Normally I wait 72 hours when something ugly hits the feeds.
I'm gonna break that in the case of the Brooks shooting.
One, because I've seen at least three videos three times each, enough to convince myself.
Two, because it didn't happen in my backyard so much as down the road from a dear friend's old house.
And Three, because, eerily enough, I described the exact scenario I think happened a day or two before it did.
I've long described police firearms training as a joke, usually to some gungrabber demanding the hoi polloi be trained so they can say, "we just want common sense regulation" with a straight face.
Not so much, freedom hater. Annual quals are a fucking joke. But at least they're relatively consistent across departments. Unarmed, not so much.
Which means that how effective a given department's officers are is determined by the department's training budget priorities and the individual efforts of its officers.
Which brings in the adage, "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training."
Conflict training, like any other, has levels to it. And how many levels you reach depends on how many you're encouraged to and how many you seek on your own.
At the bottom you find things like, "make sure you go home at the end of the night."
Good advice, but not impressive, especially to someone who's supposed to be wearing a shield.
Another one goes something like, "Losing control and getting it back is a lot harder than never losing it in the first place."
Also true, but unfortunately limiting.
Which leads me to a few days ago.
I mentioned that in reading a lot from retired cops over the years, something I noticed was a reluctance of younger officers to go hand to hand or pursue further training.
Reasoning? Getting better in hand to hand involves getting the occasional ass kicking. Getting your ass kicked is a noted loss of control. And losing control in the presence of others, much less others who already are trained and could be citizens you need to control tomorrow? Well, that's just unacceptable.
So training doesn't happen. And sinking to that level means you go for the first level on the force continuum you're sure you won't lose.
Cue a Wendy's drive-through the other night. A drunk Brooks passes out while behind the wheel in line. Pulled over for a sobriety test, blows a .108. Brooks realizes he's being arrested and starts fighting. Two cops go to ground, fail to restrain, and one fails to retain a taser. Brooks takes off running with said taser. One cop, from three car lengths away, shoots him in the back with a service pistol.
Control lost, no training to fall back on, panic, and bare minimum, manslaughter.
I don't know what APD uses as a threat assessment model, but running away drunk with a taser sure as fuck doesn't pass AOI. What did they think he was going to do, steal and jumpstart a Tesla?
The officer who shot Brooks has been fired, Chief Shields has resigned, too early to see what charges will be filed.
And some moron burned down the Wendys in question. Y'know, because that area needed to be more of a food desert.
(Yeah, I've seen video of the white girl spraying something into the already burning building. If you got a name, face, and affiliation, fine. Otherwise, keep your theories to yourself. I wouldn't put it past Antifa, but I'd more easily believe some bratty anarchist white chick with daddy's lawyer looking to break stuff along with the monotony. White supremacists may have more motivation than antifa, but I don't see them capable of blending into a crowd of protesters like ninjas to commit arson. Met any white supremacists? I mean real ones, not just bystanding Republicans that dared be further right than Ron Paul in your presence? They're overeducated, undersocialized, incel losers, not the fucking foot clan. End aside.)
Right now my best guess is the officer will be charged with voluntary manslaughter (Georgia doesn't differentiate murder charges by degrees). There's a lot I don't know (the training record of the officer, the standards of his department and zone) but that's my best guess.
Stay safe out there.
I'm gonna break that in the case of the Brooks shooting.
One, because I've seen at least three videos three times each, enough to convince myself.
Two, because it didn't happen in my backyard so much as down the road from a dear friend's old house.
And Three, because, eerily enough, I described the exact scenario I think happened a day or two before it did.
I've long described police firearms training as a joke, usually to some gungrabber demanding the hoi polloi be trained so they can say, "we just want common sense regulation" with a straight face.
Not so much, freedom hater. Annual quals are a fucking joke. But at least they're relatively consistent across departments. Unarmed, not so much.
Which means that how effective a given department's officers are is determined by the department's training budget priorities and the individual efforts of its officers.
Which brings in the adage, "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training."
Conflict training, like any other, has levels to it. And how many levels you reach depends on how many you're encouraged to and how many you seek on your own.
At the bottom you find things like, "make sure you go home at the end of the night."
Good advice, but not impressive, especially to someone who's supposed to be wearing a shield.
Another one goes something like, "Losing control and getting it back is a lot harder than never losing it in the first place."
Also true, but unfortunately limiting.
Which leads me to a few days ago.
I mentioned that in reading a lot from retired cops over the years, something I noticed was a reluctance of younger officers to go hand to hand or pursue further training.
Reasoning? Getting better in hand to hand involves getting the occasional ass kicking. Getting your ass kicked is a noted loss of control. And losing control in the presence of others, much less others who already are trained and could be citizens you need to control tomorrow? Well, that's just unacceptable.
So training doesn't happen. And sinking to that level means you go for the first level on the force continuum you're sure you won't lose.
Cue a Wendy's drive-through the other night. A drunk Brooks passes out while behind the wheel in line. Pulled over for a sobriety test, blows a .108. Brooks realizes he's being arrested and starts fighting. Two cops go to ground, fail to restrain, and one fails to retain a taser. Brooks takes off running with said taser. One cop, from three car lengths away, shoots him in the back with a service pistol.
Control lost, no training to fall back on, panic, and bare minimum, manslaughter.
I don't know what APD uses as a threat assessment model, but running away drunk with a taser sure as fuck doesn't pass AOI. What did they think he was going to do, steal and jumpstart a Tesla?
The officer who shot Brooks has been fired, Chief Shields has resigned, too early to see what charges will be filed.
And some moron burned down the Wendys in question. Y'know, because that area needed to be more of a food desert.
(Yeah, I've seen video of the white girl spraying something into the already burning building. If you got a name, face, and affiliation, fine. Otherwise, keep your theories to yourself. I wouldn't put it past Antifa, but I'd more easily believe some bratty anarchist white chick with daddy's lawyer looking to break stuff along with the monotony. White supremacists may have more motivation than antifa, but I don't see them capable of blending into a crowd of protesters like ninjas to commit arson. Met any white supremacists? I mean real ones, not just bystanding Republicans that dared be further right than Ron Paul in your presence? They're overeducated, undersocialized, incel losers, not the fucking foot clan. End aside.)
Right now my best guess is the officer will be charged with voluntary manslaughter (Georgia doesn't differentiate murder charges by degrees). There's a lot I don't know (the training record of the officer, the standards of his department and zone) but that's my best guess.
Stay safe out there.
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