San Diego Union Tribune Editorial Board: Police Need Alternatives To Lethal Weapons Or Something

This is the very definition of “won’t someone Do Something!”, as they offer no ideas, just typical leftist whining, pointing the fingers at police (who need it pointed their way now and then, but, not all, just ones who did it wrong), but failing to point any fingers at the criminals who commit the crime

Opinion: Police urgently need a more humane alternative to lethal weapons. It’s time to design one.

The fatal shooting of a homeless, mentally ill Escondido man with nearly 200 arrests on his record on Wednesday raises many familiar questions, starting with, Why does America have a history of accepting that it is OK for a police officer to kill someone for aberrant behavior? Why are police officers expected to know how to deal with those who have mental health issues? And how can people with chronic mental health problems be more readily compelled to accept professional treatment?

Since they start with this, let’s go to that linked article

Police Chief Ed Varso said in a video Wednesday that officers were responding to a call of a man who was striking vehicles at the intersection with a metal rod. An officer opened fire when the man approached him in a threatening manner after receiving numerous commands to drop the object and several use-of-force warnings, Varso said.

While his name has not been released, Varso said the man was well-known by Escondido police, with 188 arrests since 2002 for offenses including “violent assaults on police and the public, parole violations, drug charges, vandalism and a host of other property crimes.”

He was warned, and still came after the police, who don’t feel a need to let someone get close enough to them to assault them, and warned him. Back to original

But there is another angle to this issue that is not considered nearly enough: Why can’t inventors, entrepreneurs and law enforcement agencies come up with a highly effective alternative to a handgun to subdue criminal suspects?

Why won’t someone do something! There is an alternative: don’t commit crime. Don’t attack people with a knife in plain sight of police officers. Don’t do things that force officers to pull out their weapons.

Way back in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a criminal justice study that came back with an urgent recommendation that police needed to have a non-lethal method of incapacitating people without permanently injuring them.

Which brings on a discussion of the taser, and how it can be deadly. And, they don’t always work.

After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a range of police departments across the nation sought out new alternatives in non-lethal weapons. But an analysis by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on the criminal justice system, found that the alternatives had the same problems as Tasers: They could be lethal and weren’t always effective.

Well, there’s the answer: there isn’t really anything. Except people not being criminals. Here’s an idea: let’s use more corporal types of punishment and/or hard labor. Remember the kid who was caught vandalizing cars in Singapore? He got four months in jail and 6 lashes (reduced to 4) with a cane. Bet he never did that again. Of course, that doesn’t solve the problem with 13 year old kids running around firing a weapon at 230am with a known Latin Kings member, running from cops, then dropping the gun while running from the cops and turning around quickly, which would cause the cops to shoot him.

That must change. The status quo of Americans dying at police officers’ hands has got to go. Any number of wealthy philanthropists — or maybe the Biden administration — should offer a big financial prize to the person or team of people who can come up with a highly effective, non-lethal device that can be used to subdue suspects. The need for such a device is immense — demand for it would be huge.

Page the richest Californians: Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Ellison or Larry Page or …

Or, how about the newspaper spend its money. Or the people on the editorial board. It is much like how they want to blame all police because people are criminals, rather than the criminals for doing things that get them shot. Don’t want to be shot? Don’t commit crime. If you do, comply. Don’t like what’s going on? Ask for a supervisor. Still comply. Fight your fight in court. Don’t resist. Don’t run. Don’t reach for a weapon. Don’t charge police. Drop your weapon. Did I mention don’t commit crime?

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23 Responses to “San Diego Union Tribune Editorial Board: Police Need Alternatives To Lethal Weapons Or Something”

  1. Dana says:

    Our esteemed host quoted:

    But there is another angle to this issue that is not considered nearly enough: Why can’t inventors, entrepreneurs and law enforcement agencies come up with a highly effective alternative to a handgun to subdue criminal suspects?

    These clowns have been watching too much Star Trek, and think the police can simply set phasers on stun.

