Ken James, the police chief of Emeryville, CA, a small incorporated city in the San Francisco Bay Area, recently was quoted as saying that the notion of a handgun being a defensive weapon is a myth. His take was that the handgun is about intimidation and power.
And this seems symptomatic of thinking in police circles these days, at least to judge from so many headlines chronicling police shootings that are “by the book,” but still border on official murder.
At least this Emeryville politician/cop was up front in admitting that armed cops aren’t about “to protect and serve,” but about projecting intimidation and power. As a manager, he probably doesn’t patrol the “mean streets” of Emeryville, but he does probably train others, and that’s a worrisome legacy.
We need gun control for out of control cops who constitute a threat to the lives of innocent people.
Why they should be more trusted with decisions on the use of deadly force than the rest of us lesser mortals?
Liberals are the one who insist bullies with a badge should be the only folks authorized to carry guns. So they can shoot people with no questions asked.
That’s the liberal idea of gun control in a nutshell, folks.
“...a citizen should not have to weigh the likelihood that the officer will decide to shoot him dead.”
Or his/her dog.
Again, in a different policing culture, an officer facing four family members insisting this is a family vehicle might wonder whether it is, as Mrs Tolan suggests, all a mistake - a small mistake, if not yet "a big mistake". And he might ask the lady if she has any proof of that: How long have they had it, where did they buy it, etc.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has done everything they can do to teach police officers to fear white middle class citizens - the people least likely to harm police officers. That's the reason we hear so many more of these stories about police freaking out in totally safe situations.
Any time a cop pulls the trigger, that cop should stand trial. An impartial judge and jury should adjudicate the matter; no internal process should be allowed. There are no automatic clean kills based solely on the testimony of cops.