I feel like the standard of performance for a police department should be somewhere above "occasional bystander casualties"
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
454 points (98.5% liked)
News
23167 readers
2765 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
A little background on the NYPD and firearms
Back when most departments were transitioning from revolvers to semi-auto, NYPD held on to revolvers for quite a while. Their revolvers used double action triggers, which means pulling the trigger both rotates the cylinder and also cocks the hammer. This means the trigger pull is long and heavy, you have to pull it a long distance back and with a good amount of force.
With pistols, the longer distance you have to pull the trigger and the harder you have to pull, the less accurate you are. Pulling the trigger moves your hand and puts force on the gun itself which can throw off your aim.
Many officers would 'pre stage' the trigger, pulling it halfway back to an indent where the pull gets slightly harder. This is a horrible practice that no one should ever do, because it means you might unintentionally discharge if you get jostled, but it made them more accurate when it came time to actually fire so they kept doing it. NYPD didn't train it out of the officers even though it is against virtually every firearm guideline.
So then the department switched from revolvers to semi-auto pistols, mainly for the magazine- average semi-auto pistol holds 17 rounds, revolver holds 6. But they used striker fired pistols- these guns have a shorter, lighter trigger pull as the only thing the trigger does is move a catch to release already stored spring tension into the firing pin. That can make you much more accurate because the force of pulling the trigger moves your aim off, so less force needed to pull the trigger means more accuracy.
Problem was, a lot of officers had muscle memory from years or decades of carrying the double action revolver so they would try to pre-stage the trigger. And that would of course fire the gun when they didn't want to.
NYPD's solution to this was to simply make the trigger on their semi-autos really really really hard to pull. They had a custom spring designed that increased the trigger force- a semi-auto usually requires about 4-6 pounds of force to pull the trigger, they put a 12 lb spring. That allowed the officers to apply pre-stage force from their revolver days without discharging the weapon. Still absolutely horrible practice, but this stopped the unintentional discharges.
This had the side effect of course of making the guns relatively inaccurate. When you have to squeeze the trigger with that much force, it throws your aim off. And especially when you are in an emergency situation and adrenaline is pumping, it's hard to shoot accurately when you need to pull that hard. But it stopped the unintentional discharges so they went with it, since the force had a lot of old-timers.
And, for a very long time, they kept issuing these 12lb trigger guns even to new recruits, many of whom had never fired a gun before and could be easily trained to use a standard trigger with proper trigger discipline. So now THOSE officers were accustomed to 12lb triggers.
For the record, no other police department in the nation did this. Every one of them transitioned from revolvers to semi-autos without much problem, because they did not tolerate bad trigger discipline to begin with. And while some recommend a slightly stiffer trigger than the stock trigger, NYPD is literally the only one with a 12 lb trigger.
It wasn't until 2021 that NYPD started to back off, and started issuing new recruits weapons with 'only' 8lb trigger springs. That is still fairly high, but those 4 lb less makes it a lot easier to shoot accurately.
Point of all this-- When I hear that NYPD is shooting multiple bystanders, I'm not surprised. Unless those officers first hit the streets in the last couple of years, they are still using the 12 lb trigger and it's not surprising they have shit accuracy and are shooting bystanders.
It's a problem of NYPD's own making though.
Not to mention that 8lbs is still considered a horrendously high trigger pull. Glocks (what the NYPD carries) are already known for having kind of mediocre triggers, just due to the nature of their design. It's literally heavier than even the double-action triggers on any of my guns, one of which is literally an old Italian police Beretta. At least then only the first shot is more difficult to fire
That was really interesting and informative. Thank you that comment.
Most welcome!
Why hasn't the mayor released the full body cam footage yet? If they are going to release statements but withhold material evidence we should assume they are doing it to manipulate public opinion against the facts.
Distraction from what actually happened here... They panicked, escalated a nonviolent situation and shot an innocent bystander in the head. That man was your father, your brother, your husband, your son. Riding the subway and then shot in the head.
These stories will get closer and closer to you. They will impact acquaintances and then friends of friends and the then, one day, you'll get the worst phone call of your life...
Distraction from what actually happened here…
The initial "he had a knife!" was a distraction, certainly. But now it brings us back to the meat of the matter - the NYPD lies on impulse about everything in order to cover their asses.
At this point, who even fucking knows if he actually jumped a turnstile or if the police just decided to chase after and harass a guy who'd legally paid his fare?
These stories will get closer and closer to you.
I've got family in Manhattan and Queens. Fucking horrifying to think one of them might have been caught in the middle of this. Unfortunately, my NY family cannot stop having a hard-on for the cops. Given the deluge of far-right media around the incident and the degree to which the lies of the police are embellished and added on to by even less reputable talk radio goons and social media crackpots, I doubt this will change their view of what happened.
A demon-man used his magic knife to force two police officers to shot into a crowd, and only the brave champions of law and order were able to stop him.
Not just NYPD. ACAB
Only if you're American.
You're very right - There are famously ZERO tourists from other countries in New York City that could be struck by these stray bullets from these cowardly police officers.
Congratulations on contributing to this conversation. We were all waiting on you to speak up and you just really delivered for us all.
You’re very right - There are famously ZERO tourists from other countries in New York City that could be struck by these stray bullets from these cowardly police officers.
Any tourist visiting the US should be aware of the risk of getting shot. Either accidently by the police or drive-by-shootings, or intentional by gang violence or "stand-your-ground" idiots that shoot everyone passing by who "is not from here". Visiting the US is like eating Fugu - it is a calculated risk.
Not really. Six Indigenous people were killed by Canadian cops in 15 days. Source
"If the proportion of Indigenous people killed by police was put into the terms of the general population, it would equal 127 Canadians killed by police in two weeks." Brandi Morin
Way to minimize the point by interpreting it literally.
Canada had a total of 64 police shootings in 2021 (quickest year I could find) and over 1000 people were shot to death by police in the US in the same year.
So let’s keep the spirit of the argument and say comparatively that yes, you are far more likely to get killed by a cop in the US, especially if you’re a minority. A 2022 article puts 6400 people killed by police in the preceding 5 years
I could find no data on how many bystanders were shot by police, however it’s plainly obvious that as many times as police fire guns at people in the US the likelihood of being struck as a bystander are far more likely. One study put the number killed unintentionally by law enforcement at 6%, so it can be guessed that if you’re in the vicinity of police shooting at someone there might be a 6% chance you’ll be killed as an innocent bystander. That’s killed, not just wounded, so possibly getting shot but not killed is more likely. There are plenty of articles on the internet of bystanders being shot by cops that sue the municipality or state.
They saw the concept of a knife
Dude, if their shit is so cut-and-dry (which as we can tel by the wording on their press releases and their public quotes: he “muttered” a threat, they “became aware” he had a knife, that it’s clearly not), why wouldn’t they just release the footage?
Their story is clearly bullshit. Nothing happened that would justify this situation. They escalated unnecessarily, created a life threatening situation over $2.90, and nearly killed a bunch of people.
Let’s see the fuckin tape, you goddamn maniac cowards. We all know you’re spinning the yarn. Fire these fucking dangerous dog shits immediately.
Knife, belt buckle, light reflecting off a window - who can say what they really saw? All I know is they won't serve any prison time and that's fucked up.
They “became aware of a knife in his pocket”. That’s why there was no light reflecting
I was gonna make a joke about Chris Rock's video guide with this exact scenario, but nah this actually exceeds that skit because:
- The guy was apparently unarmed, meaning he actually followed what the guide said
- The police decided murder was preferable to a beating, for jumping a subway turnstile
Hey now, don't worry. I'm sure this will all be cleared up when the bodycam footage is released and it clearly shows the police being menaced with a knife... right?
Does the MTA not have security cameras? I live in Boston where the system is an antique (literally, in one part) and we have cameras on all platforms and all new trains.
(Granted, we did also face that bombing a few years ago that probably was used to justify the funding for it.)
They do and have publicly stated as much.
The funny thing is you know they have searched every subway station in the area and can’t find a single knife
"Please help exonerate us! We totally had the right to shoot someone because they didn't pay $3.50!"
$2.90.
Unless the figure has been changed, it was even less than that.
If it weren’t for the work of dedicated scientists I’d have assumed the knife would have just melded its the rest of the general subway ambiance.
view more: next ›