In recent discussions here on police use of force, it has been suggested that since cops know they\u2019re doing a risky job, they should wait longer than a civilian might before using force to defend themselves or effect an arrest.\u00a0 After all, don\u2019t they have more equipment and training? And didn\u2019t they \u201cassume the risk\u201d?<\/p>\n
Um\u2026no.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
First, we all remember Spiderman\u2019s Uncle Ben wisely advising him, \u201cWith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d That\u2019s true as far as it goes, but it only goes halfway. As I\u2019ve taught my students for decades, police and civilian alike, power and responsibility must always be kept in a dead-equal balance.<\/p>\n
Power without responsibility tends to lead to tyranny.\u00a0 But responsibility without the power to fulfill it is the very definition of futility.<\/p>\n
One commentator here longed for the days when police were \u201cpeace officers\u201d instead of \u201claw enforcement officers.\u201d\u00a0 News flash: Police have always been both. The purpose of law enforcement is keeping the peace, and the peace cannot be kept against violent criminals without the power to enforce the law.<\/p>\n
Historically, society has given the cop and the private citizen different standards of justifiable use of force:\u00a0 \u201cEqual Force\u201d for the so-called \u201ccivilian,\u201d and \u201cNecessary Force\u201d for the cop.\u00a0 Picture Lady Justice holding her scales, with power on one side and responsibility on the other.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s \u201cequal force\u201d for the private citizen because their responsibility is only to stop the attack and prevent harm: if, for instance, the suspect flees, they have no duty to capture him and their right to harm him ended when he broke off his assault.\u00a0 But it\u2019s \u201cnecessary force\u201d for the police officer, because his or her duty is not merely to make the \u201cbad guy\u201d stop threatening them anymore: their sworn duty is to pursue, overpower, capture and disarm and restrain him, and transport him to jail.<\/p>\n
All of which, the first time you try to do it to a criminal who doesn\u2019t want it done, turns out to be a helluva <\/em>lot more difficult than simply dissuading him from screwing with you anymore. It is why, for example, in a fistfight with a man his own size the cop is allowed to strike him with a baton and a citizen who did the same would likely be charged with aggravated assault.<\/p>\n We all wince when the cop has to injure or kill a drunk, a mental patient, or someone drugged out of their mind. How the Hell do you think the cop himself feels about that?<\/p>\n But the cop has no way of knowing what has motivated his opponent\u2019s violent behavior, and if he did, it wouldn\u2019t matter. It can\u2019t <\/em>matter. His duty is to restrain the violent person to protect the public, no matter what triggered that behavior.<\/p>\n Cops should take more risk? They did that already when they became the person others would call to stop violent criminals. Their exposure rate is already vastly<\/em> higher.<\/p>\n Every cop understands that risk is part of \u201cThe Job.\u201d\u00a0 The public they serve needs to recognize that sacrificing life and limb on the altar of Utopian political correctness is not in the contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent discussions here on police use of force, it has been suggested that since cops know they\u2019re doing a risky job, they should wait longer than a civilian might before using force to defend themselves or effect an arrest.\u00a0 After all, don\u2019t they have more equipment and training? And didn\u2019t they \u201cassume the risk\u201d? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}