Should police officers want back to school for more training?

Question

Every year someone especially a black person would be killed by police officers accidentally. Take example the case in New York City where 50 shots were fired by police officers during a bachelor party killing the husband to be and injuring others. Another example is in ATL where a grandmother was killed by a police officers who thought that the house was been used for drug activities and there are conflicting stories by different officers. Throughout American history, minorities especially blacks have been a target by police officers who often react violently when there are no violent acts. Who can forgot the king riot in LA caused by police brutality. Do you agree with me that it is time for police officers especially white police officers to go back to school for more training to prevent police brutality because it is getting worse every day and year.

Answer 1

most definitely. that would reduce the violence in our communities.

Answer 2

Ok, I've been teaching cops a lot of stuff for a lot of years concerning the use of force. By reading your question and a couple of the responses I see a few misconceptions that I lay the responsibility for right on the doorstep of the media.

To begin, a car is a deadly weapon, far more deadly than a gun. Officers are trained to shoot in order to stop a threat. So, you might question why they would need to fire 50 rounds. The idea is to stop the threat. If it isn't stopped you shoot until it does stop. Now, pistols are not as easy to shoot as the TV portrays so not all of those 50 rounds struck the person. Now you consider not all rounds are hitting, he's still threatening the officer (& to repeat... yes a car is a deadly weapon) so you have to keep shooting. New York City is very liberal and doesn't allow it's officers to carry a decent pistol cartridge. This means that it takes more rounds to stop the threat than it would with a bigger bullet or a hollow point bullet. (Oh, hollow points aren't the vicious rounds the media portrays and they're very good at preventing secondary injuries.)

Second, don't assume that because an officer is white that he or she is racist. There are more white people in the U.S. than minorities. There are more being hired as police then. Now, there are communities within jurisdictions that are primarily of one minority or another just like there are communities that are predominately white. If you have more white officers due to the larger population base then what are the odds that you'll have a white officer in a confrontation with a minority offender?

Now, here's a dirty little secret you haven't heard. Here's the rest of the story, so to speak. Prior to the Rodney King incident the L.A. city council directed the police to stop using control holds. These are ways to grab onto someone without hitting them and are used for passive-resistive subjects, minor assaults and restraining a subject at the conclusion of a confrontation. Rodney King charged the officer with a tire iron. Then the fight started. On the ground they were giving commands for him to drop it but he wouldn't and since they weren't allowed to use control holds they used impact techniques. Did you see him assault the officer on tape? No, the media didn’t release that, if they had it.

Cases of police brutality are actually going down every year, not increasing. It appears to be going up because we're hearing more of it now. This is because there is a camera in every cell phone and more media outlets than ever before. More news is going to be captured and spread to the public.

I can see that you've put some thought into your position. The only fault is that you're using the media as your research information. The media isn't going to report on news that isn't sensational; that doesn't cause controversy. I have witnessed numerous critical incidents and then read or watched the reports later. The news NEVER tells you all the facts or they get the facts wrong. Another technique they will use is to state the truth but use grammar or inflection that will leave you with another impression. By doing this they can boost their ratings/circulation but indemnify themselves against litigation. I only say this to encourage you to seek out additional resources of information before taking such an inflamatory position. I've worked with agencies primarily comprised of minorities because the communities they recruit in are comprised of the same minority. There are the same levels of abuse and the same levels of perceived abuse. Are these folks racist? They're confronting persons of the same race.

Answer 3

Don't think any amount of schooling alone will help those trigger happy fools.Plus the leaders and teachers themselves lie and cheat to defend them.However on the other side of the coin ,look what they have too face out there,I say look and what do I know what they face and see from day to day. How do anyone act in a society of drugged ,gun toting animals