How do you mistake a cellphone for a gun? How do you mistake a sleeping couple for assailants? How do you mistake a black man for a pair of white boys? How do mistake a jogger minding his own for an attacker? How do you mistake a shoplifter for a hardened criminal? But the real question is, how do you assholes keep getting away with these "mistakes"

Weapons are supposed to be used only when there's an imminent threat to the life of the officer or victims. But too many officers pull out their guns just to threaten people into compliance. "Obey me or I'll shoot." Among cops, and society in general, guns are seen as the solution to all problems.

How would you mistake a taser for a pistol? Tasers have a safety catch designed to flip in the opposite direction of a pistol. Automatic pistols require a slide to be drawn back with a second hand that you wouldn't even use to shoot a taser. And in this incident, the victim was fleeing, not attacking, nor even holding a weapon; so "I was confused in a moment of self-preservation" is not valid.

It takes years to train a police offer in most first world countries. But just weeks in America. Maybe they need to increase the training time?

One of the best people I know was a cop for 32 years in a large city. He always said, "Good cops don't have high arrest rates. Good cops go out and talk to people and solve problems. Of course, some people have to go to jail, they robbed a store, beat someone, stole a car, but as a rule of thumb, a police officer should only take someone to jail as a last resort. Putting someone in jail changes their life forever and that is not a step we should take until we have exhausted all other courses of action." Those words have stuck with me for years. I really think we need more cops like him.

The thing is, most cops are good people... the same way most teachers are good people... You don't brand all teachers pedos because one abused a child... think about it, we all like to think we are different, special etc but are so quick to paint others with the same brush... some people are inherently bad people, but they are the minority...

Several years ago, our local PD ran a civilian police academy. This may enlighten a lot of people as to why cops act/react as they do: "If the other person has a weapon out, and yours isn't out," the instructor said, "then you're done." In other words ----- go into every situation with the gun ready to use, b/c that's the way they're trained. AND IT IS STUPID. The instructor even admitted it. *sigh*

This is why I don't support ACAB because some cops are nice and try to do their job and think the system is crap and others make headlines because they're violent/racist/dumb. also not all countries have terrible police systems?

It's irresponsible social media such as this that cause people to be tried ans convicted in the court of public opinion. Many people base their beliefs solely on what they see on social media. The cop that fired her gun instead of her taser is still supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. This know it all cop may have put undo influence on the potential jury pool thus making an unbiased trail impossible. If he wants to spout his opinion after the trial process go right ahead. Until due process is done keep your opinions to yourself.

Okayyyy well the comment "Most cops shouldnt have tazers or guns" isnt correct. police training is brutal and if they are good enough, they get to be a cop. not many people realize, but during police training, they get pepper sprayed and tazed and sometimes when one of those happens, you are made to go through a whole entire training course. How do I know all of this? A few years ago as a high schooler, I wanted to be a police detective. Changed my future career to something less dangerous lol

we need more cops like this man fr

tho the person was supposed to get arrested

I haven't scrolled through all the comments, so if someone has pointed this out already, I'm sorry that I'm repeating it. The headline on this story--which is a good story--is obnoxious. "This Policeman Calls Out Lazy Cops Who PRETEND To ‘MISTAKE' Guns For Tasers." What a prejudicial statement! In the context of the story, the implication seems to me to be unmistakable: Cops intentionally kill people (of color), after which they pretend that they made an innocent 'mistake' (quotations marks!) to cover the murder that they just committed. Why not point out that a FEMALE police officer made the 'MISTAKE,' implying that only a woman would try to pull off something so criminal.

There should be common practise shared throughout all forces, minimum standards and procedures etc. There should be a desire from cops themselves to ensure that their colleagues are the best and have integrity and that their image is one where people feel SAFE with them - even when being a suspect in a crime. In my country cops don't ever carry guns but manage to detain suspects with knives. Carrying Tasers is still fairly uncommon too..

what happened at the training?

CHAUVIN VERDICT

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

Labeling an obvious process and system level error just a "stupidity" and fault of an individual is not however a good fix to the problem. If your law managenemt culture is based on short training, low treshold of use of force and you pack 2 pretty identical feeling weapons to the belt, one lethal to one hip and one non-lethal to other and implement human individual to who is prone to human feelings and exhaust to the solution, these things are probably doomed to happen.

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

Its going to get a lot worse with the Chauvin verdict. Any police officer with a brain and options are using them and leaving the desperate and the incompetent to police people. We're going to see a lot of "oopsies" because its going to be impossible to recruit good police officers if they think they can't get a fair trial if something goes wrong and someone dies. (I'm not making a comment on the Chauvin trial, I'm saying if they THINK that)