Out of focus...

[GMDino]

(09-25-2016, 12:53 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: Why do people expect police to be perfect in what they do, yet don't consider the difficulty in performing their job on a daily basis?

Some will post videos of "unjustified killings" of unarmed citizens, even though on many of those cases will show that the actions of the deceased lead to their death. Now, we're even posting stories of people who were detained and released, unharmed, and trying to hold that up as something unnecessary and unjustified. And in that same story, the attitude that would possibly lead to death if the situation escalated a bit more. 

There is no denying that people die at the hands of police when it was totally unnecessary and unjustified. There is no denying that in some cases, there were cover ups involved. There is also no denying that the percentage of deaths is very small when compared to the total number of interactions of police with citizens. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and in this case, social media is the grease that is being doused on the squeak of, mostly, black men and women being shot and killed by police--both justified and unjustified. 

Lines are blurred when actual criminals, in some cases carrying weapons or fighting with police, are lumped in with compliant citizens who were shot due to a lack of training or incompetence. 

With all that said, my point lies here; the focus is on a small percentage of killings and how they were handled wrong, when what is ignored is the much greater percentage of interactions where criminals put the lives of LEOs in jeopardy every day, because they have no respect for anything but what they want. 

Re-focusing...show me a video of an unarmed man or woman being shot by police and i'll show you tenfold videos of police being assaulted, shot at and stabbed by criminals, while just trying to protect and serve the public from those criminals who will lie, cheat, steal and kill just to get what they want. 

Police have a dangerous job.  I don't think anyone disputes that.  But they signed up for it, didn't they? If you don't want to put your life on the line every day...don't.  I can respect those that do but not the ones who defend their every action with "it's dangerous" or "I was fearful".

Personally I don't expect them to be "perfect".  I don't expect ANYONE to be perfect. 

By police have the ability to take away your freedom and your life....legally.  Anyone with that kind of power/responsibility must be held to a higher standard.

I don't know how anyone could argue against that.

As I said in another post every time there is one of these "isolated incidents" they must be looked at and learned from to determine if there is a way to keep them from happening again.  

Unfortunately some want to fall back on "it doesn't happen very often" and will just chalk it up to "shit happens".  Some folks go to the other extreme and demand "changes" without knowing what they are or what might work.

In the middle we want to learn from our mistakes and try to limit them even more.