Thursday, December 10, 2015

Darren Wilson

I think that officers should have tools such as maces, batons, and tasers as mandatory equipment. I honestly have no idea if Darren Wilson, however, acted appropriately though. Taser guns themselves are not foolproof, and in a close encounter "few inches" situation it would probably be very hard to shoot a taser. The first deployment of the X-26 TASER, the most common variant, only yielded a 69 percent success rate. Mostly due to probes not hitting the target, hitting too close together, or hitting only one probe. 

While I think the multiple shots against Michael were unnecessary after he was in the stage of just walking (most witnesses)/ potentially charging, towards Wilson, they were still justified since he followed protocol.

No matter how the protocol changes, shootings like this will happen because all it takes to allow deadly force is the officer's own judgment of his safety. It is really hard to create specific guidelines for what constitutes a threat to the officers safety so it is hard.


In a nutshell, I think that too many people jump to conclusions against Wilson or for Wilson. I personally think that situations like these can not be judged without hard, clear evidence for one side or the other.


http://www.tricitytribuneusa.com/tasers-not-always-100-percent-effective/

2 comments:

  1. This could not have been said any better. Officers should carry non lethal weapons so they could take down a criminal without having to injure anyone. Nowadays police officers can shoot and injure anyone and say that they felt threatened. This leads to people being angry with police officers for not carrying the right equipment.

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  2. I completely agree Patrick. There is no way to have officers prepared for every situation no matter how many weapons they are equipped with. It is up to the officers to decide which weapon is appropriate for this situation. Unfortunately this puts a lot of power in the officers' hands which has been proven to be dangerous.

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