Anecdote I work in a grocery store.  I’ve seen this sort of situation before, that is someone staying in the bathroom too long.  Every time I’ve seen it the cops behaved more professionally and the person who’d stayed or barricaded himself (and it has always been a guy) in the bathroom was homeless and mentally altered due to drugs or alcohol.  Or were busy shooting up with drugs they bought off some character near our store or getting drunk off alcohol they shoplifted from the store.
I do think these particular officers overreacted (no duh!), but I also understand their frustration in having to deal with petty things like someone drunk or high who won’t come out and how it is possible to be confused when dealing with a mentally disabled person.  
I was not there and I don’t want to armchair quarterback this situation so I cannot say what they should have done.  There are a lot of crappy cops out there and it is likely these are some of them, but there is the possibility that they simply made a very bad mistake and their worst behavior were exaggerations after the fact.  

I think this highlights the biggest problem of Tasers.Like you said, it’s meant as a substitute for a gun, but it’s not being used in the same way a gun would be used – police are far more trigger-happy if they think the victim won’t die. Problem is that all too often they’re used on people with medical conditions that lead to death or serious permanent injury, or they’re used on people who aren’t capable of understanding what’s happening, as was the case with this guy. There needs to be bans on the use of tasers in situations where a gun would not be used, especially after an Australian man who’d been sniffing petrol caught fire after being tasered.

I’ll say what they should not have done..They should not have electrocuted an American citizen because he had an umbrella.
Electrocuting people for carrying umbrellas is, indeed, a very bad mistake and that’s no exaggeration.
Oh, and it would have been nice if they hadn’t laughed at him for being deaf, but we are talking about maniacs who electrocute people for carrying umbrellas, so I guess simply being polite is way out of the question.

It will stop when gutless D.A.’s start charging the officers with crimes!

Monterey County D.A. won’t file criminal charges against Salinas cop who killed a woman armed with a 5-inch crochet hook.
By Zachary Stahl
It’s not surprising that the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office didn’t file criminal charges against Salinas police officers in the Maria Irma De La Torre case. The local D.A.’s Office has never charged a law enforcement officer for shooting or killing someone, and the death of De La Torre, who was 45 and epileptic, is no different. Except in this case it was a silver finger-sized crochet hook that turned a medical call into a fatality.
Distraught over the death of her father, De La Torre was suffering from a seizure when officers Steve Mattocks and Robert Balaoro responded to 911 calls on July 13, 2008. (She was hospitalized two nights before the shooting.) De La Torre locked herself in a van and officers saw her stabbing her neck with what they described as a safety pin.
According to the officers’ account, De La Torre moved aggressively toward Balaoro and raised what they thought was a knife or an ice pick. Balaoro attempted to tase her; in a split-second decision, Mattocks shot her twice in the back.
[...]
The D.A. is also investigating whether Mattocks did anything criminal when he opened fire on an unarmed couple in February. Salinas cops pulled Adriana Velasquez and Julio Hernandez over because their SUV’s license plate light was out. In this case, while no one was injured, police also say Mattocks used lethal force to protect his partner.
http://www.montereycountyweekl…

A teachable moment?After last weeks fiasco, can we use this a teachable moment? Put yourself in each party’s place. As a police officer you have to respond to calls with very little information. Their lives are on the line every single day. They deal with the worst of the worst. Its very easy to play Monday morning quarterback and blog about the wrong doings of the police. When is the last time you actually interacted, or better yet sat down to have a beer with a police officer to understand what they go through? At the same time, you could tell them to take 5 seconds and write a note and slip it under the door. It was unusual circumstances for both parties involved in this particular case.  

Until…

BTW, Love said that the officers laughed at him after they found out he was deaf. The officer has since been placed on administrative leave. I don’t know if it’s a training issue, a lack of humanity or what, but these weapons are being abused all around the country by the police — and the abuse is being affirmed by their superiors in many of these cases — it’s frightening. How can we stop the madness?  

