Police Shootings : The Pros And Cons Of Police Shootings

Each year law enforcement officers throughout the county are involved in shootings, some of them fatal. Frequently the shootings are reported by the media, which exploits the feelings of the victim while ignoring the effect of the shooting on the police officer. It is “estimated that approximately 87 percent of all emergency service personnel will experience a critical incident at least once in their career, which include officer-involved shootings” (Kureczka, 2002, p. 18). Officer-involved shootings have a profound effect on not only the officer involved but also their spouses, families, and the departments they serve. Law enforcement officers that are involved in officer-involved shootings need support and assistance such as critical incident stress debriefing and sometimes long-term trauma recover therapy in order to cope and live successful lives beyond the critical incident of the shooting.

This opinion piece from The Washington Post was written by U.S. Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. Published days after the recent Las Vegas Shooting, Murphy tells of his past experiences with gun violence urging for stronger gun control legislation. He states that the “phenomenon of horrific mass shootings is exclusive to the United States”, so the solution should be able to be solved by Americans. He argues that our response to “regular mass shootings” has been un-American, and how can a country that has solved the greatest problems in the world, not solve a problem that puts our fellow citizens in harm. “…we choose to be an increasingly distant outlier of exceptional violence”, Murphy states.

Officers are just protecting themselves. Tamir Rice a twelve-year-old black boy was shot and killed. Tamir rice of ohio was carrying a toy gun and aimed it at police. He was then shot by the officer(Ochs p3). If a person no matter what age is going to raise a gun at a cop the the cop is going to react by drawing his weapon.John Crawford of ohio was also shot by police. John walked into walmart carrying an air rifle police arrived and told him to put it down he did not so he was shot (Ochs ). If a person is carrying around a gun the police are not going to mess around they are going to take care of the threat. 38-year-old Richard Ramirez was gunned down by police. He was sitting in his car and reached down at his waistband the officer then

Now one way to prevent things like this from happening again is to train the young and inexperienced police officers the correct and effective way to judge the use of force. An officer must reasonably believe it is necessary to shoot to kill to defend him or herself or someone else from imminent death. It’s a call made in the blink of an eye, in tense and uncertain circumstances, sometimes limited by distance, distractions or darkness. And it brings to bear all of the officer’s experience, awareness and, perhaps most important, training. The question is how do we do this? How do we prepare our officers for the real world? Half a second. According to experts, that’s how much time an officer has to pull a weapon when confronted with someone perceived as dangerous and about to inflict harm. Studies show that it takes a quarter of a second for an officer to recognize a threat, such as when a person is reaching for a gun, and another quarter-second for that officer to draw his gun. It takes another .06 seconds to pull the trigger. One place that is trying to make a difference and make those

Having had the opportunity to see both sides of the argument play out in the City of Memphis and as a member of the Memphis Police Department. I have become an advocate for requiring entry-level police officers to have at the very minimum an associate degree or the equivalent college credits. The college requirement can only be avoided with military experience. However, my position is not that more education makes you a better police officer or less education makes you a lousy officer. I believe that there should be a “happy medium” when it comes to police work. A good officer will be empathic, fair and in tune with the needs of the community and its members. Requiring a level of education for your entry-level officers speaks volumes about your agency and their dedication to professionalism. The benefits of having a college educated officer have shown to make a difference in the way they do their jobs. An educated police officer is less likely to utilize force when interacting with his co-workers or civilians. A department with educated officers also has shown to see a reduction in misconduct and disciplinary issues(Gómez-Mejía et al., 2016). Some years back the Memphis Police Department had relaxed their

In 2015, the COPS budget was cut by nearly $300 million and as a result, new officers received poor training as programs that were considered highly essential to the learning process of rookie cops were exterminated as the programs could no longer receive funding. This has caused poorly trained officers, with lethal weapons, to make poor decisions such as using violence, being neglectful, and directing derogatory terms at minorities and it all comes right back to the fact that cops are only taught how to use a gun properly and arrest a criminal. The physical, mental, and/or communication skills that an officer lacks shouldn’t determine the fate of an individual’s safety or

must follow the guidelines of the use-of-force continuum including all aspects of civilian apprehension rules. It should mandate that all officers attend mandatory training before placement within multicultural communities; wear a body camera when in the field; report excessive force incidents using the correct documentation; complete police reports immediately; and assure that follow-up investigations will be handled internal/external resulting in criminal penalties for officer’s who ignore these rules.

