Here’s an excellent article on the plight of the unarmed perpetrator, by John Hinderaker. Here’s an excerpt:
This is the point I really want to make: the constant emphasis on police shootings of *unarmed* men that we see in the press is, for the most part, crazy. If you are a perp, or a suspect, or an inoffensive person walking down the street, you may be unarmed, but the police officer is not. Nor, in most cases, will he have any immediate way to know whether you are armed or not. If you attack him, what do you expect him to do? Challenge you to an arm-wrestling match? He is entitled to use deadly force to defend himself. Attacking a police officer rarely ends well. Likewise with fleeing a police officer who is ordering you to stop.
If there is a problem here, it does not demand a thorough revamping of American police practices. Rather, it suggests that those who have influence with a small demographic group–6% of the population, according to the Post–impress upon them that they should not attack police officers under any circumstances, and if told to stop, they should stop. If they put their hands up, they are not going to get shot.
This makes the point that should be obvious to all but has somehow gotten obscured by all the post-Brown propagandist verbiage, which is that a police officer can’t tell whether a belligerent aggressive suspect is armed or not unless he/she is brandishing the weapon in full sight.
If you begin to attack a police officer, that officer can’t ascertain what hidden weapons you might have, but must defend him/herself and do it quickly and effectively. Officers are not required to be martyrs, although the left would like to pretend they should be.
Just one quibble with Hinderaker: the press is not crazy when it writes these preposterous things. It is purposeful. The press wants to guide you in a certain direction and believes that you don’t have the brains to see the fallacy of its argument, and in a large number of cases the press is correct about this.
I would also like to add something. Hinderaker writes that “If they put their hands up, they are not going to get shot” should be a message taught to all those who would otherwise defy the police and try to attack them. I believe that most people already have heard it, and perhaps were taught it by their parents. However, some choose to defy that advice for a number of possible reasons: bravado, knowledge of guilt of crime and fear of apprehension, and/or being high on drugs and/or alcohol.
What’s more, the “hands up, don’t shoot” crowd has perpetrated a related lie about Michael Brown, who never said or did any such thing.
For some, their motivation is to get the opposite message across than the one that Hinderaker suggests should be spread around.
One effect of the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie is to tell would-be perpetrators that they’re better off defying a cop than surrendering, because it won’t help them to put their hands up since the cop will shoot them anyway. So the covert message is that they may as well try to attack the police officer (or run), who would just as soon shoot them as not no matter what they do.
In addition, if unfortunately the person happens to be shot or even killed by a police officer as a result, it wouldn’t be so bad for the movement because it would garner more publicity and become another cause célèbre and grist for the publicity mill.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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I would note that ANY time a suspect decides to go hands-on with a police officer, they are in effect reaching for a handgun–the officer’s handgun.
Either they are doing so immediately, as did Mike Brown who got shot through the hand INSIDE Darren Wilson’s cruiser (Brown’s blood/tissue was inside the vehicle), or the officer has to assume they will do so if they manage to first subdue him (and surely the person who chooses to attack a police officer doesn’t INTEND to lose that fight).
It’s really no different than if the suspect were reaching for a handgun on a table, indeed it’s worse–by taking the officer’s gun they are simultaneously arming themselves AND disarming the officer.
Fight a cop, hear loud noises. It’s not rocket science.
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Tell that to the Arlington TX police man who just got thrown under the bus by his police chief. The young man shot was advancing on the office and not obeying the officers commands, Video shows him acting irrationally before the shooting.
Also, and I may be overthinking it here, but if I were a cop and someone attacked me, I would assume that they had some kind of weapon — else why would they take me on, knowing I am armed?
By the same token, if they attacked you, knowing that you were armed, and they didn’t pull out a gun, what are the chances that both
A) They mean to attack you seriously and…
B) They have a gun?
….are true?
Now maybe they think they are good at judo or something like that, or they have a hidden knife maybe, or some other surpise up his sleeve…
But a gun??
Of course, the other thing is, they know the cops have rules, and could be in trouble for shooting when it is not warranted.
And they may overetimate the restraining power of these rules.
But still, if they (already) have a gun, why wait? Because they know their aim is lousy?
