After reading The Stranger’s coverage of the police department recently, I can’t help but think that beat cops shouldn’t have guns under normal circumstances.
I don’t mean to suggest that all, or most, of the Seattle Police can’t handle a firearm. They’ve all had psychological screening and extensive training. Uniformly, I’ve only had good experiences with Seattle police. But all it took was one bad day for one officer to put a wood carver in the ground. The day would have been better for Williams and for Birk if Birk hadn’t been armed that day. We’re told that these sorts of incidents of police shooting people are inevitable, but if we disarm the sort of people who think “Ian Birk is a good young man” we’ll probably have fewer of those sorts of incidents.
And I know the region has had a spate of police officers murdered recently. There are people gunning for our officers, sadly literally. Still their weapons didn’t save them from those premeditated murders. And in the case of Clemmons, since he took an officer’s gun, he was more dangerous because the police were armed. Shootings of officers in Britain where the police on the street don’t carry weapons is fairly infrequent (obviously there are other reasons).
I’m not arguing there is no place for any police officer in any circumstance to have a weapon. But it should be the exceptional case, not the norm.
What if, rather than taking his gun away, we took away his car? If Birk had been a bike or foot patrol, not only would he have had a better view of what was going on that day he would have had much more interactions with the community in that neighborhood, known the people better. Cars create a rushed and isolated experience and they cut off your view of the world. I’m always amazed at how much more I see and how less rushed I am when I’m riding my bike. Plus, bikes are, way, way, cheaper than cars.
I am not sure about the cops but why does anyone think a gun is protective.?
I someone wants to shoot me, how will MY having a gun stop that?
As dir the Williams case, I wish folks would be a bit more nuanced. I know a cop who had dealth with Williams. While it is true Williams carved wood, he was not in the sense people think a “wood carver.” Williams, sadly, was an alcoholic. He was given to violence and had been restrained beforfe.
This does not mean the Birk was innocent. It does seem to me that we are oprotecting cops too much by raising their standard of proof too high. Assuming Birk was guilty of what the Dept dismissed him for, isn’t strange that police malpractice is only punisheable in the event of a killing?
UI would rather see a lowr stndard of prrof and some decrease in the level of punishment for someone like Burk. Malpractive while wielding a scalpel, an airplane or Smith and Wesson should be pretty serious crime even if it is not murder.
re 2: I have known of young professionals (in and out of law enforcement)who are/were in their 20’s who got mightily offended at people who didn’t give them their due — who may have even been ‘disrespectful’.
I don’t think any cop under the age of 35 should be allowed to carry a gun.
I’ve got to think about this suggestion a bit. On the one hand, I agree with Cass @ # 3 that the situation can escalate far too quickly, and a young police officer with a gun will probably insist on a “resolution” rather than backing off long enough for tensions to abate and the situation to de-escalate (and for backup to arrive). The event up in Everett which went to trial last year is an example, a drunk fellow behind the wheel of a car in a parking lot got shot multiple times because the officer got frustrated at his failure to respond to orders and wanted to “end this”.
But while very few police find themselves in an encounter with a person intent on shooting a police officer, it does happen from time-to-time. A simple traffic stop might turn into a gunfight if the driver has an arrest warrant and would rather die than go back to jail. In those cases I’m not sure that a unilateral disarmament would be wise. And unfortunately, we can’t know in advance when a police officer might be faced with such a situation.
Simplistic drivel! We arm the police so we can all sleep safer at night.
John 425 said: “…We arm the police so we can all sleep safer at night.”
Unless you are a minority, grow tomato plants on your roof, etc.
@5: Simplistic drivel! We worry about police officers with firearms because some of them are out of control.
When you argue against a simplistic position with another simplistic position, you completely undercut yourself.
John425 has never let that stop himself before…
More guns = less crime. An armed society is a polite society.
“I someone wants to shoot me, how will MY having a gun stop that?”
Hopefully, it won’t stop your assailant. In your case, at least!
I nominate this thread as little tenderhanded Carl’s top post of stupidity of all time. Of course, like most Libtards, he hates cops until he needs one in his little imaginary utopia of fragrant flowers and happy joy joy. What a douche, but yet so expected. Is little Miss Carl pusillanimous? You bet!
And agreed at 9 and 10.
Check out Canada Carl, banning all firearms oh-so curbed all the violent gun crime there huh? Dumbass.
If memory serves me correctly, the police in Britain weren’t normally allowed to carry firearms until some time in the 1960’s. It was after they were issued pistols that the first London bobby in a very long time was shot.
And “TJ”…where in the world did you get the idea that firearms are banned in Canada? Are you totally ignorant, or are you just assuming the rest of us are?
@9,12: You mean like the old American West of Yore? Or Somalia? Or Ciudad Juarez?
Pretty polite societies with very little crime, right?
And look at all of the violent crime in Europe . . . people being killed left and right! Or our friendly neighbors to the North, who don’t have nearly the same ratio of guns to people? They’re violent, impolite folks!
Sorry, guys. You’re getting your facts completely wrong.
stupid drunk woodcarver with over 100 run-ins with cops should not have been carrying a knife.
if your are gonna be armed, stupid, and drunk, you get what you fucking get.
great, now we get to have a memorial to a drunken loser…..nice going seattle.
I wont hold my breath for a memorial to the soldiers from seattle who have died in the last 10 years…that isnt seattle’s style.
Post #11 nails it.
@15: So . . . you’re arguing that because he was carrying a closed 3-inch knife, that he deserved to be shot?
I’m guessing you’re the kind of guy who advocates carrying assault rifles in public. If I see you carrying an assault rifle and a beer, and I decide to plug you because I think you’re a danger to the public or myself, did you just get what you deserved?
“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” –Winston Churchill
“Yes, making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep” –Rudyard Kipling
Orwell wrote, in his essay on Kipling, that the latter’s “grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.”
@17
No, I never said he deserved to get shot…what I said is that when you act stupid, bad shit can happen to you. In other words, dont put yourself in those situations.
Does a guy riding a motorcycle with no helmet deserve to die of a head injury? No….but he certainly sets himself up for it.
The moral of the story is this: if you want to act stupid in public by getting drunk all the time and generally living like a POS and nuesance to everyone else, AND carry a knife – bad shit can happen to you.
@17
oh, and as far as your “guess”? HAHAHA, keep on guessing there moron – -maybe someday you will get it right.
The comment @18 is cut&paste that could have come from any of hundreds of sites. Christ, there’s not even a “fuck you” added for a small measure of originality. Gawd, we really do need better trolls.
@21 re: @18…
…do they HAVE to be as uncivilized as THAT assclown?
Here’s one for steve@21: Fuck You. You don’t need trolls, you need more; you need the common sense of a fucking idiot.
The police in Britain DO now carry guns.