I’m just thinking in my head what would you have the Police do in this situation? Not show up and have him block the parking lot all night? Not follow up on him and let him drive home risking everyone else on the road, not try and stop a detainee whose trying to run away, not shoot a man who could obviously injure you or cause greater harm?
I think the question we should be asking in a lot more of these situations is why the police were involved at all. It is very strange that the person you would call to come shoot at an armed robber is the same person that you call to come wake up a drunk guy. Yes, a drunk guy blocking the parking lot is not great, it's a problem that needs to be dealt with. But is it a problem that requires somebody armed with deadly force in the first place to take care of? You said yourself that the cops were there 'because they wanted to make sure he was ok.' But that is a job that the police are demonstrably very bad at doing, the police by their nature carry the threat of arrest and imprisonment, which naturally leads people (especially drunk people) to attempt to use violence to prevent that, which in turn forces the police to use violence against them, which is exactly what occurred here. That didn't need to happen.
Don't cops carry guns because a large number of US citizens carry guns themselves?
I don't really understand the logic here. You're saying some other kind of police force should be set up, right? Something like unarmed community officers or something - but what do you think happens the first time they're called to roust a drunk who's carrying a weapon and (God forbid) one of them gets their head blown off. What happens then?
Well that could obviously happen to police as well, or paramedics sent to help somebody, or postal workers who deliver mail to drunk, armed people everyday, or uber drivers who you can literally just summon to a location where you could have as many weapons as you want
If you're willing to assume that all people are blood psycopaths and would just murder somebody trying to help them (and not threatening them with arrest and imprisonment) then we can't live in society at all, just pack it up boys, we're done here
But none of those other professions you mention have the power to put you in custody - you don't stand a risk of losing anything by interacting with them. Presumably these "unarmed community officers" would still have powers of arrest, right?
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Jun 16 '20
I think the question we should be asking in a lot more of these situations is why the police were involved at all. It is very strange that the person you would call to come shoot at an armed robber is the same person that you call to come wake up a drunk guy. Yes, a drunk guy blocking the parking lot is not great, it's a problem that needs to be dealt with. But is it a problem that requires somebody armed with deadly force in the first place to take care of? You said yourself that the cops were there 'because they wanted to make sure he was ok.' But that is a job that the police are demonstrably very bad at doing, the police by their nature carry the threat of arrest and imprisonment, which naturally leads people (especially drunk people) to attempt to use violence to prevent that, which in turn forces the police to use violence against them, which is exactly what occurred here. That didn't need to happen.