It won’t stop until the people recognize that the Gates incident and this one and every one like it was as much about class – the class of nobility known as cops – as it was about race.  One elevated to the nobility one is no longer fallible; nothing one says or does can be questioned under any circumstances.  A high school dropout whose illiterate uncle gave him a job on the Podunk, Texas police force has abolute power of life and death over anyone he encounters – and no one he encounters has any right to resist.
If President Obama had wanted to teach something for a moment, he should have taught the nation that, in spite of constitutions and laws, we are a petty police state.

“Their lives are on the line every single day…”Yeah, police officers are killed by maniacs whielding umbrellas and crochet hooks every day (smirk).

Police BehaviorThe pointing and laughing is not verified.  It very well may be when someone gets around to talking to the Dollar Store employees, but right now it seems like we only have the victim’s word on that point.  Given my experience with the police I’d guess there is a 95-99% chance that this is exactly what it looks like.  Asshole cops abusing their tools to deal with the mentally ill more quickly.  But there is also a chance that the news reports have it wrong.  I have seen it go the other way.

“When was the Last time I interacted with a Cop”Several weeks ago, my husband and I were driving our car, with DC license plates in Kent County, Maryland around 8:30 at night.  A police cruiser went by us going the other direction with lights on.  It turned around and began following us.  We kept moving because, in DC, if a cop wants you to pull over, they will turn on their siren (they normally cruise around town with lights going).  The “officer” finally turned on the siren, however, there was no place to safely pull over (no median or shoulder on the country road).  When we got to a driveway we pulled over.
The cop got out of her car and immediately started yelling at my husband (driving). “Why didn’t you pull over when you saw my lights?” Then screamed at him to get out of the car.  This woman had no clue as to our experience in D.C. and didn’t want a reasonable explanation.  All she wanted to do was to intimidate and subjugate, demean and show force of authority.  She was beligerant and overbearing.  I am sick to death of these types of so called police.  They obviously come from the lowest levels of society with no manners, no education, and no intelligence.  Give a dummy a gun and what do you get?  Innocent people shot, tasered, illegally arrested and jailed because of the ignorance of the people who are in charge of policing.

I love thepeople worried about making sure that law enforcement’s side of the story gets told. Guess what? They’re the ones writing the official story at the scene and afterward.
Guess what else? They’re public servants paid by our tax dollars. They don’t get the luxury of the benefit of the doubt when they are entrusted with lethal and not-exactly-non-lethal uses of force. Every ounce of scrutiny is justified and necessary. Frankly, there’s not enough of it.
The truth is that police are able to act, for the most part, with impunity. Take this example. Were it not for a citizen’s camera, the kid on the bike would undoubtedly still be fighting charges of assaulting an officer.
Here in NYC the police operate with ZERO citizen oversight. We have a civilian complaint board that is allowed involvement in complaints against police at a level that’s at the discretion of the DA involved. It has no real power. The mayor and commissioner have vigorously fought attempts to give NYC residents any real power over our police force.
The pendulum is swung so far away from police being overly scrutinized that it’s downright otherworldly to read calls begging for understanding for the men with the zappers.
Seriously, tt’s too damned bad if you get a sick tummy because someone suggests that your hero class be rigorously examined.

story left me queasy

I believe the guy who wasn’t electrocuting anyone.I think you’re right that it was almost certainly exactly what it looks like and the victim being non-white doesn’t make it look any less likely.  They thought they could get away with doing this to him, so they did it to him.  So far, they have been proven right in their inital assessment.

I’m wondering…Should this deaf and mentally disabled man be left unsupervised? How is he suppose to communicate with the public in a situation like this?
I want to make it perfectly clear that under no circumstances do I think the police acted appropriately. The umbrella excuse is unbelievably stupid and implausible.
I’m just not sure how I would have handled this situation. Supposedly he was in the bathroom for an hour. As far as anyone knew he could have been stealing things or taking drugs, etc. Why else would someone be in a public restroom for an hour? Then he tried to keep the door closed after the police forced it open. What were the police suppose to think then?
This whole thing is very upsetting, and I feel terrible for the deaf man having to go through something so traumatic.

My sentiments exactly.Sick to my stomach, actually, followed by a heavy heart and then anger. Not a teachable moment in sight – just a shampoo one – rinse and repeat.