As for aiming, they could end up like Big Mike Brown, who picked on a police officer who was a decent shot, hitting Brown on roughly half his shots, with the shots hitting him in more and more dangerous/potentially lethal locations as the conflict continued, until Brown finally succumbed to two head shots. The .40 S&W (instead of 9 mm) rounds probably didn’t hurt the officer’s effectiveness either.
…one silly millimeter…
Heh!
They may be psychotic. They may be jacked up on spice or PCP. Some drugs out there bring on psychotic episodes and with PCP an individual can exhibit extraordinary strength.
Let’s be frank here. There is a sad lack of respect for authority in this country today. Some of it, justly, comes from authority abusing their power. But mostly, it comes from children not being taught how to act properly in a civil society. Parents need to teach their children respect for authority. This would go a long way toward alleviating some of these shootings. Even the Bible tells us to, “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverb 22:6)
no one is raising children these days: they just have babies.
Why isn’t respect for authority being taught? I think much of the problem is a direct result of fatherless childrearing. And that, of course is substantially because that sort of behavior has been subsidized for roughly half a century, starting with LBJ’s War on Poverty. One of the things that fathers do in a healthy family is to instill respect for authority And for a long time that authority is the parents, and in particular, the fathers. They are often the ones who also teach respect for external authority (including police). My theory further suggests that males develop their male persona by pushing back against authority. For most of us, that is our father. But for those raised w/o such, that often means the state, which includes police, but also teachers, etc.
Unarmed, huh?
More than twice as many people are killed every year by “unarmed” attackers than by people armed with rifles.
FBI Uniform Crime Reports
Expanded Homicide Data Table 8
Murder Victims by Weapon, 2009-2013
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)1
2009: 817
2010: 769
2011: 751
2012: 707
2013: 687
Total: 3731
Rifles
2009: 351
2010: 367
2011: 332
2012: 298
2013: 285
Total: 1633
A police officer, just like anybody else, has the right to leave work at the end of his/her workday in the same physical condition he/she was in when he/she arrived. OSHA goes to great lengths to make this point. The left wants to make cops the exception. If the cop waits till he is shot to react, that should violate some OSHA regulation somewhere I would think.
The “innocent victim” may have been unarmed initially, but when he attempts to get an officer’s weapon, he is now armed. The MSM (LSM) lies…as usual.
I’ve heard plenty of judges and prosecutors with a different take on it. They believe that getting assaulted is just part of the job for a police officer and don’t even consider charging or if found guilty seriously sentencing an offender. I’ve had a judge ask me, ‘Why’d you even charge this person?’
I have been there too.
The rest of us also have a right to go home unharmed at the end of the day. The “instant subdual” a few (note the word “few”) cops use is not right.
How many game wardens get killed in the line of duty? How is it that they have a lower death rate in spite of dealing with heavily armed citizens every day? Could being polite have something to do with the difference?
With regard to : ” Just one quibble with Hinderaker: the press is not crazy when it writes these preposterous things. It is purposeful. ”
It’s not just the press but people, in general, who refer to the object of their criticism as naive, ignorant, crazy etc., but not purposeful. Maybe out of some fear of ‘protocol’ or calling a spade a spade.
An example for me, in looking back at this current administration’s policy in the M.E. is that it was carried out on purpose.
Their reactions to any criticism shows that their actions were purposefully derived.
My reaction to the media has been cynical for many years now as they have been complicit in trying to out do Hollywood.
Most folks recognize assaulting an officer is a “bad idea”. They know such assault may end in death for the assailant. High crime areas are probably most aware of this. Even there I think a majority are glad to see a cop on the beat.
That is why spreading the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” lie was so malicious. Instead of tamping down emotion with the real evidence, they suppressed the real evidence. The White House sent Sharpton/Holder in to stir up the mob, using racial animus to fabricate another Trayvon drama. Holder even tried to suppress the video of Brown assaulting the store owner in his robbery. Why?
Team Obama/Sharpton/Holder had to know the facts from the start, that many witnesses saw Brown assaulting Wilson, but they pushed prosecution of the cops and brought in 50 agents to “assault” the police department. The Jarrett/Nixon phone calls appear to have even ordered the “room to riot” when the Guard was called out but seemingly told to stand down.
