Cop shoots 75 year old woman with dementia

[Lanyap]

Are you trying to get the mental health person killed as well?
Not sure who would volunteer to disarm people. Off duty / ex special forces?

So do you consider this a good shoot?

Do you think the cop had other ways to diffuse?

Should the cop have used a taser or pepper spray instead of shooting and killing this old woman who was mentally ill with dementia?

What if this was your grandmoher or mother?

 

[m8d]

Are you trying to get the mental health person killed as well?
Not sure who would volunteer to disarm people. Off duty / ex special forces?

Maybe AmeriKKKa's police forces could learn from the Chinese.

 

[mindless1]

This was a tough situation but what else can you do if someone is advancing on you with knives?

You can not put yourself that close to harm's way in the first place, then non-lethal force, or just evacuate everyone else and wait for her to get tired and take a nap... half serious about the nap, she would've been exhausted soon enough.

This situation was too far escalated to send in a mental health worker. Have one on-scene but only bring them in if she disarms herself, and then just in an attempt to get her to go with police peacefully without having to wrestle her to the ground or other violence to restrain her, which could also cause a lot of harm to someone that old.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Not sure why the cop would shoot the mental health professional as well as the person in crisis, but with US cops one never knows, I guess.

he felt threatened duh, not physically, just job security-wise

 

[Captante]

You can not put yourself that close to harm's way in the first place, then non-lethal force, or just evacuate everyone else and wait for her to get tired and take a nap... half serious about the nap, she would've been exhausted soon enough.

This situation was too far escalated to send in a mental health worker. Have one on-scene but only bring them in if she disarms herself, and then just in an attempt to get her to go with police peacefully without having to wrestle her to the ground or other violence to restrain her, which could also cause a lot of harm to someone that old.

That cop was truly pathetic.... I'm no big tough-guy by any means but I could have disarmed that old lady myself easily with little more damage inflicted to her then a bruised (or worst-case fractured) forearm/wrist.

We're not talking about a physically fit aggressive 200lb male here which I MIGHT understand.

 

[balloonshark]

Not going to watch the video. I've seen one like it before and I can't forget what I saw. It was sad watching two cops unloading their guns into the man even after he was down. All this was right in front of the man's mother who called for assistance.

Cops have guns, tasers, pepper spray and clubs and they automatically go for the lethal solution. Training for these situations must be non-existent or their living their SWAT hostage style fantasy dream of killing the bad guy.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Seems like there would have been multiple ways to disarm this woman without using a gun. Riot shield, pepper spray, etc.

Or maybe simply talk, err yell at her in Spanish, you know, since Spanish is a dominate language in New Mexico and she was talking to you in Spanish, indicating that she doesn't speak or understand English. That would have been the first place to start in handling this situation.

 

[Jaskalas]

Comply or die at it again.

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

 

[brycejones]

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

You do love some extra judicial executions. I didn’t take your special forces comment as a serious suggestion.

 

[Captante]

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

What kind of a cop is too much of a wussy to take down an old lady without needing a gun? (never mind "special forces" rotfl)

In your world is the death-penalty somehow an appropriate punishment for a senior citizen having a mental breakdown?

 

[brycejones]

What kind of a cop is too much of a wussy to take down an old lady without needing a gun?

Or in your world is the death-penalty somehow an appropriate punishment for a senior citizen having a mental breakdown?

If they don’t comply it is in jaskalas land.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

But in this case, it's very possible, for her to understand, he would have had to say:

Baja el arma con la que estás amenazando a la gente (I actually had to use a google translator to find the Spanish equivalent, because I don't know Spanish.. to bad this lady didn't have a chance to use google translator while this ass hat was yelling at her in English)

Also keep in mind, we are talking about a 75 year old woman with dementia, which was known by the 911 call. So Even speaking in Spanish, the woman may have had difficulties understanding what was going on.

This is 100% a failure on the police officer. Your position and argument here, makes you look like a complete fool/tool!

 

[Drach]

Maybe AmeriKKKa's police forces could learn from the Chinese.

No

 

[esquared]

We should ask @pmv how the Brits do it in UK.
Their cops don't carry guns and I am sure they have just about the same percentage of
mental health issues as we do in the US.

 

[VW MAN]

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

You know about the mass shooting that happened in Buffalo??? How'd the cops manage to talk the heavily armed 18 year old white man down but couldn't do that when it came to a 75 year old grandma??????

 

[Lanyap]

Put down the weapon you're threatening people with. Or... yeah.
You imagine it would end any other way. Your thinking is flawed.

Suppose I agree, you could make it worse. By letting someone go in and get stabbed.
I did posit using special forces. At least they'd be trained to win in hand to hand combat and most likely disarm the person.
It isn't comply or die, that is simply how you disarm them.

I guess this would have been ok if it was one of your parents or grandparents.

 

[pmv]

We should ask @pmv how the Brits do it in UK.
Their cops don't carry guns and I am sure they have just about the same percentage of
mental health issues as we do in the US.