This happens all the time unfortunatelyI’ve been arrested myself and many Deaf people are abused by cops – more through ignorance than racism. As a Deaf man, I want to correct some perspectives I’m seeing here. The assumption in this post is that the cop is crazy and powermad for using a taser on a man who refused to come out of a bathroom for an hour. (I won’t say a “deaf mentally ill man” because they didn’t know at the time. He could have been a serial killer trying to flush body parts, or a drug user. And he could still be both those things and be a deaf man.)
1. Laughter. When cops realize a man is deaf and not an insane criminal maniac, they might laugh out of relief. We have no clue. Most of the time we assume they laugh at us, because we don’t know what the f they’re saying, but time and experience teaches me otherwise. Most of the time it’s relief or discomfort. One thing we learn when we train deaf clients is not to make such assumptions. Being afraid and frustrated always makes the assumptions worse. (If the cops were serious-faced, you could make an assumption about that too.) It’s language… painful language.
2. Mental illness. As a Deaf man who’s worked with the mentally ill for many years, most of them deaf, I want to remind you that being deaf and mentally ill does not decrease the human capacity for violence. Pushing back against a door with enough strength to fight a TIRE IRON is pretty scary. But the cops didn’t know he was mentally ill, only that they were being kept out and probably after they’d announced being police.
3. Right course of action. Suppose the man had not been deaf, had not been mentally ill, and had locked himself in the bathroom for an hour, resisted people opening the door, and poked people away with an umbrella. What would the assumption be? What would the right course of action be? Break down the door and possibly hurt the person? (Remember, he IS deaf – he wouldn’t hear a warning.) Shoot through the door? Taser? Wait for this person to finish what they’re doing? (And please don’t think just identifying the man as deaf and mentally ill should get him off the hook – I’ve been stabbed by clients who go on to cheerfully talk about rainbows. Mental illness means unpredictability and lack of rationality. (Look at the interpreter – three times he has to tell the client he’s there to help.)
4. Deaf perspective – after living a lifetime as a Deaf man it’s almost universally clear when a SHP (silly hearing person) wants to get into the bathroom. They never, ever think the person inside might be deaf. Actually, people never think someone might be deaf in any situation. Television programs where intelligent characters recognize deafness immediately come across as bizarre. He must have severe ideations as well as mental retardation to imagine the devil is trying to break into the bathroom. But this makes me go back to #1: Who was supposed to be with him and where were they?
I feel horrible for this man and my wishes go out to him and his family, but it’s hard for me to fault the police – it seems some people here want psychic powers to be part of the police requirement. In the past Deaf service groups used to work with mentally ill patients to teach them what to do and taught policemen to give them some sort of awareness that might mitigate these problems without handcuffing the cops (being able to identify the Deaf sign like the mom suggested is a great skill), but all those places have been closed now after the Bush drain.

ThanksAs a Deaf man who worked for many years as a social worker, I wondered exactly the same thing. Where were his mother and his brother, since he seems to be living at home? I had clients with that level of functioning and we didn’t feel comfortable leaving them alone places. Not just because of their needing help, but because people take advantage of them. I remember one 42 year old woman who disappeared for two hours and was found sucking off some man who promised her money. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she did it anyway, and was proud of her dollar for a couple weeks. sigh Lord and lady.

Most people laugh when I tell them I’m deaf. They laugh out of relief, or at their own stupidity at yelling at me for an hour with no response.
So I don’t hate the cops for that.
I do think after much thinking and two comments here that the best course of action would be informational training for the precinct, so they can learn basic signs like deaf and help. Most criminals who pretend to be deaf (and i got called for those too) just make stuff up.

New life For LoveHopefully Mr. Love will get a good lawyer who will insure that Mr. Love gets a big settlement which he is entitled too and he will no longer have to be subjected to such treatment. I hope no one else is either. To taser a man for using the bathroom and having an umbrella is sadistic.

