I feel that the media ...and those in charge are possibly hiding something about the whole incidence as well.

I think what is being "hidden" is the environment and culture of the local cops. Cops get training to help them avoid making the mistakes we see in the video. The cop in that video got that training, and yet there he is, losing his future (and the perp's future) for all to see. How does that happen? Culture failure. At that critical moment, he felt in his gut that it was OK to bend the rules of his training. I'd be willing to bet that he has personally seen many bendings of the rules in his day-to-day duties, things his management tolerates and looks the other way.

There are parallels in business that many of us have probably seen; the gap between policy and reality regarding safety or quality programs. There's the corporate policy and training, and there's the reality on the ground. A well-run operation has a small gap. Toyota comes to mind. In far too many companies, there is a giant gap.

I'll bet this cop's superiors are wetting themselves over what will be found out.

 

But to give the devil his due, no matter how insane such an imagined threat might be, similar and even more unimaginable threats have actually happened. Here in this town we've had police officers (plural) killed by someone that was pulled over for a simple traffic ticket.

OK. I will stipulate that cops regularly find felons driving cars badly. The part I object to is shooting people after you can see that they are unarmed and not attacking anyone, shooting them after they have been rendered helpless, or clubbing them after they are unconscious.

 

OK. I will stipulate that cops regularly find felons driving cars badly. The part I object to is shooting people after you can see that they are unarmed and not attacking anyone, shooting them after they have been rendered helpless, or clubbing them after they are unconscious.

I agree. While I will point out that cops have to make life and death decisions literally in a few seconds (or even less than a second) and that they very reasonably must take a very "better safe than sorry" attitude and will necessarily therefore be pretty unwilling to grant the benefit of the doubt to a suspect, that does NOT mean that they get to just shoot first and ask questions later. It also does NOT mean that they get to get carried away in the "heat of the moment", no matter how much doing so is part of basic human nature. Quite the opposite -- they are in a position of significant, life and death power and authority and so they have to accept a correspondingly high level of responsibility and accountability that goes along (or should go along) with it. They must be held to a higher standard and the consequences for failing to live up to that standard must be higher as well. We often hear that a felon that kills a cop is (probably) a greater threat to society overall. Okay, fine. But then a cop that abuses their authority or, yes, just makes bad decisions, with or without malice, is also a greater threat to society and should not be tolerated.

 

I think what is being "hidden" is the environment and culture of the local cops. Cops get training to help them avoid making the mistakes we see in the video. The cop in that video got that training, and yet there he is, losing his future (and the perp's future) for all to see. How does that happen? Culture failure. At that critical moment, he felt in his gut that it was OK to bend the rules of his training. I'd be willing to bet that he has personally seen many bendings of the rules in his day-to-day duties, things his management tolerates and looks the other way.

There are parallels in business that many of us have probably seen; the gap between policy and reality regarding safety or quality programs. There's the corporate policy and training, and there's the reality on the ground. A well-run operation has a small gap. Toyota comes to mind. In far too many companies, there is a giant gap.

I'll bet this cop's superiors are wetting themselves over what will be found out.

Agree strongly. There will always be a gap between the ideal and the actual, but society has a right to demand that steps are taken to minimize that gap.

I get livid when I see a cop turn on their lights just to get through a red light. I used to see this on a regular basis, maybe once every other month or so, and I used to make a point of following the cop to see where they went. Often I couldn't do so because the cop was speeding (with no lights/siren), but every time I was able to follow it became obvious that they most definitely were NOT on any kind of a call. Several times they were just going back to the station (end of shift and in a hurry to go home?) or, in one classic case, went to a donut shop to meet several other cops for coffee. I would then call the police station and report the car number and tell them that they were using their lights to go through red lights and were speeding and every single time I was told that they were responding to a silent alarm. When asked if that silent alarm was at the police station or at the donut shop that they met their fellow officers at, they would then say that the alarm had been canceled enroute. Now, is that possible? Sure. And I would have bought, maybe, the first couple times. But more than a dozen times over a several year period? Bull. What should have happened was I should have been told that they would talk to the officer and enter the complaint in their record -- and an officer that build up a number of similar complaints should face disciplinary action. There also needs to be a culture that says that if a cop sees two cars violating a traffic regulation and one of them is a cop, that it is the cop that gets pulled over and ticketed AND that the penalties for ANY traffic violation, on or off duty, gets double the fine for any law enforcement officer. The former is, admittedly, pretty unrealistic to hope for, but the latter could be codified into law and enforced by the courts.

