How not to deal with Traffic Police
How not to deal with Traffic Police
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Discussion

john75

Original Poster:

5,303 posts

276 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
Just heard on the news about the guy in Hull who decided to swing a sword at Traffic Police after driving the wrong way down a dual Carriageway before being shot.

simpo two

92,670 posts

294 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
3 points
6 points
12 points
Disqualified
Shot

welsh blackbird

692 posts

273 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
How many people hoped that it was John Prescott?

singlecoil

35,825 posts

275 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
Shame is, it gives the police a chance to shut all the roads around, no matter how much traffic chaos is caused. Why do they do that? every one knows what happned

pmanson

13,388 posts

282 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
singlecoil said:
Shame is, it gives the police a chance to shut all the roads around, no matter how much traffic chaos is caused. Why do they do that? every one knows what happned


Its treated as a murder scene

dilbert

7,741 posts

260 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
I would have thought that an appropriate response to a sword wealding ex motorist would be a mounted police officer.

Caveat: I don't yet know all of the facts.

I'm sorry but as far as I'm concerned chasing someone down a dual carriage way and shooting them dead is not acceptable. To me, the fact that he tried to defend himself with of all things, a sword, suggests that this guy needs help, not death.

Crime prevention has failed. If police officers had the time and resources to seek out and sort out these problems properly, these highly charged incidents would happen less often.

Vesuvius996

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
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Correct. So let's have cops out on patrol in jam sandiwches looking for numpties instead of filling in forms and changing the film in piggy banks.

gemini

11,352 posts

293 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
get a life dilbert!
he was batten rounded but kept comin!
They tried but when faced with injury or death themsleves they shot!
He obviously wanted this.

Now the cops are afced with a legnthy enquiry and the pressure that they may be found to be guilty of something more!
Not a decision Id want to have to make

Vesuvius996

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all


Sorry but I'm with Gemini on this.

Utilitarianism - the benefit to the many over the few. He was clearly disturbed, and I feel terribly sorry for him, but what were the officers supposed to do. Tickle him into submission?

Pies

13,116 posts

285 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
gemini said:
get a life dilbert!
he was batten rounded but kept comin!
They tried but when faced with injury or death themsleves they shot!
He obviously wanted this.

Now the cops are afced with a legnthy enquiry and the pressure that they may be found to be guilty of something more!
Not a decision Id want to have to make


Am i right in thinking coppers volenteer to carry fire arms but receive no extra pay for doing so? And they could be found guilty of manslaughter/murder if they make a mistake ?

dilbert

7,741 posts

260 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
gemini said:
get a life dilbert!
he was batten rounded but kept comin!
They tried but when faced with injury or death themsleves they shot!
He obviously wanted this.

Now the cops are afced with a legnthy enquiry and the pressure that they may be found to be guilty of something more!
Not a decision Id want to have to make





They didn't have to chase him onto the wrong side of a dual carriageway. What did he actually do wrong. Even if he stole the vehicle, it's not worth killing him or risking the lives of everyone else over.

I'm afraid I'm totally against the police having firearms anyway. IF you get to the stage where you have a serious crowd control problem you use the army and shoot people with machine guns.

If you have a siege, you use the SAS.

Just hope that you don't loose it under pressure, for whatever reason. This is the precedent that gives them the right to shoot you. If you want, they can call you a terrorist once you're dead. That way everyone can be happy about police incompetance.


>> Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 22 March 19:47

Ferg

15,242 posts

286 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
As a matter of interest, can anyone tell me why, if police marksmen are as good as I bloody hope they are, they always shoot to kill......?

Can't they bring someone down without killing them?

This is a serious question, I'm not blaming them for shooting him.

Vesuvius996

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all


If someone was running at me with a bloody big sword, then I'd shoot them. And I'd mean it.

ofcorsa

3,546 posts

272 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
no dilberts right if theres a seige SAS sort it, mass riots Armed Forces, Mad mad weilding samurai sword who refuses to cease even after being shot with baton rounds? erm Yojimbo?.

Seriously How can the police NOT chase these people, if crims think its too dangerous to be followed then they will in future always take there pursuits to the wrong side of the carriagway.