Within the past decade there have been several accounts of fatal police shootings. Law enforcement deems deadly force as a justifiable homicide. Not all cases are investigated in its entirety. Stricter laws on police officers should be forced to prevent riots, senseless killings and promote equality.

Was the suspect fleeing the scene? As a result, impeding justification for the death of the suspect if the shooting was a wrong-doing. It is these handful of incidents that leave civilians doubtful of how officers handle contentious situations. I believe police officers should be required to be equipped with body-worn cameras as a solution to this issue.

On the other hand, there are many who use firearms to defend themselves when the truly need to be defended. But isn't that what the cops do? Or what they should do? Sadly, today we see the ones who are supposed to be protecting us and making sure we are safe doing the complete opposite. Now, this is not to say that all cops abuse their power, however some do. In addition to cops abusing their power it has lead to multiple unnecessary shootings, stirring trouble within the black

Throughout the last two years there have been many police involved shootings where they have killed someone. Some say the cops where right and others say they were wrong in the situation. Are the police right in using deadly force instead of trying a different situation? When is it ok for police to use deadly force and are they right in doing so? In the past two years there have been multiple police shootings, which have been the main topic with police. Some have said that race has played a huge role in the recent shootings and blame racism on the deaths by the officers. In the recent cases it has been a white officer who has killed a black person. Who has the say in the case if the police made the right decision if

In a recent interview, Florida representative Clovis Watson, a former police officer says, “As a cop, would you want to go to a scene, where you have a suspect who had a gun shooting, and you have 30 or 40 other people with a gun on their

I hope I did not offend you by my post, I can't really tell from your response. I just want to be clear; the hostility I was referring to is civilians attacking the people that are supposed to be protecting us (officers). I try not to go into too much detail with my post for on-line classes because words can be misconstrued. Also, depending on personal experiences, I did not want to offend anyone in the class that may feel like a victim of police brutality/misconduct or shootings. My husband was a police officer and he is also in the military, so I understand. I also agree officers are sensationalized in the news and social media because they are held to a higher standard. My comment about working together should our country come under attack

First off, he should have only had the gun out for a last resort. He saw that the man was intoxicated and a high risk man so he should have either gone back to his vehicle to call for back up or tried to detain the man on his own with pepper spray or a taser. The office looked like he did not know how to handle that situation and in that sense he should have not been an officer in the first place. You need to be able to assess every situation differently and be able to quickly come up with a resolution. I'm sure in the police force they do not say "use your gun out of fear," they provide honorable people with a gun because they believe they are capable of using it in the correct way. Not only in this situation but all situations, I feel like they need to better understand the purpose of a gun. Even if he did shoot him, he could have done it somewhere where he wasn't going to kill the man. Also, by shooting a round twice it shows that his intent was to injure the man and not to just disarm

Policing relies on the public trust, police legitimacy and accountability, which can be destroyed by unjustifiable police shootings (Squires and Kennninson, 2010). Within this country, there is a recognition that the police do not always adhere to the rule of law (Newburn and Reiner, 2012: 809), which has led to consistent public outrage at the lack of effectiveness and legitimacy the police has maintained. Therefore the deliberate decision to enforce police to attend to the streets unarmed was employed to reassure the public that the police were not to be feared (Waddington and Wright, 2010). Ultimately, concerns derive from the belief that the police are completely ineffective when dealing with gun crimes (Farrell, 1992: 20). However,