Today seems to be one of those days when I come across more than one article that makes me wonder where, we as a species, have gone wrong. This article was the second.
According to this article, the sheriffs department in Schertz, Texas were chasing a woman who had stolen a car, and who, by the way, mentioned that she had a gun and might shoot the cop. This car thief then ran into a trailer park and was trying to break into a house, in order to get away from the deputies, when she was caught on the front porch.
The deputies, thinking she had a weapon, opened fire, spraying fire through her, and through the door, where a six year old child was playing, killing him.
What the article didn't point out, was whether the deputies had stun guns or not, but I would have to guess that they did.
What the article did point out, was that they still haven't found a weapon of any type.
Would I have done anything different? Yes, I think I would have.
My training is different than the police. Where the police are trained to shoot first and ask questions later, or so it seems lately, I'm trained to resort to violence only as a last resort. I have been trained to observe, talk, listen, then advise the criminal that failure to obey an order could result in their getting hurt. It's called conflict de-escalation.
I would like to think that in a situation like this, I would assess the situation and determine that any bullet flying through the air would hit someone innocent. I would like to think that I would have the common sense to use a stun-gun instead. But above all, I'd like to think that I would simply talk to the woman and listen to her.
But would I think of all these things? I don't know, but what I do know is that "I was afraid for my life," isn't a good reason to blindly shoot a dangerous weapon toward a house, or a car, or towards a person.
I believe that law enforcement officers need to be trained to use common sense and stop letting their adrenaline cause them to stop thinking. But who am I to tell people how to train law enforcement, except that I'm one of them.
I'm not the type that chases the criminals, I'm the kind that tries to rehabilitate them, behind the wire, where there are thirteen hundred of them and only about a hundred officers, if even that.
That's why I think that police and sheriffs should be trained more like correction officers and less like "the terminator," which is what some people think.
There are non-violent methods of taking criminals down, and they should be more widespread in their use.
The criminal might be hurt, but it's less likely that innocent people would be hurt.
(Image by Arresting Images.com)
If talking doesn't work, then there is always the alternative:
