The police need better tools other than bullets for subduing the unarmed

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Update June 13, 2020- The latest cop murder caught on film perfectly supports my arguments made below. The Atlanta man killed was guilty of public intoxication, which is a misdemeanor. Instead, he got the death penalty. How?

First, the cops lacked any training in deescalation. They turned a sleeping, unarmed, intoxicated man into an angry unstable person by ganging up on him and arresting him. Then, all they had short of their deadly last-resort guns were these useless Tasers. I have never seen one work properly. By this time, the cops had their adrenaline flowing and went into full-blown murder mode. He was running away and they shot him.

How this should have been handled is, A) Don’t arrest the man on the spot. Just get his license plate and visit him later, then B) If he became aggressive, back down, for the same reason, which is that there is no urgent need to arrest him, then C) the cops need nets that can be fired to subdue an agitated person high on drugs, or guns that fire pellets of pepper spray, etc.

Update June 4, 2020- All of the decades of police abusing deadly force is catching up to them. The long-feared pitchfork mobs are a reality as massive riots and looting take place all over the country.

While it is true that the current mayhem is mostly opportunistic theft during a period of lawlessness, the original protests in Minnesota were legitimate petitioning over the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. Those cops were clearly untrained to an egregious degree.

What needs to come out of all of this anarchy is true federal police reform that limits when guns can be used at all. Then, it would punish cops for joining together to empty their guns on one man in order to make it impossible to determine which individual cop committed the murder, and so on.

Right now, cops think they have the right to use extreme force if a perpetrator gets mouthy. However, theft and disorderly conduct do not warrant the death sentence in this country.

Cops are not the judge and jury licensed to kill. The rank-and-file typical street cop has not gone to criminal justice college and has not received FBI-level firearms training. Many of them have criminal personalities to begin with. Giving them deadly weapons is a big mistake.

Black Lives matter wants you to believe that only blacks are murdered by cops. That is nonsense. Many times more whites are killed by police fire every year. This is a problem for all Americans. All lives matter.

Ironically, it was police fascism reminiscent of the Nazi SS that triggered this new form of fascism in the streets now marauding under the banner of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Complicit mayors, such as New York’s Bloomberg who created the policy of warrantless “stop and frisk”, have directly led to the unrest now.

Violence begets violence. It is time to get smart about subduing criminal suspects.

Update December 11, 2014– As if the police commissioner read our article, the WSJ reports that the NYPD is requesting to have more officers equipped with Tasers as a tool of force not as lethal as bullets.

December 9, 2014- By Steven E. Greer, MD

All across the country, for the last several weeks, organized protests of thousands of people have resulted in rioting and closure of major streets. The demonstrators are demanding change to the police departments that have allowed officers to shoot and kill unarmed black males.

The protests have been defined by the media as being motivated by “racial unrest”, as blacks demand an end to racial profiling by police. The predictable response from the conservatives on Fox News, etc. has been to take the bait and fuel the fires. It’s good for TV viewing since white are the only ones to watch cable TV news these days, it seems.

Meanwhile, the most important changes needed in policing that should be getting the most press coverage are being buried by the news. Police officers need better tools for subduing the mentally ill. Bullets and the death penalty are inappropriate tools for subduing schizophrenics.

Last night, a mentally ill man invaded a New York Jewish temple, stabbing one person and threatening others. It was all caught on video. The police responded and tried very hard to subdue the man and have him drop the knife. He refused, and was shot dead by a bullet to the chest.

How might the NYPD have better trained and equipped these officers to subdue a mentally ill man? Should they have used a Taser instead of a deadly firearm? Could they have evacuated the building and let the man run out of steam, or come down from whatever drug might have been agitating him?

Body cameras will do absolutely nothing to prevent future shootings of the mentally ill. In the case last night, the officers were filmed. In 2012, a mentally ill man was shot in broad daylight in Times Square. The police know that it looks bad and they call it “awful but lawful” rationalizing it. The District Attorneys look the other way.

All across the country, the police forces seem to have the mentality that people, who do not comply with orders and are the least bit threatening, deserve to be shot dead. There seems to be little to no training in how to subdue a mentally ill person other than by shooting them dead.

We can do better than this in The Unites States of America. Ideally, mentally ill need to be prevented from being on the streets in the first place. But there will always be the dangerous crazed man in big cities. Police need better ways to subdue them. This is the most important issue to be addressed as a result of the historic protests of 2014.