[loveyourmother]

"shot the attacker (apparently only once too, unlike in the USA where they empty their magazine)." I am not sure if you have ever dealt with someone who is a lethal threat to you but it isn't like the movies. A wounded person can still shoot and kill you or stab you. You can put multiple bullets into a target and they can still kill you. Do police over react sometimes? Of course. If you have reached the point of actually firing a weapon at an individual you don't pause in between each individual shot to wait and see if you have done enough. Each shooting is different. If you think cops are leaving their houses with the intent or hopes of shooting and killing someone then you must not know any cops. They just want to make it home at the end of their shift.

[scarface74]

I don’t disagree with you, but there have been way too many incidents where cops overreacted and shot an unarmed minority. They signed up to put themselves in danger, I didn’t sign up to be shot because the cop got nervous because of the complexion of my skin or because I “fit the description”.

[loveyourmother]

How many of those incidents could have been resolved by the offender just complying or not fleeing? Here is a link to show the breakdown of all police shootings. You can filter by race, if they had a weapon, mental illness, fleeing. In all of 2017 22 individuals were killed that were reported to be unarmed and not fleeing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

[scarface74]

Baked into the statistics is an assumption that cops never lie....

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xvzwp/baltimore-cops-car...

https://newsmaven.io/pinacnews/courtroom-files/st-louis-cop-...

[Audible_logic]

Because we know police statistic to be above question. Also, how does someone fleeing place the cops life in danger and require lethal force? I find this "comply in order to live..." logic dangerous.

[anonnyj]

It's more like "Given the unlikely to change current state of things, you happen to be more likely to live if you comply, and as such, complying is a very good idea".

I won't mind-read and suggest where you went wrong.

[mixmastamyk]

Surrounding a suspect who brought a knife to a gun fight does not put one in substantial lethal danger.

And there is a pattern that other countries don’t feel obliged to repeat.

[loveyourmother]

There were ~940 people killed by police last year in the US. ~46 Police were killed (by an attacker) in the line of duty. I wonder how these numbers compare to those countries you mention. If you are constantly facing a more violent threat then it only makes sense you would be responding more violently. I don't know the break down of how many of these incidents involved arbitrary emptying of clips but I would guess the number is very small.

[scarface74]

Unfortunately, the US is more gun happy than most countries. There is a statistically irrational fear of getting shot and most people who are killed are killed by someone they know, not a random stranger.

That means cops have to be more vigilant about guns.

[loveyourmother]

They also leave out the number of incidents and the breakdown of those. I am sure there are 10s of thousands of times the police do not overreact compared to times they do.

[scarface74]

I wish I could take credit for this, but as Chris Rock said....

I know it's hard being a cop … But some jobs can't have bad apples. Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like, pilots. American Airlines can't be like, 'You know, most of our pilots like to land, we just got a few bad apples that like to crash into mountains.'

[loveyourmother]

A person with a knife and intent is just a lethal as someone with a gun. It only takes a second or two for someone to cover 20ft and give you a deadly wound.

[mixmastamyk]

That’s why they have backup, weapons, training, and get paid.

[Falling3]

>A person with a knife and intent is just a lethal as someone with a gun

Then why do the police need guns? Shouldn't knives be sufficient?

[loveyourmother]

>Then why do the police need guns? Shouldn't knives be sufficient?

Sure, if your plan is to only deal with threats that are < 20ft away and can be handled with a knife.

I never said the person with the knife would survive. They may very well get killed. Who cares if he managed to slice open your arm or neck and you bleed to death anyway.