Hard-Wire: Law Of The Gun

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Sky News aired this during the week, it's well worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZVIviiI6sM

The Black Oil

Thanks for this. I heard via a podcast - forget which one - that US officers were visiting Scotland. Good to see the full report.

Edit, I'm surprised at how honest the US police chiefs were. They seemed really concerned.

The Black Oil

NY Times

How many officers in Scotland have been killed in the last year or two years?” Chief Shortell added.

Bernard Higgins, an assistant chief constable who is Scotland’s use-of-force expert, stood and answered. Yes, his officers routinely take punches, he said, but the last time one was killed on duty through criminal violence was 1994, in a stabbing.

Quite a difference.

What struck me about some of the clips from the US, with police using firearms, is it's almost like more than shoot to kill and shoot to eliminate, permanently.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

The Black Oil wrote: »

What struck me about some of the clips from the US, with police using firearms, is it's almost like more than shoot to kill and shoot to eliminate, permanently.

And they believe they were justified in doing so, which is the worst. When you see video footage of the perp walking away from the police officer and them shooting them repeatedly in the back and then getting away with it, it seems having a police badge in the US is a license to commit murder.
The contrast between the US police force and other developed nations, such as Scotland or here in Ireland, is staggering.

The Black Oil

Always mindful that it's easy to criticise from a keyboard and from thousands of miles away.

From the documentary, it seemed to be in part a mindset issue. Threats have to dealt with and in some cases, the default approach seems to be about putting the threat down. Certainly, there are cases where the threat is significant, but as someone pointed out, the Scottish public wouldn't accept the use of the firearms in response to a rock being thrown. The shooting of those with mental illness is troubling and it speaks to the wider issues about the quality of and access to mental health care in the US.

You could see how the ordinary rank officers were concerned about being over-scrutinised and that's understandable. There's often a gap between management and rank and file. It'll take a long, long time to retrain over 900,000 officers, if they every force decides to get on board with it. They should do another doc in 3-5 years time. They could easily have made a two part doc here. I'd have liked to hear more from the US chiefs, not just the main bloke who set up the trip.

Achtung! Bono