The burning and rioting of the very stores and surrounding area would appear to be a coordinated “room to riot” spectacle for TV, inspiring other riots, and of course pushing the Obama Doctrine of “God Damn America”. Obama claims all white America has the KKK gene, and reparations would not go far enough, and now all this “disparate impact” quota system for everything.
Of course Obama doesn’t care that he only inspires more chaos, and more black on black crime as we see in Baltimore. We need more street level problem solving Giulianis, that will be aggressive toward PD problems, but also go to high crime areas with stop and frisk.
Obama is just an agitator, it would seem. His use of tax dodger Sharpton as point man is evidence enough, but now we get Baltimore, and who knows what else they have in store.
Baltimore actually did get someone like that from New York, but he was stopped by the pro-criminal city council. Ironically, Rawlings is the first decent mayor Baltimore has had in a very long while.
Obama has a lot in common with Hitler. They both used the technique of raising racial fears and hatred to motivate people to provide their political support. It worked for Hitler and Obama. This was evil when Hitler did it and just as evil when Obama did it.
There exists a form of affirmative action for behavioral expectations for some groups of people. This movement is specifically designed to increase the latitude civil society is expected to grant Black citizens based on a false narrative.
I could say the same on how 4 centuries of racism gives whites that same thing.
And you’d be the lying lil’ racist pig we all know and find a troll pain in the ass.
You could also point out that white Europeans are the only people in history to have come up with the idea that there was something wrong with racism.
You could, but then I’d point out (again) that slavery was before my time. The Civil Rights Movement, the KKK, and the MLK shooting were before my time.
I had no part in any of them. Therefore, I bear no culpability in ANY of the unpleasantness featured in the history books.
So, maybe some white people did engage in four centuries’ worth of racially-based slavery and discrimination. I didn’t. So piss off.
Besides which, you missed the point entirely. Whites have none of the latitude for misbehavior that civil society seems to grant to blacks. It’s almost like blacks are expected to misbehave, and so it’s allowed. Whites are expected to behave, and so misbehavior bears harsh (social, not necessarily criminal) consequences.
It’s a cultural phenomenon, but it’s based entirely on a false narrative that is every bit as racist as slavery and Jim Crow.
Whites have none of the latitude for misbehavior that civil society seems to grant to Blacks.
That is a typical WVI statement. Dishonest as well.
You lying POS racist pig!
It isn’t just TRUE, it’s been institutionalized by the DoJ. Look up “School Discipline” and “racial”.
I know several teachers personally who have experienced this. It is very upsetting and discouraging.
Joseph Harvey was an unarmed perpetrator as well. However,when he was rightfully killed by a Black cop named Joseph Walker,the vitriol was and is still against the black cop.
The “vitriol” has nothing to do with race. Walker left the safety of his vehicle to confront Harvey. Walker shot Harvey from a distance, so there so no imminent threat. Witnesses claimed Harvey stopped and Walker shot him anyway.
It doesn’t take a lot of brains to see the difference between the Walker case and the cases currently being promoted by the social justice agenda. If you can’t see it, then you are lacking in objectivity.
Walker was found not guilty, so what’s your problem? I guess you’re like those people who keep protesting AFTER they’re given everything they demand.
Zimmerman,Wilson and other killers were cleared of all charges. Yet there scenarios are brought up. So why can’t I bring up Walker/Harvey? I’m still waiting for the laws that gave Harvey the right to threaten,pursue Walker in a criminal manner?
Zimmerman continues to be attacked by the Left. When we bring up Zimmerman, it is uaually as an example of how the innocent are attacked by the Left.
As you well know.
I think there is another reason young people challenge police officers, especially most recently. They are growing up in tough neighborhoods with no prospects and the likelihood of dying young. They see friends shot by other in the neighborhood and ignored by the media and the politicians. But then they see others shot by police martyred by the media and the left.
They make a choice either to keep living as they have and ultimately end up as an unnamed statistic of inner city violence OR to attack the police and go down as a hero for the cause and immortalized by social justice warriors.
They’re depraved on account a they’re deprived.
