them?
I feel like a life has been lost, and didn't need to be. Hell, I've worked with police officers during my security days who had to deal with suicidal people wanting to jump from ledges, shoot themselves, slit their wrists, etc, and all of them were talked down. Heartbreaking.
I feel like a life has been lost, and didn't need to be. Hell, I've worked with police officers during my security days who had to deal with suicidal people wanting to jump from ledges, shoot themselves, slit their wrists, etc, and all of them were talked down. Heartbreaking.
yes, exactly.
Yes, but given the US police's propensity towards guns, they are discharging far more bullets than police in other countries. Again, a bullet that doesn't hit its target is a wild bullet that is going to hit something else.Training doesn't diminish the fact that if you're shooting a moving target's leg, you're aiming for a limb in motion that is substantial smaller than center mass, leading to a much higher likelihood of missing.
None of this excuses not having or using non-lethal options. Or having a policy and training to use those options first. I do agree, though, that if a gun IS to be used, it should be on center mass.
Charles Brandon
Member
Tell that to US police departments:
We have those guys in the UK as well
Counter-Terrorism only though I think
Yes but there will likely be a lawsuit after this outcome as well. We live in the most litigious society in the world. Most police actions will result in civil litigation.
yeah because fuck their right to self defense...
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
We have those guys in the UK as well
Counter-Terrorism only though I think
Every country has a counter terrorism unit but at least some of those pics was just regular county police if I'm not mistaken