Daunte Wright shot with Taser. And by "taser," I mean, "Gun."

[none]

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View attachment 32900

 

[TV and credit cards]

Lack of training scenarios putting the officer under pressure, I would think.
She was likely suffering tunnel vision due to an adrenaline rush. She could not focus on what was in her hand but only on the suspect.

We don't focus on common tools, we just use them. She has no doubt trained with both taser and gun enough that both feel normal to her.

Normally we do focus on common tools while we are using them. Just ask my miter saw and these thumbs I still have to tell you how wrong you are. My main point of focus may be the cut but I am also mindful of the trigger in the handle and that the wood is squared and that I have my safety glasses on.
Now then, ever hear of someone on a gun firing range forgetting to take the safety off or not chambering a round or not realizing the slide is in the back position? It’s because they are inexperienced or anxious and just focused on the target and not the tool in their hand.

During an adrenaline rush we lose that focus, our situational awareness, and focus (tunnel) on what is just in front of us. If Officer Potter was experiencing an adrenaline rush and I suspect she was, she could not think through whether she had her gun or taser in her hand. Her brain was in fight mode with the suspect.
Law enforcement trains in such scenarios. Is it just during initial training? Is there ongoing training? I don’t know. If all Officer Potter had in her 26 years working with this same police department was in her initial training, then her police department failed her. Further, this is why I wonder what experiences she has had in her 26 years. How many crisis situations has she been involved in? She may have little experience in pushing through an adrenaline rush, getting her prefrontal cortex that has been hijacked by her amygdala operating again.

 

[Elixir]

For years, my Company organized, sponsored and produced some of the damn scariest multi-day "scenario training" exercises imaginable, involving metro police, National Guard, US Marshalls, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center personnel, FBI, State patrols ... the gamut of hardened LE personnel. MANY of these seasoned law enforcement people totally broke down. Tears and panic were common, even though they knew it was "just a drill" and they were in fact in no danger other than from their own overworked metabolisms. It's hard not to freak out when you are (for instance) stuck in a corridor having to treat massive trauma while surrounded by bloody bodies, live fire sounds, screaming victims, blinded by "smoke" (artificial and harmless of course), with no idea where the shooter or shooters might be ... there's no fucking way I would put myself through that kind of "training". I doubt that this MN police officer ever did either.
Certainly, the threat level presented by Mr. Wright wasn't on that level of inducing panic, but it is hard for me not to feel for her. Especially so, after she knew to resign and is exhibiting remorse despite knowing that doing so will probably exacerbate the repercussions to which she will be subjected.
It's a goddam sad situation all around.

 

[ZiprHead]

Maybe she just had a bad day.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Lots of people don't comply:
https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=fe2f3a13ac9e937b530499406ac88fde&oe=609DAEDD

 

[Elixir]

Maybe she just had a bad day.

I don’t think so. That was probably a representative sample.

Some people say there are two kinds of people who can truly perform unaffected by pressures; sociopaths and professionals. 26 years in, this behavior reflects a staggering but unsurprising level of dysfunction.

 

[Playball40]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/us/brooklyn-center-minnesota-police-shooting/index.html

(CNN)A 20-year-old man was fatally shot during a traffic stop after a Minnesota police officer shouted "Taser!" but fired a handgun instead, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said.

Daunte Wright was driving with his girlfriend Sunday afternoon when he was pulled over in the Minneapolis suburb.
Earlier, police said they tried to take the driver into custody after learning during a traffic stop that he had an outstanding warrant. The man got back into his vehicle, and an officer shot him, police said. They said the man drove several blocks before striking another vehicle.
Bodycam video released by the police chief Monday provided more details about what happened.
Wright got out of his car, but then got back in. It's not clear why, but the police chief told reporters it appeared from the video that Wright was trying to leave.

An officer is then heard shouting, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" but then fires a gun -- not a Taser -- at Wright.
"Holy sh*t!" the officer screams. "I shot him."
The police chief said the shooting appeared to be "an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright."
Gannon offered his "deepest sympathies" to Wright's family and vowed continued transparency.

It's easy to get all those doo-dads mixed up, I guess. Guns, tasers, flashlights, handcuffs. It's a wonder more cops don't draw down on a guy and then realize, "Oh, what the--this is Chapstick, not my service revolver."

Time to start blaming the victim in 3, 2, 1...

Nobody's going to mistake chapstick for a gun. The thing is the taser functions very much like a gun and a cop likely carries both. They probably practice with the gun more than they do with the taser so that memory path will be stronger. Unfortunately, I see no good answer to this. In a quickly developing situation I do not believe humans can be trained not to ever make the mistake.

AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM, ISN'T IT. (among many).

 

[Jarhyn]

Nobody's going to mistake chapstick for a gun. The thing is the taser functions very much like a gun and a cop likely carries both. They probably practice with the gun more than they do with the taser so that memory path will be stronger. Unfortunately, I see no good answer to this. In a quickly developing situation I do not believe humans can be trained not to ever make the mistake.

AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM, ISN'T IT. (among many).

I can see a really easy solution to this: train more on drawing and using the taser. Train on taser more than you train on gun. In fact, remove the guns from traffic enforcement altogether, and you will see accidental shootings like this equal zero, because it's really hard to shoot someone when you don't have a gun to shoot them with.

 

[Trausti]

Nobody's going to mistake chapstick for a gun. The thing is the taser functions very much like a gun and a cop likely carries both. They probably practice with the gun more than they do with the taser so that memory path will be stronger. Unfortunately, I see no good answer to this. In a quickly developing situation I do not believe humans can be trained not to ever make the mistake.

AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM, ISN'T IT. (among many).

Is it though? We know of this instance because the media is hyping the story. How common is it for a cop to mistake the two? Probably quite rare.

 

[southernhybrid]

The former police officer who shot Daunte Wright has just been charged with 2nd degree manslaughter. I'm watching the news on TV, so right now I don't have a link.

I've also read about the claim that Wright's outstanding warrant was for assault, but I'm not sure that's true. I was looking for information on a news site that wouldn't be considered far right or far left and I found something a bit puzzling.

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-daunte-wright-arrest-warrant-1583535

The Facts
No warrants were issued for Wright in the aggravated robbery case, according to court records.

The warrant was related to a separate case—27-CR-21-4400—in which Wright was charged with carrying a pistol without a permit and fleeing a peace officer.

A notice for a hearing in that case on April 2 was uploaded on March 4. No returned mail was listed in that case.

Read the link. Apparently, the warrant was sent to the wrong address, but regardless of what Wright might have done in the past, he shouldn't have been killed by a police officer. This is fucked up.

 

[Trausti]

Both can be true. Wright shouldn’t have resisted arrest and the lady cop was criminally negligent.

 

[laughing dog]

Nobody's going to mistake chapstick for a gun. The thing is the taser functions very much like a gun and a cop likely carries both. They probably practice with the gun more than they do with the taser so that memory path will be stronger. Unfortunately, I see no good answer to this. In a quickly developing situation I do not believe humans can be trained not to ever make the mistake.

AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM, ISN'T IT. (among many).

Is it though? We know of this instance because the media is hyping the story. How common is it for a cop to mistake the two? Probably quite rare.

Apparently it is rare. But since the consequence of such a rare mistake is death, if society can make it rarer, we ought to do so.

 

[Trausti]

Is it though? We know of this instance because the media is hyping the story. How common is it for a cop to mistake the two? Probably quite rare.

Apparently it is rare. But since the consequence of such a rare mistake is death, if society can make it rarer, we ought to do so.

And as a society, we should make it rarer that people resist lawful arrest. As the consequences can be deadly.

 

[laughing dog]

Is it though? We know of this instance because the media is hyping the story. How common is it for a cop to mistake the two? Probably quite rare.

Apparently it is rare. But since the consequence of such a rare mistake is death, if society can make it rarer, we ought to do so.

And as a society, we should make it rarer that people resist lawful arrest. As the consequences can be deadly.

Since the police are smaller in number and employed by the state, it ought to be obvious that the police are the lower hanging fruit in this case. Moreover, one might ask it seems that unarmed and otherwise black men in peaceful activity in particular are more adverse to lawful arrest by the police. I would think whatever level of trust between the black community and the Twin Cities metropolitan area police was, it is much lower now.

 

[TomC]

In a quickly developing situation I do not believe humans can be trained not to ever make the mistake.

Exactly this.

Unfortunately, we live in a huge and diverse country. Where the large majority aren't particularly violent, deceitful, drug addled, or armed. But enough are to make "simple solutions" like [MENTION=377]Jarhyn[/MENTION]; unfeasible.

Certainly, the threat level presented by Mr. Wright wasn't on that level of inducing panic, but it is hard for me not to feel for her.

How can you claim to know how "panic inducing" the threat posed by Wright was, to the cop. He was driving on illegal plates, had a history of violence and illegal weapons, resisted arrest, and dove for his car. Assuming he had a gun in the car and meant to use it on her was not a poor assumption.

He had to be shot.

