Rules of Engagment changes? -LAPD
Child used as human shield
This little 19 month child died when her idiot father used her for a human shield against the LAPD. It's not yet known if she died by her father's bullet or the LAPD but it begs to be asked "should we change the Rules of Engagement to prevent more deaths like this in the future?"
In many states the Police are no longer able to drive in hot persuit because too much collateral damage was ensuing. This looks like another situation in which we'll have to modify the rules of what officers can do in hostage situations. When children are being killed something has gone awry. I'm not mad at the Officers but rather the silly policy that would enable them to expend 90 rounds knowing there was a young hostage. Yes an officer was wounded but evidently so was this child that didn't have a flak jacket.
IMO only a sniper should be able to fire upon a perp in a hostage environment once things have escalated to the point were saving the hostage becomes prohibitively difficult.
Comments
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Where do you buy paint brushes that wide?
Walmart. They get them from China.
And that (hoepfully) dispassionate evidence should be used as a counter to the very strong emotional responses within police departments around "engagement".
For instance, in the case of high speed chases, I believe the evidence suggests that it's just generally a bad idea, that the ratio of "apprehending dangerous people" to "injuring or killing innocent bystanders", in fact, makes clear that entering into a high speed chase is almost always foolhardy and counter productive.
But I've seen interviews with cops where they talk about how hard it is to break off, once a chase has begun. There is a powerful urge not to be "beaten", to control the situation and to prevail.
I would think that changing that behavior (and I would guess it would apply to things like shoot-outs, where "letting the bad guy get away" violates every cop instinct there is) requires vigorously enforced policy backed up by real world data that the instinctual thing isn't necessarily the effective thing.
In other words, prove to the cops that sometimes "letting the bad guy get away" is the better option, from a public safety stance, make it clear that "public safety" trumps "winning", and then make damn sure that everybody is on board by being willing to put some steel into your enforcement policies.
It might be that pursuing is a good idea in only 10% of the cases.. (pulled that number out of my hat) but when that 10% is before you, there's no excuse for not knowing how to pursue. A total ban on pursuits is counterproductive. For one, it would increase the amount of people who *attempt* to get away with high-speed driving.
Originally posted by Moe_in_Texas
We need more information about this before we make judgements.
Coroner says it was an LAPD rifle bullet that killed her. The question is how the shooting started, and if there was any way for it to have been avoided. The article makes it sound like once the shooting began, it was an all-out gunfight. I'm amazed he got off 40 shots before being killed.
And that (hoepfully) dispassionate evidence should be used as a counter to the very strong emotional responses within police departments around "engagement".
COPs in cities like LA are out of control menaces that are really no better than the people they deal with on daily basis.
Damn - this is so sad, I have a niece that age...
if a sniper of SWAT team member f*ked up, then it should be investigated and dealt with accordingly.
people seem to have put SWAT and highway patrol and small-town cops all into one big basket that they're now hitting with a chunky baseball bat.
me personally, i'll put all the blame on this idiot father.. hell, i don't even trust myself to have and take care of kids.
Time is on their side here and frankly after a few hours they got impatient and f'd up.
To say "The father killed her" would be tantamount to saying
"The gang banger killed her"
In a scenario where a car chase between a gang member and police would unfortunately kill an innocent bystander.
It seems to me that people are having a hard time with seperating the fact that this girl and her father are relatives. Thus they want to blame the father when in fact he's a committing muliple felonies. Their job is to apprehend the subject without collateral damage.
I believe the Lopez family is owed damage for losing their little girl. The LAPD was negligent and a toddler is dead. I'm not saying fire the officers but damages are due IMO.
SWAT members are highly trained and capable of making extremely accurate shots under adverse conditions.
Yeah, that's what NASA said about their techs who applied foam to Columbia... everybody is trained and accurate, but dang... we got body bags!
Unless her father was a trained combat pro, the SWAT should have taken him without a shot fired!