    Tasers work . . . sometimes. Not all officers are equipped with them. Don’t the Editorial Board of the San Diego Union Tribune think that there are people working on something better than a taser? Is it possible, just possible, that such a thing is simply beyond our technical capabilities right now?

    Of course, I’m enough of an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to suggest that Escondido is better off without a mentally ill, homeless man with over 200 arrests, some for violent offenses, just as Minneapolis is better off without George Floyd, Missouri better off without Michael Brown, and Columbus better off without Mikhia Bryant.

    • Elwood P. Dowd says:

      And America would be better off without Proud Boys, IIIpercenters, Oathkeepers, the KKK, neoNazis, Dylann Roof, Robert Aaron Long, white supremacists, Derek Chauvin, Ahmad Alissa, David Duke, Robert Bowers, facebook, Richard Spencer, twitter, Wade Michael Page, Stephen Paddock, the trumps and those most responsible for the Great Recession… we believe all in this list have done more harm to America than any homeless person, and yet all, save Paddock, still alive.

      • drowningpuppies says:

        The pompous little Rimjob forgot to add the Constitution to his hate list. https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_scratch.gif

        #ThankYouGeorgeFloydForDying
        Bwaha! Lolgfy https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

      • Jl says:

        Poor J forgot to add BLM to his list. After all, and continuing to this day, their peaceful protests have caused between 1-2 billion dollars in damages, killed about 25 people, and injured over 700 police officers. These’s not one person or organization on that list, even if added all together, that have caused that much death and destruction

  2. Est1950 says:

    Police should quit.

    Right now people are paying huge bonuses for them to come work for them. All police officers can go work at Restaurants and become SOUP NAZI’S.

    Bear Spray will stop a charging Bear. However the first death that occurs because of bear spray will see that officer put in prison for 20 years.

    There is no answer. The Black communists want no police. I say give it to the blue states. All police officers should quit and be replaced with Black officers who will then find themselves being gunned down like Bonnie and Clyde on a daily basis.

    I am not being racist. I am being a realist. More white NATIONALISTS are being gunned down by a HUGE PERCENTAGE than are Blacks but of course WHITE NATIONALISTS LIVES are immaterial so that should not matter.

    Police are idiots if they keep their jobs in any city or state run by Democrats. If you have to pull that trigger on a black person…you are fuking toast.

    • Elwood P. Dowd says:

      “Bad” police SHOULD quit or be fired and replaced with better officers. We need to raise our standards for police. Better training, better pay, better conditions, better candidates. Police “culture” has rarely been good in America and it’s time to change. “Serve and Protect”.

  3. joe says:

    batons don’t work all the time, mace doesn’t work all the time, tasers don’t work all the time…there are other toys and they too don’t work all the time…even guns don’t work all the time…people survive encounters with officers and are shot multiple times…there is no magic toy that is 100%…the taser is the closest toy to stop almost anything but it’s not 100%…and they are getting more and more expensive for departments to use because taser has the market and nothing comes close to it…

  4. Hairy says:

    Est 1950
    You do realize that more states are turning blue each year? That GOP voters are dying off?

    • Est1950 says:

      Once again Hairy. You make a false claim. Lie in fact.

      There are 31 state legislators that are RED compared to 19 that are blue. There are 29 Republican Governors compared to 21 Democratic Governors.

      Around the world country after country are turning to the populous right.

      You really should get your news from someone other than Huffington Post or the Intercept.

      In reality most of Europe is swinging right and in the United States there is nothing but a simple realighnment of the GOP to distance themselves from corporations and social media who are turning Fascist for the Democratic party.

      Enjoy defending that which you have despised for most of your life.

      But with Mr Macron deeply unpopular and French party politics in a state of upheaval, Ms Le Pen has bounced back — and polls suggest she has a strong chance of taking her comeback all the way to the Elysée Palace…. She is surging in the polls ahead of the 2022 French presidential election, this after at least 9 EU countries have swung to the right and in fact many are predicting the demise of the EU over their far left social policies.

      Get your facts straight Hairy. Or even better. Read some real news. Not fake News.