Obviously, everyone agrees that the taser was the correct choice. Non-lethal, but ended the threat. Even the cop!
But I think that [MENTION=34]Loren Pechtel[/MENTION]; hit the nail on the head. No amount of training will eliminate all mistakes. As long as anybody is stuck dealing with the drugs and violence and crime, some of them are going to screw up under pressure.
Tom


ETA ~I meant to include "badly managed mental illnesses" in my list of problems facing the police~

 

[TV and credit cards]

Minnesota Second Degree Manslaughter as it applies here.

So, did she:
(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another.

Point one; I would think so. Point two; might be a bit more difficult. “Consciously”. Knowingly, deliberately. I don’t think even a jury could convict. Never mind the appeal that would have to make it past “qualified immunity”.

Change the law and we’ll change behavior.

 

[Jarhyn]

Minnesota Second Degree Manslaughter as it applies here.

So, did she:
(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another.

Point one; I would think so. Point two; might be a bit more difficult. “Consciously”. Knowingly, deliberately. I don’t think even a jury could convict. Never mind the appeal that would have to make it past “qualified immunity”.

Change the law and we’ll change behavior.

Except as has been pointed out, this isn't a behavior addressable by laws, because it is not a behavior those who have undergone it have yielded their consent even for their own bodies to perform.

It's like saying "when people get tased, we should make a law to prevent them from flailing about". It's stupid right on its face.

The response is training and denial of access to weapons.

If police want to take action against one of Tom's "violent", "deceitful", "drug addled" neighborhoods (and don't think I missed the racist dog-whistlings there), they can leave the guns behind. Send in not-armed social workers to process an arrest for all I care. Then if they get shot at, and only then, they should be able to come back in with guns.

The fact is, only by forcing police into having to engineer nonviolent solutions to these hard problems will those solutions actually happen. Necessity is the mother of invention. So let's force them to invent tactics that don't yield human rights abuses.

Yes, this will yield more dead police. No, their lives don't matter as much as their responsibility to not murder their communities.

 

[Trausti]

If police want to take action against one of Tom's "violent", "deceitful", "drug addled" neighborhoods (and don't think I missed the racist dog-whistlings there), they can leave the guns behind. Send in not-armed social workers to process an arrest for all I care. Then if they get shot at, and only then, they should be able to come back in with guns.

LOL. Gonna be a lot of dead social workers.

 

[Elixir]

Certainly, the threat level presented by Mr. Wright wasn't on that level of inducing panic, but it is hard for me not to feel for her.

How can you claim to know how "panic inducing" the threat posed by Wright was, to the cop.

You started out pretending to phrase a question and ended making a statement there, Tom.

Let me answer the question you pretended to want to ask.
There is NO FUCKING WAY any rational person could compare the threat level experienced in a live fire, simunition filled scenario with this two (three?) on one encounter out in the open where the counter-threat (police) is the only party known to have lethal force capability. This was an asymmetrical encounter. Her senses were not physically impaired, the suspect's location was known and his actions visible. Read my post, dude. I have plenty of reason to believe the threat level presented by Mr. Wright wasn't nearly on the level of inducing panic as an exercise designed to induce panic in high level professional operatives. I think you'd agree if you ever experienced it.

Thing is, not everyone can operate effectively under pressure at any level. Those who can do so under extreme threat are rare indeed, and will not be found working in most municipal police departments. Most of those willing to apply for police jobs and are able to operate with detached cool under extreme pressure, are sociopaths like Derek Chauvin. Otherwise they would have high-paying gigs in other capacities. Department of State's Operational Medicine invests up to 1.5million to train and deploy a single high-threat operator. These people can't be recruited from Indeed, or classified ads in the local paper.

 

[TomC]

If police want to take action against one of Tom's "violent", "deceitful", "drug addled" neighborhoods (and don't think I missed the racist dog-whistlings there), they can leave the guns behind.

That's a pretty messed up strawman.
Apparently, when you want to claim racism but it isn't actually there your go to b.s. is "dog-whistle.
I never said anything about neighborhood or race. I'm talking about this entire country.

Send in not-armed social workers to process an arrest for all I care. Then if they get shot at, and only then, they should be able to come back in with guns.

Oh right.
After the social workers get shot, then send in the police.

It's not like TV dude. The bad guys don't always miss.

What do you mean by "social workers"? How long do think that well intentioned, but unarmed, people are going to attempt to deal with criminally insane folks packing big guns? After a few dozen die because they slightly misjudged the situation?

If those cases get as much publicity as the criminals who get killed by police I doubt that many "social workers" will be trying out for the job. I wouldn't.
Tom