this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
1374 points (99.1% liked)

News

23367 readers
3454 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

If you look into this story a little further, it turns out that there are a few things to consider.

One, this is actually the result of training. The man served two tours overseas, this is quite literally what he's trained to do. Do you have any idea what a gunshot sounds like from far away? Because it's not exactly a clear sound, and there are a shitload of different bullets (and gun barrels, compensators, silencers, sub sonic ammunition as an even further layer) to make different noise. When you're used to being shot at from far away, yeah a sound like this actually does sound like you're being shot at. I could also easily see someone mistaking it for a bullet landing near them.

He also describes experiencing a tingly sensation and thinking something was wrong with his left(? going from memory, lazy) side. It very much sounds like he had a PTSD attack.

Lastly, he resigned during the course of the investigation into the shooting. Not to mention, the investigation into him concluded that no he should not have unloaded his firearm after hearing an acorn hit the car.

Should he be a cop? Fuck no! He likely has undiagnosed PTSD and should be getting help, not putting himself into circumstances where he is much more likely to be shot at.

However this is not the result of incompetence. This man is a military veteran. He will likely be more proficient with firearms than you or I ever will be. You need to stop thinking of cops as pigs in tight bullet proof vests. This guy, and there are absolutely others like him, is not at all untrained.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

He may have PTSD and he may have had 1,000 hours of firearms training, but if you empty your magazine the way he did, under the circumstances he did, you're incompetent to be a police officer. Period.

And even he apparently recognizes that since he resigned (though whether he'll just go get hired the next town over is probably a decent bet).

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

I'll preface this saying that I own firearms and I spent 11 years in the military, I've had people shoot in my general direction, but I've bever been in a firefight.

Police and military operate in different environments that require different skillsets and different training. People expect, incorrectly, that police are there to protect citizens (this isn't a rant about them protecting only the owner class...the judicial branch has upheld that police had no duty to protect). IF they had a duty to protect, they wouldn't be allowed to open fire without a target in site and awareness of what was beyond that target and endangered when they miss that target.

Hearing a gunshot is not a valid excuse for randomly discharging your weapon.

I'm glad nobody was hurt, and I really hope the VA or some other organization is able to help this guy recover from his combat trauma. The department that hired him should have done better, and I hope they revisit their candidate screening policy...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

This is the result of having minimal training and not having enough training to be competent.

His description of legs feeling weak and tingly are that of an adrenaline dump.

i.e officer has been trained in handling firearms but not "stress innoculated" he's not been trained to respond properly in a stressful situation.

His firearm handling is also below an acceptable standard. He emptied his mag without so much as landing a single hit on the car and when he goes to reload fumbles numerous times, isn't sure if he wants to reload or find cover and does both badly.