  5. Hairy says:

    Why is it that thiseeuro socialist countries do not find it necessary for their puce to shoot to kill as often as we here in the USA
    How is it that those socialist countries are safer than the usa with so few guns?

    • Est1950 says:

      HAIRY.

      Stop and think for just one moment.

      Why do you suppose that people from Canada and the EU DO NOT POST HERE or at most other blogs?

      You do know that you can be jailed for improper speech in Canada and the EU? You do know that dads who refuse to call their son a she because IT demands to be called a SHE goes to jail in Canada.

      Get out of the house. Read the real news. There are 100’s of real news outlets that report stuff that is not AMERICAN MAIN STREAM LIES TO PROTECT THE COMMUNIST TAKE OVER OF THE USA.

  6. Dana says:

    A very blunt-finger typist wrote:

    Why is it that thiseeuro socialist countries do not find it necessary for their puce to shoot to kill as often as we here in the USA
    How is it that those socialist countries are safer than the usa with so few guns?

    They have lost their freedom, that’s why.

    In some European countries, you can go to jail for denying the Holocaust. In some European countries, people have been locked up for telling the truth ‘misgendering’ someone, or for revealing that the defendants in a rape case were, gasp! Muslim immigrants.

    Of course, there’s always socialist Venezuela, which banned private ownership of firearms in 2012, and by 2016 was a thug dictatorship.

    • drowningpuppies says:

      Ah c’mon Dana, it’s because America is rooted in systemic racism and white supremacy.
      We need to indoctrinate all white people in critical race theory so all these theoretical killings will magically cease.

      Even Rimjob and Johnnie Retard know that. https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_scratch.gif

      #ThankYouGeorgeFloydForDying
      Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

  7. […] chimed in? Why didn’t they use tasers? (The responding officers did not have tasers.) William Teach noted that the San Diego Union Tribune’s Editorial Board said that Police urgently need a more […]

  8. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    The penalty for broken tail lights and expired tags is death?

    Police killed over 1100 Americans last year, 96% by shooting. 16 deaths resulted in charges against the officers.

    Over 10% (121) of killings resulted from traffic stops.

    Over half the killings resulted from calls for non-violent crimes or where no crime was reported.

    In over half, the victims were reported to have firearms. Over 100 with guns were killed but were not threatening anyone.

    Nearly half were either unarmed or had a knife, vehicle or other weapon (hammer?, screwdriver?). 55 were killed while driving their vehicle.

    • alanstorm says:

      Jeffty comes up with more Liberal Logic (pat pend.)!

      Over 10% (121) of killings resulted from traffic stops.

      Child, is it your opinion that the police stop people without a reason?

      Over half the killings resulted from calls for non-violent crimes or where no crime was reported.

      Does that mean that no crime occurred after the cops arrived? No, it doesn’t.

      In over half, the victims were reported to have firearms. Over 100 with guns were killed but were not threatening anyone.

      If they had a weapon – not JUST a gun – and didn’t comply with police instructions, the outcome is predictable.

      Are you not well? This is even worse than your usual babble.

  9. alanstorm says:

    The fatal shooting of a homeless, mentally ill Escondido man with nearly 200 arrests on his record on Wednesday raises many familiar questions, starting with WTF is someone with 200 arrests NOT in jail?

  10. Kye says:

    More surreal headlines: In today’s Financial Times:

    “Person in the news

    George Floyd: an ordinary man who became a global symbol.”

    I confess I don’t have his full resume at hand, but apparently being a convicted armed robber, passing counterfeit money, and having three illegal drugs in your system, one of them a fatal overdose counts as being an “ordinary man” these days?

    It’s also worth mentioning that at least once upon a time the Financial Times was considered a respectable news paper.

    Let’s put this black piece of shit on the twenty dollar bill.

    Despite the constant barrage of evidence, I’m still amazed at how fast we’re turning ourselves into the USSR at a mind boggling speed. I can’t tell whether it feels more like April 1861 or July 1914 around here, but I do know that dumb people in power who only hear what they want to hear (like our Red commenter does) make catastrophic mistakes that get lots of people killed.

    What a fascinatingly stupid time to be alive.

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