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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Camden, New Jersey is a very low income neighborhood. According to this NY Times article, until recently it had typical low income policing--heavy on corruption and violence and low on compassion.
But now they have a new chief and things have changed --
"Handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year" — around the per capita income in the city — "can be life altering," Chief Thomson said in an interview last year, noting that it can make car insurance unaffordable or result in the loss of a driver's license. "Taxing a poor community is not going to make it stronger."
Handling more vehicle stops with a warning, rather than a ticket, is one element of Chief Thomson's new approach, which, for lack of another name, might be called the Hippocratic ethos of policing: Minimize harm, and try to save lives.
Officers are trained to hold their fire when possible, especially when confronting people wielding knives and showing signs of mental illness, and to engage them in conversation when commands of "drop the knife" don't work. This sometimes requires backing up to a safer distance. Or relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt.
While not out of the woods yet, it sounds like there is hope for Camden and maybe it won't just continue to be written off as a war zone.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:12AM (5 children)
So glad to hear a story of cops behaving like something other than self-important jackasses who think they're above the law. Thanks to all involved.
relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt
Serious question - maybe there is an officer among us who can answer...
Why aren't cops trained to use non-lethal force as much as possible? Drop the suspect with a taser. Then they live, and we have plenty of time to sort out the situation.
OK if someone is shooting real bullets at you of course you're going to shoot back. Otherwise, if they're out of range of a taser they're probably not an instant life-or-death threat.
Can someone explain?
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:34AM (1 child)
I'm certainly not a police officer, but from what I heard Taser does not guarantee termination of the attack. If the electrodes do not penetrate clothing (say, a leather jacket), then it's not going to work. The wires can be also damaged, needles torn from the skin... some people (on drugs) do not feel pain. I'm not saying that the LEO should always empty the mag at any grandmother who is lost on a sidewalk, but a serious conflict forces the officer to think fast - and the Taser, if he picks it, may be inadequate. As it often happens, Taser is mostly used by the police for torturing the suspects - in situations where the officers are not threatened.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:40AM
While painful, the taser doesn't depend on pain to work. It works by disrupting the nervous sustem and making the muscles contract out of control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @07:27AM
Why aren't cops trained to use non-lethal force as much as possible? Drop the suspect with a taser. Then they live, and we have plenty of time to sort out the situation.
Not necessarily. What if a person has a pacemaker? How about a not-yet-visibly-pregnant woman (here I'm assuming cops are trained well enough to not tase visibly pregnant women)? Or a bunch of other cases that can result in death or serious injury. Cops think "non-lethal" is exactly that, so they overuse tasers even when they don't really need them. Calling tasers "less-lethal" would be more accurate.
Also, why couldn't cops try to sort out the situation before using force? Most policing is not exactly all that time sensitive. "Just tase him and be done with it" is equivalent to "just nuke the entire disk and reinstall from scratch", except with people instead of the machines.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:43PM
the problems with a taser:
1) It might be completely ineffective, not immediately dropping the subject. Therefore it should not be used in life threatening situations.
2) A taser can easily kill or permanently maim the receiver. It is also incredibly inaccurate, so hitting the wrong person is very easy. Therefore it should only be used in life threatening situations as a last ditch effort to avoid loss of life.
Tasers make sense in theory, but it is the wrong choice in every situation, at least when you factor in the possibility of an innocent's ability to sue and the bad press of allowing a raging maniac to continue killing people when the police are given and trained with a tool (a gun) that could easily of ended the situation.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:04PM
It isn't always bullets. I think we tend in discussions to focus on the bad of a situation. If the mentally ill person
doesn't have a knife in their hand, or is far away(say 50 feet) then there's no need for bullets. Cops are not snipers.
So there's really two cases--
1. The mentally ill person has an immediate potential TO KILL SOMEONE.(cops, family, whatever) -> Bullets.
2. The mentally ill person doesn't have an immediate potential TO KILL SOMEONE. -> Words. (This basically means if they have a knife, they are significantly over 21 feet away from people.)
#2 for someone armed with a knife seems like it'd be kind of hard, unless they are outside.