How many limbs would have to be lost before deadly force was used? Even a shot in the leg may not have incapcitated this man if the baton rounds didnt, then what another go at wounding him? cruelly than a center mass shot i think,

julianhj

8,868 posts

291 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
Whilst I understand that the officers' safety was paramount, and of course in this instance I have nothing other than the published facts to go on, why don't armed officers aim for legs/arms etc when it's a plade rather than a firearm? If he was close enough to pose a threat to them, wouldn't he be close enough for a marksman to incapacitate, rather than kill instantly?

I am fully in favour of specialist armed officers, and realise it must be a very tough decision to open fire. I also disagree with the way officers are treated like suspects after such incidences.

dilbert

7,741 posts

260 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
ofcorsa said:
no dilberts right if theres a seige SAS sort it, mass riots Armed Forces, Mad mad weilding samurai sword who refuses to cease even after being shot with baton rounds? erm Yojimbo?.

Seriously How can the police NOT chase these people, if crims think its too dangerous to be followed then they will in future always take there pursuits to the wrong side of the carriagway.

How many limbs would have to be lost before deadly force was used? Even a shot in the leg may not have incapcitated this man if the baton rounds didnt, then what another go at wounding him? cruelly than a center mass shot i think,



Well, I'm not against police helicopters.

I'd also think twice about having a go at someone on horseback, even if I had a sword.

If they'd wanted to catch him that badly, they should have set the chopper on him and hung back. He'd never have gone down the dual carriageway in the wrong direction, risking everyone. They could have waited until he stopped and got him after he'd exited his vehicle. Because he'd not been wound up he probably wouldn't have been weilding a sword.

A sword isn't much less dangerous than a length of gas pipe. I guess we could always ban swords. I can only imagine that he had a sword because the Junk/Charity Shop that he worked for happened to be moving a sword, 30 bags of old clothes, four lampshades... You get the idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if his actual misdemeanour was to indicate left and turn right, or jump a red light. Time will tell. It's cynical I know, but I'd also put money on him being painted as a terrorist.



>> Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 22 March 20:17

ofcorsa

3,546 posts

272 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
hindsight is a wonderfull thing, maybe the circumstances you put forward are correct, or maybe he was actually out to cause actual harm, to be honest in these situations i am more liable to side with the police who do a very difficult job without the aid of hindsight

lanciachris

3,357 posts

270 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
dilbert said:

They didn't have to chase him onto the wrong side of a dual carriageway. What did he actually do wrong. Even if he stole the vehicle, it's not worth killing him or risking the lives of everyone else over.


in the same post dilbert said:

If you get to the stage where you have a serious crowd control problem you use the army and shoot people with machine guns.




dilbert

7,741 posts

260 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
Well maybe, but I never agreed with firearms, and I've said here before that I don't like the police driving around in high performance cars.

I think they forget how some people see red in such circumstances. There are police officers in this forum that don't appear to understand this, or don't care.

Fortunately I don't see red in these circumstances, but I do sometimes in others. I don't think that gives the police the right to shoot such people. As far as I am concerned it could be me.

If you feel comforted that the police shoot such lowlifes, maybe you'll think differently as you lay there bleeding to death, if you have the misfortune to be shot to death by Mr Plod.

dilbert

7,741 posts

260 months

Tuesday 22nd March 2005
quotequote all
lanciachris said:



dilbert said:

They didn't have to chase him onto the wrong side of a dual carriageway. What did he actually do wrong. Even if he stole the vehicle, it's not worth killing him or risking the lives of everyone else over.








in the same post dilbert said:

If you get to the stage where you have a serious crowd control problem you use the army and shoot people with machine guns.










I suppose my thinking is that the police will eventually get away with these by routine. I doubt they'd ever get away with a Chineese style massacre.


I am not against capital punishment, where the conditions have been fairly considered (maybe that means court, maybe that means appointed assesor).

The point is that by probability, the more guns there are floating around, the higher the likelihood of an error being made.

Think about it. If you give a gun to every single police officer, how many more guns are there floating around than the time when the police didn't have guns, and the criminals did.

I suggest that the number of mistakes by police officers, will be comparable to the number of intentional killings by criminals.

Maybe that means we should just add them together.

>> Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 22 March 20:34