Cliffs: Couple gets pulled over for having paper tags despite that not being illegal. The officers ask for ID of the passenger even though they shouldn't. They run the IDs and nothing comes up. The pull over that should have never happened should be over.

They then get 4 drug dogs to search the car. They still find nothing. They then invasively search the woman including having her show her breasts. Still nothing.

They then search the guy and find nothing. They then cavity search the guy for over 5 minutes on the side of the road with two officers having their hands up the guy's ass.

They find nothing.

They write them a warning, but it doesn't say what the warning is for.

Their probable cause for the drug searches and cavity searches, and probably the stop in the first place? The narco had seen the guy once when he was working narco back in the day. The guy had been clean without any major incident for 9 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

that story is so tilting

Oh don't worry the post is putting a new one out every week.

This week, a guy who officers said didn't turn his turn signal on in time (he did) gets pulled over and asked invasive questions about his (he's black) and his passenger's (she's white) relationship. He answers the cops questions

Unsurprisingly no drugs were found.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...outh-carolina/

Seems to be a huge problem with making up a charge after the fact to justify police behavior. My favorite is "Resisting Arrest" when there was no possible justification for making an arrest.

How the **** can anyone be charged ONLY with Resisting Arrest? Why were they making the arrest he then allegedly resisted?

It can happen. For example case of mistaken identity that is not the fault of the officer. A citizen cannot resist an arrest just because she knows she is innocent.

Of course, that is never what actually happens in all those BS arrests.

Give this guy a medal, a big shiny one. The good thing about body cams is that when a cop does really good you can see it.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news...ting/82650042/

It somewhat depressing that if he had killed the guy, it would have been considered a good shoot. There is basically no expectation that an officer should be able to diffuse a situation like this without killing someone. If he happens to, it's so surprising that it deserves a medal.

I think a lot of these probably involve an assaulting an officer charge. They'll claim the victim made the first aggressive move during a a non-arrest situation. That's gives a reason to arrest. All subsequent interactions are then "resisting"

How often is that "aggressive move" either

1) Saying something rude

2) Refusing to consent to a search

3) Walking away

Very frequently. Which of course is a part of the problem.

I think the cop was well within his rights, if you will, to shoot the guy a few times when the guy was charging at him only a foot or two away. He could have "ended" the threat there and no one would have said much. The he only shot him once and then had the presence of mind afterward not to escalate the situation is impressive.

What would be depressing about that? There's a crazy dude with a huge ass knife 4 feet away trying to kill the cop; cop's well within his rights to use lethal force.

What's depressing is when someone gets killed who wasn't an immediate threat to anyone. That's when the police need to straighten up.


In this case, I'd like to think I'd have put one round in each kneecap and just stepped back out of range. But let's be honest. I'd have emptied the entire mag into his torso, and so would most anyone.


It's not realistic to make "hero cop" the expectation. We should be happy with "doesn't kill anyone unless they're actively trying to commit murder" and call it a day.

Disclaimer: I've only read the one report and it's rather sparse on details. A cop killing a knife wielding dude can fall anywhere between understandable to absolutely necessary depending on exactly what transpired. I'll admit I'm making some assumptions here. We all are.


It's not impressive in an absolute sense. It's what, in an ideal world, I'd expect from a trained professional. I suppose relative to what we see from actual cops it does stand out.

I agree and never meant to suggest otherwise. All I'm saying that while that would have been reasonable, it was likely not the best thing he could have done (and we know that, because what he actually did was better).

There are all sorts of things that one might have the right to do which may not be the best thing to do.

It's not like this guy is some random. He's supposedly a trained professional.

Me too. But neither you (I assume) nor I is a professional supposedly trained to deal with these sorts of things.

LOL at a trained professional with a gun and presumably a baton, neutralizing a guy with a knife without killing him being a "hero cop". I'd say that was proficient cop, but I'd reserve hero for something a little more impressive.

Did you know that the link contained the entire video?

He is, but why should he be?

Cops have numerous non and less lethal option available in these situations. In a similar situation ending lethality the question shouldn't be whether it can be a justified shoot the question should be why were other options discounted before it became a shooting.

