This has to be reason 1,000,001 as to why patrol officers should be psych evaluated by outside professionals on an on-going basis. If this idiot could not tell the difference between an acorn hitting his car and shots being fired (from a handcuffed suspect inside the car) and/or he is so scared that an acorn hitting his car triggers him, then he had no business ever carrying a gun. It was but the Grace of G*d, and piss poor training, that this idiot deputy did not kill the man in the car. Florida deputy mistakes fallen acorn for gunshot, fires gun in patrol car
I posted this on the cops thread, but it might deserve its own thing. Of course it happened in Florida too.
Well this quote from the OP link is up there with some of the dumbest stuff I’ve every read…. The partner started shooting at their own patrol car, too even though she didn’t know why she was shooting? Authorities pat him down, put him in handcuffs and then place him in the back of Deputy Jesse Hernandez’s cruiser. Hernandez opened fire on his own patrol car, after he said he believed he heard gunshots. His partner seemed confused, but also fires her weapon and watched as Hernandez fell to the ground in body camera video. According to reports, all the shots missed the suspect inside the cruiser.
Thankfully they were so incompetent all the shots missed. I really believe that police training needs to be reevaluated. I am going to guess that they are trained protect yourself first and probably absorb a lot of videos of cops getting wasted unexpectedly by suspects in custody or in similar situations. It just seems like it’s a shoot first ask questions later mentality. Having said that I’m not sure how much we can conclude from a dozen failed encounters in a month across the nation when there are millions of cop interactions daily.
One of the cops involved has resigned the other is still employed. I would be okay with the two of them being banned from policing and owning a weapon. I watched the video twice. There is no defending the cops actions here.
I've had acorns fall on my car before, I've never had a "shots fired" reaction. There is obviously something in cop training that creates this mentality.
I don’t see anyone defending this .. and second One example of a moron cop shooting because of acorns and someone jumps to There is something in cop training that creates this mentality? Can we make other absurd leaps of logic about other groups? Teachers are trained to be pedophiles, Muslims are trained to be terrorists, Tennessee fans are raised to be meth addicts ( well not such an absurd leap).. These cops need to be fired asap. No quetion no defending. But to leap to the conclusion based of a minimal number of examples that it must be in their training… come on man.
You dont think cop training / thin blue line stuff imparts a mentality of constantly being on the alert for life-threatening danger from civilians?
Have you gone through cop training? I haven’t. And I doubt it has anything about firing your gun at acorns dropping on a car. Millions of cop interactions a year and a handful go wrong. A handful of those can be classified as pure idiots with a gun. No I don’t think it’s logical to jump to that conclusion. Again, should we make other assumptions based on minimal evidence? Assumptions about races, religions, where people live, what they drive, their sexual preference? We probably can find some with the same ratio of idiot examples as we do cops.
I haven't gone through cop training, that's why my first instinct is not to do power rolls and pop off shots in psycho mode when I hear something strike my car. In the military or police, they have to train you to want to do those things, its not a normal reaction. Clearly when you teach people that you will die if you dont act in certain situations, that screws with their brain a little. That doesnt mean everyone is going to go Dirty Harry over an acorn, but there are plenty of questionable shootings involving cops, and their training is a clear factor in how they react to situations. The only thing anyone ever suggests is more/better training, without any evidence to suggest that would lead to better results. Whatever the case, I'm 100% certain cop training involves teaching people to view anyone around you as potentially dangerous, and that is not particularly healthy for cops or people. At least in this situation no one got hurt.
Move the goalposts a little more. Why not just say that cop training likely teaches cops to be hyper aware of their surroundings and on edge when arresting a suspect? At any rate.. being trained to be on the look out for danger (in a dangerous job) does not equate to being trained to be. Moron and fire your gun at acorns.. as your op suggested.
What qualifies as a failed encounter? If it's unloading your service weapon on your patrol vehicle due to being scared by an acorn, that's a pretty high bar.
Again, what is an interaction going wrong? I could be wrong, but it seems like "going wrong" and "failed encounters" involve unnecessary use of lethal force. If it the bar is that high, I could see "handful a year" or "dozen of month." If the bar isn't that high and encompasses false arrests, targeted harassment, civil rights abuses, police brutality, etc, I would be willing to bet that yall are way off base.
Rabid cop defenders in here leaving negative ratings on any post criticizing shitty ass, incompentent police. As expected lol
