On Sept. 12 at 8 a.m., came across a stopped vehicle with hazards on the left shoulder near John Hanson Highway and got out of his cruiser to help.

“Are you here to help her?” Sgt. Warrington asks the man.

“No, she’s taking me to the hospital,” he responded.

Moments later, he fires a single shot at the passenger who says he was getting a hat blown onto the road.

“Oh my God, what did you do? What did you do?” the driver screams out.

“He had a gun!” Warrington says.

“No, I don’t have a gun!” the man shouts, lying on the roadway.

  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    This is exactly why training the police as warriors instead of as civil servants is so insidious and deadly.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      28 days ago

      They aren’t “training” them. Certainly not as well as actual soldiers. But they are arming them with more and more military gear. If you were a high-school bully who never grew up or a racist who wanted to harass and maybe even kill a black person, what job would you get?

        • Bacano@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          They hire ex-cop contractor buddies and give them gobs of municipal money to do a ‘training’ session where they brainwash the entire force into thinking that they’re at war with an insurgency as dangerous to them as alqueda was to the military that so many of them came from.

          This is one of the reasons they’re so trigger happy. Right from academy they’re taught this, and any recruits who question it get dropped. One of the more famous programs is literally called ‘Kill-ology’.

  • lurch (he/him)@sh.itjust.works
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    28 days ago

    Wait a minute. Just having a gun isn’t a reason to shoot someone in Maryland, is it? They might have a license. So the policeman would be guilty of manslaughter either way.

  • mongoosedadei@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Officials want to be clear the man who is shot was never charged, never arrested and has fully cooperated with the investigation.

    This is apparently something that needs to be said when talking about shooting unarmed people.

      • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        I didn’t say he aimed well. Really shows how well those assholes are trained. He couldn’t even hit accurately at 20m.

    • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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      28 days ago

      At some point I’m about to read an article where a cop was overtaking someone, rolled down the window, shot the other driver, continued onwards, and called for backup from a dinner.

  • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    They are just always on-edge and terrified for their life no matter what the situation is. What does their training do to them… there was absolutely no reason to see this as some sort of well-disguised trap intended to kill the police officer, so why did his mind go there?

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      28 days ago

      How many times in 2020 did I see a cop or cop apologist say “Only .000000000231% of interactions go bad why are those what you focus on??” (I’m totally making that number up, and they probably were too.)

      How about this cops? Only a vanishingly small percentage of the rest of us actually intend to do you harm, so why do you treat everyone that way?

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    At this point we’re going to start giving the same advice for interacting with police as with soldiers in a war zone. Basically do whatever they say. And if it’s contradictory then sit on your heels and put your hands up. Make yourself as un-aggressive as possible so the scared, sleep deprived, teenager with a machine gun man child with a badge and a gun can’t possibly see you as a threat.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Unfortunately we can’t make it zero chance. You could always just sit there on the curb, oblivious, and get shot.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Oh no. You most certainly can. If that officer doesn’t manage to shoot you then the next one will, repeat as needed until true. Unless you’ve got a literal army to fight off the national guard this does not end well. And as a reminder they get drones, attack helicopters, armored vehicles, and infantry squads with 20 years of experience in exactly this fight.

            I seriously implore you to think about how that goes, for you, and for the country.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        28 days ago

        They will also give you conflicting orders (often on purpose, so they can claim resisting arrest), so sometimes it is literally impossible to “just do what they say.”

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Yup. I actually pointed this out a couple comments down. You can do everything right and still get shot because they’re just that stupid and unaccountable.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        That’s it that’s the problem. The only thing he could have done was be immediately and massively submissive.

        Yet again we see where the civilian is expected to have better de-escalation skills than the person with the badge.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      28 days ago

      I kind of have the opposite advice for interacting with soldiers in a warzone.

      I have a cocktail recipe that might interest you

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Unless you’ve declared yourself independent of everyone else that’s only going to help you 50% of the time, and it’s not easy to deploy in a manner allowing escape. I would really just suggest joining whichever side you support at that point.

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    28 days ago

    American Keystone-Cops at work. Can’t the American police afford any professionals?

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Now compare that to civilized western countries, where policemen take training of between three and five years.

    • Kroxx@lemm.ee
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      28 days ago

      They don’t want professionals, they want man hunters to fill slave quotas for privatized prisons