this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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Doubt. The amount of cops who are either going to A give chase or B open fire regardless of the local laws is going to be far beyond statistically relevant. Maybe even a large plurality.
Never, never assume that a cop knows the law. Their job is to enforce, not to know. That's the DA's job.
I don't usually go "in my country it's different", but that affirmation is absolutely wild to me.
Guessing this is US-centric, but you are saying if you recklessly drive away from an officer stopping you, they are likely to give chase and potentially open fire ?? What ?? Would the chase not be more dangerous than whatever you are being fined for ? Would them opening fire not make the whole (armed) country you are living in more likely to shoot back ? Are you guys playing cops & robbers IRL ? Sheriffs & bandits ? What is this about ?
Where I'm from the cop has already written your registration plate down, and possibly got your id. The last panel of this meme would be "well no one is stopping you, but it's going to become a lot more expensive". "Also I really don't care enough to chase you or anything, my lunch break is in 20 minutes". "Btw I am not allowed to carry a weapon when handling traffic".
Not saying there aren't assholes that will waste your time with a more tedious procedure than necessary, but nobody is going to chase, and nobody is going to shoot...
US, yes. Yes, they do give chase or open fire with surprising frequency, often creating far more dangerous situations. 5 months average training time, additional training given through unions with a focus on "officer safety" (see, how to pull your gun before the other guy does) creates an ecosystem that creates a bunch of fucking cowboys rather than actual peace officers. Yes, a non-zero amount of them think they're playing cops and robbers for real.
It depends on where you are, the cop, and a lot of other context. It's one of those cases where America is more like 50 different little countries than one big country.
My state police force has a policy to only chase if there's an active danger to public safety.
That doesn't apply to the sheriff's of the 83 counties in the state, or the approximately 500 other police agencies, although many counties mirror the policies of the state police.
Weirdly, I generally trust the state police more than any of the others. They tend to be significantly better trained and more focused on public safety than making money for the county.
I've only been pulled over by one once and he just wanted to make sure I was okay, which was fair considering my car was failing and it sounded like a shitty old lawnmower that was also broken.
In general our police are powerfully undertrained, underpaid, over funded, improperly screened and with a radically unhealthy attitude on their relationship with non-police. We also lack enough uniformity for that assessment to be universal.
It's not just cars, just recently cops in New York City shot each other and several bystanders on the subway trying to hit a guy with a knife they had been following over a <$3 fare evasion. Land of the free, home of the brave.
On stuff like whether they're supposed to be chasing people over traffic infractions it's very much their job and expected knowledge. If you want to have a talk about state sanctioned violence you don't get to detour to rogue officers.
Well we can't have the doubt without its two precursors. Thanks for being so complete.