All I see is a black man at home with his familyPrior to tazers over the past few years this would not be the case. I am sorry the cops screwed up. I am even sorrier that stores with public restrooms and repeated issues like this haven’t gotten enough sense to change the locks in order to access bathrooms for emergency situation. Better a little embarrassment then to create a situation where you need cops to break down a door and put themselves in some of the most unpredictable and dangerous situations.
I hope the police apologize because it is appalling. I hope the family either forgives or seeks restitution and is satisfied. I also hope the deaf black man and his family aren’t too traumatized by this incident in the long run.  A few years of perspective and I think it will be funny to many of the people involved. But mainly I am happy that the man is alive. As are so many others who now live through these incidents because the cops have a choice between a non lethal weapon–that sometimes becomes lethal and a gun which is always lethal.

Thanks for your perspective, joerayWith deaf relatives as well as being parent of an autistic child, this story is very painful.

This makes me very nervous.I’ve been hearing-impaired since I was three. Even with hearing aids, many hearing-impaired people are functionally deaf to anything behind them. For example, if my hearing aids go out on me in public and I have to change them, It’s unlikely I would be able to hear a cop trying to get my attention from behind.

Not to be gross or anything but……I’ve had a couple experiences where a lunch out at a restaurant had unintended results. I’ll let y’all fill in the rest.

except when that’s not trueSadly, the devices aren’t replacing guns as much as they are replacing talking.  Search through the few stats that exist on taser use in large cities. There is little to no effect on gun use when tasers are widely distributed to officers. Examples are touted when they happen (man with knife hit with taser, etc.), but if the gun stats aren’t dropping precipitously, what’s the point? In fact, researchers at UCSF recently reported (blogged here) a SIX-fold increase in in-custody deaths in the first year following taser deployment.
Also, I can’t imagine asking that a person be able to look to a future of laughter after such an incident. That’s kind of a rough expectation.

Thanks for your replyI get the feeling my comments are out of sync with other blenders and I’d probably be more popular if I went COPS BAD! BAD! NO POLICE! EVIL!  

LOL!No… there are certainly very good people in law enforcement (my family has friends that include father/son state troopers that I would easily put in the “good” column) and our local police chief is one as well.
The problem is that these GOOD officers have to work with others who should never have the authority, let alone the machinery that comes with the job.
We’re (and yes, I’m going to put my foot in it, do something I should never EVER do and talk in  general terms for the majority of Blenders for a sec) not anti-police; we’re “anti-abuse of power by those in authority”. That includes not just law enforcement, but a myriad number of people and situations…
But I certainly can understand how it could easily appear differently!

So you think cops will talk more if we take away their tazers???Its too easy to blame the tazer. The reality is you have point about the training and the use of force issues but what about the solutions? Do you really think eradicating tazers is going to solve the problem of cops projecting force–lethal or non-lethal?
And as rough as my expectations are I have been to enough funerals of young black men in my life to laugh at just about anything if I am still breathing.

Wait…No one got tased or shot?
Anywho, this is where we have agree to disagree, because there is no changing some minds. Do you see them as just evil, or a necessary evil?

These threads bring the cop-haters out of the woodworkJust like cockroaches.  
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that there is a discussion on the use of Tasers.  Even people who believe Tasers serve a useful purpose in law enforcement can see that there is much room for improvement in design and training.  
That being said, these threads run the risk of turning into cesspools of ignorant name-calling and cop-hating hysteria.  There have been some recent improvements in that area, thanks to diligent TOS enforcement by the baristas who police the comments.
We’re all here to learn, and in my opinion, Joeray, you have offered some very valuable insight.  So, please keep posting.  I think most of us appreciate it.

my father was disgustedwhen my mother’s family, with several cops, started a discussion with him in the 70′s about killing blacks and peurto ricans on the street for the sole purpose of a vacation. (my Dad’s from PR.)
I’ve been stopped and interrogated by cops because of a middle-eastern appearance.
I’ve seen people hit in the protests in NYC… I know all about abuse by authority… sad to say.
I guess I’m just obsessed with figuring out how different people’s perceptions and actions affect reality… like the laughing thing, which is a perfect example of perception and how it can screw up a situation.

Now you know what happened to Mary Poppins. Flew away into the sky? Get real.