I had the great good fortune to instruct a young woman who was teaching a Criminality class, in the wonderful lyrics of “Officer Krupke” from West Side Story. She had never heard it before, and was dumfounded at the accuracy of the lyrics!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq28qCklEHc
And the punks are still blockin’ the sidewalk. 🙁
And today they could be mistaken for lawyers or stockbrokers.
For better or worse, there’s no common culture anymore. It’s not so much that West Side Story is OLD (or “classic”, as I prefer), it’s that so few cultural or artistic ideas, images, or experiences, if any, can safely be assumed to be familiar to most people.
The real problem is the ghetto gangster culture and the politicians who pander to them for votes. Trayvon Brown, Michael Brown and Freddie Grey are representative example of this culture. They account for over half of the crime in the country despite being less than 6% of the population.
I seem to recall that an officer was recently pistol-whipped with his own handgun that was seized by a suspect and he was left lying unconscious, with no one deigning to come to his aid, indeed, pictures of him spread on social media with immediate mockery. He’s lucky to be alive.
In Massachusetts the other day a man named Joseph Parker assaulted SEVEN cops. While assaulting the cops ,made anti police remarks. Especially against Ferguson Police officers. In spite of all of this,this unarmed perpetrator is still alive. We know why.
Of course, Parker was white. No black suspect has ever been taken alive by police — all shot dead on the spot! That’s why there are no blacks in prison.
Nice one! 🙂
Thank you. Thank you. But they have won. Otherwise, why is the officer who rightly took down Brown off the force?
And no, the shooting was not “tragic”.
#thuglivesmatter
#copslivesdontmatter
Darren Wilson lost his job, but he walked away with his life. The gentle giant Michael Brown was trying to kill him, I believe that. He made the only decision he could at that moment. Hopefully things turn around for him, somehow.
Ever since Trayvon, “unarmed” has pretty much just meant “black”. Vonderitt Myers was the “unarmed” teen who killed for shooting at cops, apparently with a .380 caliber turkey sandwich.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Irrelevant. The US population isn’t at risk of being killed by policemen. What’s relevant is what proportion they make up of violent criminals, and, as the writer knows very well, the answer is “more than 40 percent”. Even more relevant is what percentage they make up of violent criminals who happen to be unarmed, and the answer is that nobody knows, but it’s likely to be more than 40%. So black violent criminals who happen to be unarmed are probably slightly less likely to be killed by policemen than are other violent criminals who happen to be unarmed.
I still don’t understand why “unarmed” is even a category to be reported on. Why is it relevant? If a policeman is reasonably in fear for his safety, his right to defend himself is exactly the same whether the assailant is armed or not. The death of an armed assailant is no more or less important than that of an unarmed one. So why even mention it? Do we ever hear whether people shot by the police are right- or left-handed? Do we hear the color of their eyes, or the kind of shoes they were wearing? Does anyone keep statistics about those categories? No, because they’re irrelevant. Well, so is whether they were armed.
Two points:
1) Disparity of force – a 6’7″ tall teen weighing 295 does not have to be armed to present the danger of death or grievous bodily harm to someone who is 5’10” and weighs just 175 pounds. Whether or not that person is a LEO is irrelevant.
2) A LEO has to make the shoot/don’t shoot decision in a fraction of a second. Look at this https://www.pinterest.com/pin/395120567282790291/ and tell me how anyone is supposed to tell which is which – in less than a second, at a distance of 10 feet – knowing that the price for a wrong guess means either a dead innocent, or his own wife grieving over his lifeless body.
Using the words “unarmed” or “armed only with a toy gun” should be grounds for a newsperson to be fired!
Brown was 6’4” by most accounts I’ve seen. You have a good point. As a matter of reference, this still makes Brown bigger and heavier than Brian Urlacher, Dick Butkus, Mohammad Ali and Mike Singletary.
Seeing how Brown had just attacked the officer thru his vehicle’s window and tried to take away his gun the decision to shoot Brown was an easy one to make.
But witnesses said it was the other way around — Wilson attacked Brown, grabbing the 290 pound teen around the neck, and pulling him through the window into the driver’s seat of the SUV, because that could happen, maybe. After all, it’s a big multiverse.