[csdtx]

Many police departments do not screen for psychological pathologies, and even if they do would they really work for psychopaths who want to kill people? For someone who is a blood thirsty psychopath who wants to get away with murder, is there anything better than working for police/military since they can just say "It was an accident."?

About 1% of the population could be considered psychopaths, so there would be plenty in the police/military.

https://fox6now.com/2017/11/09/13-years-later-documentary-gi...

It is also clearly obvious this cop was lying in order to get away with this. The question is why were the other officers also lying?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eBMNHGAFRI The cop talking to the father

[Fezzik]

Do you have a citation or real-life experience regarding that assertion? My understanding is that all law enforcement officers that go on to carry a firearm undergo a comprehensive psychological evaluation prior to or around when they enter the academy. This information may be unique to Oregon, but as an attorney I have worked with tons of law enforcement officers and they have all undergone psych evals... I know numerous social workers that have gone through the application process but been passed over because of their psych evals. Or so we assume - they are otherwise solid candidates.

[csdtx]

I highly doubt an intelligent psychopath who knows how to manipulate people and knows what to say can't get through this "comprehensive psychological evaluation". If you want to kill people you aren't going to tell others this in the open, or admit it on a test.

Unless those tests include CT scans of brain activity I wouldn't trust it. And that would only disqualify people born with some sort of problem, not people who develop it because of upbringing.

Also https://thefreethoughtproject.com/dad-confronts-cop-killed-h... mentions the officer that told the guy to shoot killed himself after the event. So it's likely this case might just be a freak accident due to negligence and poor training.

[Fezzik]

That’s not at all how psychological evaluations work - the participant is not asked “do you enjoy killing people?” It looks like about 90% of police officer jobs use psychological evaluations as a screening tool: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/psychological-exams-and-sc...

The effectiveness of such evaluations as screening tools can certainly be questioned, but given that you had no idea they were even used makes me think you probably have little-to-no-knowledge if how psych evals are conducted or how they may or may not be accurate.

And the notion that a psychopath would go through the substantial process of applying to be a police officer, then go through the academy, then go through a probationary period... just to kill another person, instead of just killing that person, is cooky. Obviously we have significant problems with the behaviors of some of the 650,000+ law enforcement officers in the US, but what your describing is not a part of that.

[tdeck]

This feels like it moves the goal post quite a bit from your original comment.