mizery24 wrote:
And where did the 1% come from?
Hypothetical or factual?
Mets said about 1% of the US population are genuine sociopaths and the police force is drawn from the population. That is about the accepted amount by most sources BTW though some in the psychiatric field might claim the percentage as high as 3 or 4%. That means there are around 300,000+ genuine sociopaths in the US. These 300,000+ individuals need jobs. Sociopaths by nature aren't suited to do jobs like care aid, beautician, accountant and such. Sociopaths require to have jobs that give them a certain amount of power over others.
Such as-
CEO's, surgeons, lawyer, clergy, journalist, media, chef, police officer, politician/civil servant or salesperson. Those are the top ten jobs that attract sociopaths. The reasons are obvious. Sociopaths aren't necessarily murderous, they simply lack emotions and empathy for other human beings. Other attributes of sociopaths are a superficial charm, persuasiveness, complete lack of empathy, independence, (at times) extreme focus. Though sociopaths lack emotions they can be very good at faking them.
Sociopathy is also known as psychopathy. Contrary to the Hollywood version of a psychopath (or sociopath if you will), the psychopath isn't delusional or irrational like a psychotic individual is. What the psychopath/sociopath is is an extreme version of a pathological narcissist.
Psychopaths are often extremely aggressive but not of the violent for violence sake. They are more akin to the aggression of a predator. A sociopath can shoot you dead and sleep like a baby afterward feeling no guilt at all because they lack the ability to feel guilt but they can be adept at faking guilt.
In typical relationships the psychopaths tend to be manipulative and exploitative. Serial domestic abusers often show high rates of psychopathy for example. Psychopaths tend to not be very good at risk assessment either as often they feel superior and have high self confidence, often over estimating their abilities which goes to their general poor risk assessment abilities.
They also often have poor impulse control. Psychopaths are usually amoral, they are indifferent to or disregard moral beliefs. Psychopaths also tend to be thrill seekers.
Currently there is no cure for psychopathy though there have been efforts to treat the disorder all of which have failed so the prognosis for them is poor. Of course there are different levels of psychopaths and the above is general traits. You'd have to research to get the more specific types of psychopaths.
mizery wrote:And if it 1% is accurate, wouldn't there be 9000 officer involved killing over the last 2 years instead of the 1415? And wouldn't 2/3 of those killed be white??
Psychopaths aren't stupid and they're not psychotic. They have a self preservation instinct like everyone else. The last thing a psychopath wants to be is locked up in a cell. And I'm not sure you understand the true depth of the problem. For instance, in 2015 from Jan 1 to June 14 there were only nine days during that period that the police didn't kill someone. No one was killed by police on Jan 10, 20, Feb 1, 18, March 28, May 1, 9, 18 and 24th. Every single other day in that time period someone was killed by police, 512 total people from Jan 1, 2015 thru June 13, 2015. The year would close out with 990 killed.
A psychopath will be looking for a chance to draw and fire their weapon if given the opportunity to avoid punishment for their actions.
And that's just who was killed. I can't find numbers on how many police officers fired their weapons on the job and just happened
not to kill someone.
Or if you like, from 2015 in the UK there are 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years. In the US in 2015 there were 59 fatal police shootings in the first 24 days of 2015.
And that's a good question-
"And wouldn't 2/3 of those killed be white??"Why isn't the percentage of those killed by the police more inline with the general percentage of population?
Do you think that people who believe that police targeting minorities believe that for no reason what so ever?
There are absolutely legitimate police shootings. What is a cop supposed to do when someone starts shooting at them after all? Cops have a right to defend themselves, just like you, Mizery, have a right to defend your life if someone tries to take it.
I've been talking about perception, I have no idea what is in the mind of another human being. I don't know what someone else thinks. Though I can certainly understand when people start really looking at the stats, one could logically conclude that something isn't right about all these fatal police shootings. The prosecution of police officers for unjustified killings is dismally low, disgustingly low. Even when it's shown to not be justified, not a single officer prosecuted for murder in the 990 killings of 2015. That's not a statistical anomaly, that's a flat out coverup.
The level of incompetence in some of these shootings would be laughable if not so tragic. Such as the case of Robert Bates, ex Oklahoma deputy who shot and killed an unarmed and restrained Eric Harris in 2014. You probably remember the case, the police were arresting Harris, had him on the ground and Robert Bates pulled his weapon and shot Harris. Bates said he thought he was pulling his taser but accidentally pulled his service revolver and shot Harris through the lung.