Well, they don't always get it right (though this one did end up being sent to prison for it)

The killing of Dalian Atkinson: trial focused on a minute of violence

Police officer shot the former footballer with a stun gun for 33 seconds and kicked him in the head

www.theguardian.com

 

[rommelrommel]

Not going to watch the video. I've seen one like it before and I can't forget what I saw. It was sad watching two cops unloading their guns into the man even after he was down. All this was right in front of the man's mother who called for assistance.

Cops have guns, tasers, pepper spray and clubs and they automatically go for the lethal solution. Training for these situations must be non-existent or their living their SWAT hostage style fantasy dream of killing the bad guy.

They are trained that knife = gun. Taser, pepper spray, etc can be tried if you have have time, distance, and another officer to provide lethal overwatch.

That’s not to say that I’m supportive of this incident but it probably is legal.

I don’t know what the family wanted tho, if she was unmanageable by them who she presumably has a chance of recognising what is a strange English speaking man with a gun going to accomplish?

I think the training generally sucks for police. If she was no threat to anyone but herself why put yourself at risk? Quit rushing and do more thinking. Ask the family what’s going on. Ask if she speaks English. Ask what has worked in the past. This is a manageable situation and it still might end up with her getting shot but cutting to the chase shouldn’t be the goal.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

My grandmother on my father's side was married to (my grandfather) an SOB. He was a bootlegger in the '1920s, and pulled his kids out of school to work the stills, fired by the natural gas wells on his property. He physically abused my grandmother. Soon, she had had enough abuse, and threatened him with a kitchen knife.

That was Texas in the 1920s. He had her committed to a state looney bin. The woman had had an unhappy life before Grandfather John -- another story about being a domestic for a rich family and falling in love with their son. Also -- in Texas.

I was born in Texas. I hate Texas. I'd sell Texas to China or Venezuela for a nickel and offer to pay the postage. How many police shootings of Mexican- and African-Americans occurred there this last year? How many cornpone white-trash assholes were killed by police during the last year? [Maybe -- not enough in my book. I like to refer to myself as a "Caucasian-American". F*** the implications of color. I spit on the use of the word "White" in the subject context.]

 

[Pipeline 1010]

He could have simply created some distance between them. Major fail the LEO is equally as mental, if not worse.

Weren't the police called because the woman with knives was threatening people in that house? I guess it depends greatly on how much danger the people who called the cops are in at the moment. Like were they still in the house?

I'm a HUGE fan of mental health professionals taking mental health calls instead of cops, who almost always escalate things to violence. It's like violence is their comfort zone. Yet when a weapon is involved, I don't know if that's best. Maybe someone else has stats on this? I've only heard of the mental health people responding to calls where weapons aren't involved.

 

[Pipeline 1010]

Not sure why the cop would shoot the mental health professional as well as the person in crisis, but with US cops one never knows, I guess.

They already have practice shooting the mental health professional: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/north-miami-officer-who-shot-unarmed-caregiver-man-autism-found-n1018616

 

[Pipeline 1010]

Those fucking settlements need to be paid out of the police union's fund. Such bullshit that taxpayers have to keep directly paying and enabling trigger happy cops.

That would never work. Not only would the cops would find a way around this, but a solution like this would punish the good cops too. (Not that there are any, but hypothetically)

The settlements need to be paid out of the police officers' individual professional insurance. That way the insurance company can cut them off and they will become unemployable. This works well in every profession it's ever been tried in.

 

[ch33zw1z]

That would never work. Not only would the cops would find a way around this, but a solution like this would punish the good cops too. (Not that there are any, but hypothetically)

The settlements need to be paid out of the police officers' individual professional insurance. That way the insurance company can cut them off and they will become unemployable. This works well in every profession it's ever been tried in.

yes, this would be ideal, but good luck getting that at all. Increasing accountability is unlikely to happen.

 

[DrunkenSano]

Seems like the police in the UK are able to take down an aggressive man with a machete without putting 80 bullet holes in him. I guess our police suck compared to UK police if they can't even take down an old lady without lethal force.

 

[pmv]

Seems like the police in the UK are able to take down an aggressive man with a machete without putting 80 bullet holes in him. I guess our police suck compared to UK police if they can't even take down an old lady without lethal force.

Well, that was in the open rather than in a confined space indoors. Though on the other hand, it wasn't an elderly woman.

Absolutely does seem to me that US cops simply get used to relying on their firearms, though. I suppose they have to have them because so many of the public around them may be carrying guns. But habitually carrying them means they will get into the habit of employing them as a first resort, even when dealing with people who aren't armed with firearms.

Every time there's a terror attack here there are calls for the police to be armed, but I think that would be a terrible idea, because it will just start a cycle of escalation.

It's ironic that the reason they changed the system from issuing firearms to ordinary officers on an 'as required' basis, to one with a small group of specially-trained 'firearms officers' to be deployed when there's a particular incident (like the London Bridge attack) not because of cops shooting people gratuitiously, but because it turned out they were all _terrible_ shots and couldn't hit a barn door at 20 paces.