 

Now you are completely in Fantasy Land.
Once upon a time, I saw a Florida State cop having a conversation on the side of the road. When he finished, I said to him, "When you leave here you have to go south about a mile to the next u-turn, so I want you to do the speed limit so I can check the speedometer on this used car." He said, "The Law does not apply to police officers." Then he promptly made an illegal u-turn across the muddy median.

 

No doubt that many of them feel that way. But let's be fair and acknowledge that many of them don't. I've known lots of cops over the years and have certainly seen my share of ones that believe that the rules don't apply to them (or at least the 'mundane' rules don't). But most of the cops I have known DO believe that the rules apply to them and DO make a concerted effort to set a good example of showing that they follow the rules they enforce. But I agree that hoping that the system as a whole will enforce that culture is a pipedream.

 

Hit in the back.

 

Standard way to save a person from suicide. Kill him yourself.

 

Well, obviously this guy as a serious threat to everyone around. I mean, look at the folks that walked right by him on the other side of the street. Clearly they were terrified and he was on the verge of massacring all of them -- or not.

Interesting that one cop was following him for some distance and then this other cop just apparently takes it upon himself to accelerate right past him and run the guy down. The situation seemed reasonably defused up to that point. The guy was clearly a threat only to himself that the officer following him clearly recognized that as being the case.

 

Standard way to save a person from suicide. Kill him yourself.

I think they prevented a suicide by cop here.

This clown was on a crime spree.

 

Love how the other cops threatened the dead guy with their pistols.

 

Well, obviously this guy as a serious threat to everyone around. I mean, look at the folks that walked right by him on the other side of the street. Clearly they were terrified and he was on the verge of massacring all of them -- or not.

Unfortunately when a person is walking around in public with a loaded firearm making threats against himself and against law enforcement then shooting randomly into the air fo no real reason you cant assume that his is not going to turn on someone at random or is on his way to kill some people before killing himself.

It's a benefit of doubt I couldn't give a suspiciously acting gun wielding clearly unstable person in that situation. Everything I see in his body language says highly unstable, unpredictable and likely highly dangerous with little concern for his own well being.

 

In general I agree, but the situation was being handled by at least one cop already and it appears this other cop simply took it upon himself to go barging in past the cops already present on and managing the scene taking matters into his own hands.

 

Don't worry. All the other cops will, "deem" his behavior.

 

The da isn't bringing charges in AZ.

The chief of police was way out in front of that PR standing by the officers decision to reduce that threat. The perp had minor injuries and faces mutiple charges.

 

The da isn't bringing charges in AZ.

The chief of police was way out in front of that PR standing by the officers decision to reduce that threat.

+1
and saving the Taxpayers of AZ money.

 

The perp had minor injuries and faces mutiple charges.

A car hit me at half that speed and I was in hospital for 3 months. Must recalibrate my beliefs about getting hit by cars.

 

The da isn't bringing charges in AZ.

The chief of police was way out in front of that PR standing by the officers decision to reduce that threat. The perp had minor injuries and faces mutiple charges.

Minor injuries????

Wow!

Must have been drunk/high.

 

Yeah, I can be sore for days from "minor injuries" from sleeping crooked, eating too much before bed, or raking the leaves.

 

I never looked deeper into the injuries ... but if they "truly" are minor, the driver had to be skilled on where to "hit" him. I'm wondering what "minor" really meant. Of course if "dead" is major, "minor" would cover a number of injuries"