Robert Bates' trial concluded less than two months ago. He was sentenced to 4 years for second degree manslaughter, which is negligent homicide BTW. That's pretty clear cut I'd say, he was at best negligent, shooting a guy when he thought he was tasering him. But lets look at the case a little closer.
One thing Bates' defense tried to say was that it wasn't a homicide, that Harris died of a heart attack and the gun shot wound through his lung didn't contribute to Harris' death. The defense even had two medical doctors testify to such effect but the forensic pathologist testified that it was homicide due to gunshot. If the jury had bought that defense then Bates would have gotten off because the prosecution had to prove that Harris died because of the gunshot wound.
Then Bates tried to get a psychiatrist to testify that extreme stress caused Bates to revert to habits. Bates would have been trained to pull his service weapon not the taser. The prosecution asked the psychiatrist if he'd reviewed Bates training documents to come to that conclusion to which the psychiatrist said he had not. So he was just assuming. Scratch that defense.
That brought up Bates training. Bates was supposed to be trained that before you taser someone that you have a clear opening. There was another officer on top of Harris at the time, so it was not consistent with training to taser someone at that moment.
When Bates shot Harris the bullet passed inches away from another officer's face.
During the investigation Bates claimed he'd been in these situations before, dealing with a fleeing suspect. Records though showed that Bates had never been involved in a situation with a fleeing suspect. So Bates lied to investigators.
The Bates defense then contended that it was a honest mistake pulling a revolver instead of a taser. However, the taser has to first be turned on using a switch before it can be deployed, a revolver has no such switch.
Bates was 73 when he shot Harris. 73 years old. Turns out Bates used a pay to play to be a cop. He is what is called a reserve officer, Bates was the CEO of an insurance company and he donated equipment to the police department. An internal investigation after the shooting found that Bates had benefited from this and was shown special treatment and training policies were violated.
This is a guy who wanted to play cop by bribing the police department to give him a uniform, a gun and a badge. He didn't have to go through a training program and he ended up killing a guy because of it. An unarmed guy who at the time of the shooting was restrained and being/was handcuffed laying on his stomach.
Bates got 4 years, out in 2 for good behavior or even earlier for hardship, he is 75 years old now after all. The judge asked Bates if he was satisfied with his defense and Bates replied, and I quote word for word- "I'm tickled pink" end quote. He said those words, in court, to the judge.
4 years, the maximum punishment for 2nd degree manslaughter. I bet he is tickled pink, he'll be out of prison in no time and he won't pay a thing in monetary damages. Civilly, Bates ain't gotta pay a thing, the Tulsa police department will be paying that bill, or rather, Oklahoma taxpayers.
What a fucking joke.
I'd say Bates might qualify as a psychopath, a thrill seeker who wanted to play cop. Note also, he was a CEO of a company. When he fucked up he tried everything to blame the victim, say it wasn't his fault, the guy died from something else rather than his gunshot and every other attempt to avoid responsibility but in the end the jury saw through the defense, rightfully.
Now I ask you, how is this possible that this guy was allowed to wear a badge, carry a gun and have all the privileges that protect police from liability when they f*ck up this epic fashion?
This kind of stuff is going on all over. And these are just the cases we are aware of. There are shootings that are never reported on nationally. It would take a lot of digging trying to find the facts on them all. It seems, often, that at least in the reported shootings, that officers involved in shootings had prior problems that should have been red flags alerting departments that the individual in question isn't suited to be a police officer.
Some of the traits of a psychopath would be good traits for a police officer. What is
not a good trait is the lack of empathy or emotions, the willingness to lie and manipulate to avoid punishment. This goes deep into the perception that the police are callously gunning down suspects without sufficient cause. I guess the good cops rely on drinking themselves to death because dealing with the stuff the police sometimes have to deal with is enough to drive a man to drinking. To a psychopath though this is candy land.
I believe, though you and others may disagree, that the police force is infested with sociopaths and other individuals with various emotional disorders and that these individuals have a disproportional negative impact on the image of the police.
One must ask what type of person is attracted to a job with long hours, low pay and the chance to be shot dead by some thug on any given day?
The pros are you are given authority over other people, are given a gun and a state apparatus that shields you from liability for mistakes.
I couldn't and wouldn't be a cop. I have zero desire to go out busting people for selling singles on the street corner or hassling drivers trying to get to productive jobs. But that's just me, I'm not a psychopath.
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