WhatFinger


“Let Cops Get Killed Act”

California Democrats propose to place insane restrictions on when police can fire their weapons



Let Cops Get Killed Act You might as well call it the “Let Cops Get Killed Act.” That’s essentially what a bill proposed by Democrats in the California state legislature would do. Coming on the heels of the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark – a story that’s been wisely misrepresented by media and celebrity activists – cop-hating California Democrats see an opportunity to further emasculate police officers by changing to standard for when they can fire their weapon from “when reasonable” to “when necessary.” As with most things Democrats do, that’s worded in a way that makes it sound far more reasonable than it really is:
On the heels of police officers shooting a young, unarmed black man to death in Sacramento, California, last month, state lawmakers announced a first-of-its-kind bill on Monday that raises the standard for when officers may open fire. The proposed legislation would change the guidance in California’s use of force laws so that police may open fire ”‘only when necessary’ rather than ‘when reasonable,’” Sacramento-based Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D), said at a press conference Tuesday. He co-authored the bill with fellow Democrat Assemblywoman Shirley Weber with support from the American Civil Liberties Union and fellow members of the California Legislative Black Caucus. They were joined at Tuesday’s press conference with Sacramento leaders from the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement, along with the grandfather of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, last month’s shooting victim. “We should no longer be the target practice of a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ police force,” Assemblyman Christopher Holden (D) said, before listing the names of several other unarmed black victims of police shootings.
The legislation is aimed at tackling the reality, as seen in studies, that police kill unarmed black men at disproportionate rates compared to unarmed white men. Supporters of the bill hope raising the standard for when lethal force is permitted will encourage officers to make de-escalation their first line of defense.

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Now you might think at first glance that “when necessary” sounds like a reasonable standard. Why would you want police firing their guns if it isn’t necessary? The problem is that in most real-life situations in the field, it’s impossible to know for certain if the use of lethal force is “necessary” per se, because it’s the suspect’s refusal to follow police commands that prevents them from knowing if the suspect has a weapon. And what the events that led to the shooting of Stephon Clark is a perfect example. What you hear from the media is that cops “mistook his cell phone for a gun,” which makes it sound like they stupidly spotted a cell phone in his hand and just impulsively shot him because they thought it was a gun. In fact, Clark ran from the police when they tried to question him about a series of car break-ins, and reached for his waist when they were telling him to put his hands in the air. At that moment, there was no way for the police to know if the thing in Clark’s waist was a phone, a gun or something else. Had he followed their instructions, they would have been able to safely approach him, pat him down and determine that he wasn’t carrying a weapon. But he didn’t do that, so police were faced with a situation in which a suspect was a) fleeing; b) disobeying their instructions to show his hands; and c) reaching for his waist. Now it’s easy to say after the fact that it wasn’t “necessary” to shoot him because, as it turned out, he was unarmed. But given the full scope of the events that were happening, it was entirely reasonable for them to presume a threat because he refused to cooperate with the instructions by which they could have determined he posed no threat.

California Democrats are going to put police lives at greater risk

This is the type of scenario that will play out over and over. California Democrats are going to put police lives at greater risk than ever because, when a suspect reaches for his waist, they won’t know if he’s reaching for a gun or not. If he does have a gun, they apparently have to wait until they can clearly see it before they are free to fire their own weapons to protect themselves. By that time, they might be dead. It’s easy for politicians to lecture cops on the importance of “de-escalation,” but that depends on a suspect’s willingness to cooperate. When the suspect is acting in an uncooperative, belligerent and potentially threatening manner – and is refusing to cooperate with the process by which police might de-escalate the situation – you can’t lay it on the cops that escalation occurs. These Democrats are despicable human beings. They know nothing about what police face in the field, and they don’t care. They simply want to take advantage of the anti-police sentiment that’s on the rise in today’s society by passing a law that makes it easier for criminals to kill police officers. They don’t have the slightest idea what they’re doing, and they know nothing about police work. But they know their constituents hate the police, so why not pass a law that will get some of them killed?


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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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