If you have ever accidentally poured the wrong drink into the wrong glass, please STFU about Tasers and Glocks!
If you have ever grabbed the wrong color pen or pencil and began writing before you noticed your mistake, please STFU!
If you have ever grabbed the wrong set of keys, or tried to get into the wrong car in the parking lot, please STFU!
If you have ever flubbed a public address, or made a typo while writing an article slamming the cops for a news paper, while under no stress at all, please STFU!
I would bet that everyone reading this has made at least one, if not several, of those simple mistakes, while under absolutely zero stress.
Unless you have NEVER made a mistake while under very high stress, as in your life is potentially in danger stress, then you have no room to preach to law enforcement about making errors.
Unlike writing an article for a major newspaper, or posing for a camera while holding up two photographs that some intern printed out for you, all from the safety of a building guarded by people armed with guns, so you could stand there and talk crap about the very people keeping you safe, cop work requires split-second decisions made on the fly, based on imperfect information, where the possibility of your life ending should you make a mistake is very, very real.
Stress and adrenaline have very real negative effects on a person’s cognitive and physical abilities. This it not remotely new information. In fact it is very well documented.
So, unless you have ever had to grab something quickly off your gun belt while trying to subdue a person resisting arrest, please STFU! Unless you have ever held an actual Taser and a Glock, and been trained on the use of both of them, under stress, please STFU!
Facing Repercussions
None of this is to suggest the officer in Brooklyn Center should not be held responsible for her mistake. Do not try to put those words in my mouth, because I absolutely feel she should be. Based on what I know of the incident, criminal charges for her error are absolutely called for. She made a mistake that took an innocent (only innocent in the respect that his actions did not justify lethal force) life.
UPDATE: As of this morning, the officer has been charged with manslaughter. Based on everything I know about this incident, this is the appropriate charge.
I am also not remotely suggesting that Daunte Wright is not partially responsible for his own death. If he had not been a criminal thug, if he had not had an active warrant for his arrest, if he had not resisted arrest and attempted to flee, then he would still be alive.
This incident was prompted by bad choices made by Wright, and was worsened by a fatal error made by the officer.
To The “It Was On Purpose” Crowd
The reason I am sitting here writing this article is to try and combat the absolute nonsense being peddled by people who have ZERO expertise on the subject they are so vocally pontificating, many of whom are politicians and “journalists.” The fact that some people are suggesting that the officer intentionally shot Wright, and that everything she said and did on the body camera was an act, would be laughable if it were not so potentially dangerous.
Suggestions like that not only display the huge lack of that person’s knowledge, but they motivate groups already prone to hating the police to take action against the police.
Others who are taking a slightly less direct route and are instead suggesting that it is unlikely that an officer could mistake their Taser for a gun are being ludicrously disingenuous.
Every single year, thousands of people die in workplace accidents, and most of those are because of an error on someone’s part. Oddly enough, the very same statistics that cop haters love to throw around to suggest that law enforcement is not a dangerous profession are the very statistics that prove how often people are killed in accidents in other professions.
To The “Cops Make Too Many Fatal Mistakes” Crowd
Taking that one step further, every year mistakes made by medical professionals cause the death of approximately 250,000 Americans. No matter how you look at it, that is a huge number of accidental deaths. Now consider the fact that none of those accidental deaths were caused by a person in a physical fight in which their life potentially hangs in the balance.
Humans make mistakes, no matter how well they are trained, no matter how educated, no matter what their profession is, no matter how little or how much stress they are under. Seeing as cops are humans, sadly, mistakes are going to happen from time to time.
So, how many fatal mistakes do the cops make? On average, law enforcement across the United States kills and average of about 1,000 people every year. Well over 95% of those are people who are armed and actively attacking the cops and they are intentionally, justifiably shot and killed. Very, very few, as in less than one per year, are people who are accidentally shot and killed by the cops. Law enforcement as a whole in this country on average accidentally kills 250,000 times FEWER people than the medical field. Hell, truck drivers in 2017 killed over 4,100 people in accidents.
I am not trying to downplay the loss of a life that did not need to be taken, but to try and pretend like the cops are accidentally killing a large number of people is patently, provably untrue. To suggest the cop intentionally shot him while pretending it was an accident would suggest not only pre-planning, but an award winning acting ability which no cop I know possesses.
Mistake Free Challenge
I will end this by challenging any celebrity, politician or “journalist” who thinks this tragic mistake is not possible to put the money where their mouth is. Contact me and I will put you in a scenario like the one those officers were in, only you will know for a fact you are not in a potentially deadly encounter. If you can mange to do everything properly without mistakes, I will take back everything I said.
Time to put up or shut up.