It didn't work for me for some reason. I've seen it now.

I'd say that in that initial few seconds when he pulls his gun out, killing the guy is perfectly fine. I also don't think that the cop was trying to avoid that -- he just needed to get a shot off fast. This of course is perfectly reasonable. And if the dude dies there, I've got no problems and I would say the cop did a good job.

After that when he backs away from the guy and keeps shouting at him, killing him is not necessary. What he did was better. It certainly could have once again escalated into a situation where killing him would have been fine.

So, in the end, I'd say that this cop did what I'd expect a cop to do. The fact that we think it deserves massive praise is what is depressing and is a sign of how low our standards for cops has fallen.

He shot the guy once and tolerates pretty considerable risk of death or serious bodily harm in order to not shoot the guy again. He keeps backing away from the guy (into potential highway traffic!) to keep him at the very edge of a knife wielder's kill radius. It took great courage.

Out of curiosity, what did you want him to do with his baton as you mentioned earlier?

What do you suggest phil? Guy is 4 feet away and trying to stab you with Rambo's knife.

I think I heard two shots, but the video is understandably choppy at that point because of all the movement. He's does hit the guy and is able to distance himself pretty easily. He is well beyond the "very edge of the knife wielder's kill radius". At all times he has the option to shoot if the guy gets too close. Yeah, he steps onto the road. I think that was with view of the traffic situation.

I disagree w/ "considerable risk of death or serious bodily harm". We're never going to come to an agreement on what considerable is. I'll absolutely agree that what he did puts him at more risk than if the just wasted the dude at the first opportunity.

And I think that's the crux of our disagreement. That's the ****ing job. As a cop you're expected to be in situations that are dangerous and do a better job than a random civilian. There is risk. If you don't want the risk, the don't be a cop.

If we want cops that will not tolerate even the most minute amount of risk to their well being, the what we get is a bunch of "I thought he reached for his waistband" shootings. Now it is going to be very difficult to quantify exactly how much extra risk is OK. In my view, this guy exposed himself to some extra risk. It's an amount of extra risk that I think is acceptable if we want cop to be a job that's something more than civilian that's allowed to kill people.

I think it a little funny to describe what this guy did as requiring "great courage". If that's great courage, we're going to run out of superlatives to describe what soldiers in warzones, firefighters in burning buildings, etc. do.

It required some courage. An amount I would hope a lot of cops would have.


Here's a vid of a dude taking out a guy with a knife with a baton. There's a second person so that changes things. But the cop with the pepper spray seems to not be too helpful. I'm sure there are probably better examples, but that's the best I could find in the amount of time I wanted to spend. Out of curiosity, did what this cop did require "great courage"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9TFvh6Xps4

Yes, it did.

Summary: guy with knife makes a few pump fakes, cop holds baton and looks scared as ****, guy drops knife and runs away, cop chases and tackles him.

I dunno, i guess i don't expect our cops to just pull out batons and hope that bad guys choose not to stab them (which is what happened here).

Well, I guess we're never going to agree on what "great courage" is. I suppose at least part of the disagreement is semantic (but not all). I'm not sure how you know the cop looks "scared as ****", because we never see his face.

Where to draw the line is hard. I don't expect cops to engage every single knife wielding perp without a gun. On the other hand, in the case we're discussing, I think that after the initial few seconds when the guy suddenly pulls the gun, gets shot (but not killed, which I maintain would have been fine), and the cop is able to distance himself a little, it's not asking for great courage to try something that doesn't involve killing him.

Lol my cops don't carry guns and take down suspects who have swords and machetes.

If he has mace or a taser a less lethal option is clearly on the table and has no risk to the cop. If he doesn't then he should be trained to take down a suspect with a baton.

Didn't watch the video, but lots of cops on the planet don't carry guns. Hint they don't run away from knife wielding suspects in real life.

I would be so happy the day they disarmed the American cops. It would be a pleasure seeing these authoritarian scumbags trying to work in places like Detroit and Chicago with no guns.