There are rulesKeep your hands in the air. Don’t reach for pencil or paper. If you can, make big dummy hands and yell I can’t hear! I need paper! I need pen! Make them give you what you need so they can’t accuse you of going for a weapon. Try not to talk if you can – cops think people who can talk MUST be able to hear, and I (for example) can speak perfectly and hear nothing. Lots of Deaf people get beaten or abused by cops who don’t get that idea. Check out this, from a couple months ago, for example. Lots of Deaf groups try to educate cops, and in NYC they have made an effort to hire CODAS who can sign (children of Deaf adults) to work in heavily-populated Deaf areas (there are entire neighborhoods with a few hundred Deaf people at a time…) NYC is way ahead of other places, except for San Francisco and Seattle I hear.
Point is, don’t be afraid.
(BTW – Just bought the Phonak Naida hearing aids – they have six microphones, two pointed behind. It’s annoying. I can hear people behind me talking during dinner about gross stuff. Yech. I take them off a lot now.)

Parents with their hearing imparied or deaf children should picketPut a t-shirt on each kid…”Don’t Taze me Bro”

Almost, joeray, butto be really in sync with many Blend posters, you’d have to add COPS R RACIST! and IT’S A POLICE STATE!

I’m not deaf even without my hearing aids.My problem is, I wouldn’t hear the cop coming up behind me, so it would appear to me that someone was touching or grabbing me out of nowhere, so I may end up forcibly defending myself without actually realizing it’s a cop until it’s too late, and then I would be in big trouble.
(I got the Altair Sonic innovations hearing aids five years ago. They have two microphones, one of which I can turn off at will if I want to get rid of background noise.

Now they have Tasers that can shoot three separate sets of leads.That’s just a little scary.

Oh goshI hope you didn’t take my “lol” as directed at your comment, joeray.
It was ruefully meant at MYSELF, as what you said really connected, as well as trying to understand perceptions/actions or POV affecting reality- that is something to which I completely relate.

Great suggestionsre: “deaf” and “help”- I like this alot.
And until I read this, it had never occurred to me that anyone would pretend to be deaf. Wonder how much this is influenced by having deaf relatives…

Oh!That’s awful. No words.
We live in fear that our very sweet child will be in a compromising situation at some point in her life, despite all of the efforts to educate and protect her. It’s hard, being proud of her growing independence, lnowledge and abilities, knowing she NEEDS to be able to cope with her world and make good decisions, and being terrified of the “what ifs”. It keeps us awake sometimes…

Agreed…and I also believe much more should be done. But removal of  tazers from the police arsenals before attempting to work out behavioral issues cuts back on their non-lethal (if dangerous) options. And as an African American subject to a long history of cops shooting first and asking questions later I really don’t see the advantage to that. I would rather be tazed and they be sorry than to be shot because it is not going to make them more sorry.  

welltest

Maybe some type of light system coded to warn the deaf?I think part of this issue is the very small space. Had an incident occurred outside the police would have had the advantage of their vehicle and its loud siren and emergency lights. Maybe we need something like that for public spaces?

wellmy points still stand. I do appreciate what you’re saying. I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing all that largely outside of the tasers.
I do know that we weren’t regularly reading about dozens of cases of “excited delirium” before tasers. I also never frequently read about people being shot and killed for things like running from the police or already being handcuffed. People HAVE died after being tased in both of those situations. A gun would never be applicable in most of the cases that tasers are currently used in. In some states there are dozens of taser deployments per month.
So, instead of babbling at you (it is Friday night afterall), I think that tasers have only proved to accelerate progression along the use of force continuum. They inject a potentially lethal force (all the more dangerous because it is sold as less-than-lethal and the training materials most PDs use are provided by the manufacturer) early into the continuum. Robert Dziekanski would never have been shot. Neither would have Darryl Turner.
I really do hurt every time I read about another dead person because of a poorly engineered, slyly sold product. Also, and this is a bit off topic, but I say it because I am absolutely not a police hater… of course the police have a tough job. There’s no doubt about it. I think the starting salary for a NYC cop is less than $30k. That’s despicable. It’s also all the more reason for scrutiny. Underpaid and overstressed employees with deadly and not-so-less-than-lethal force seem like a very unfortunate combination.
So, I don’t think that tasers are an inappropriate place to start, but yeah, you’re absolutely right that there is an enormous systemic problem that needs fixing. But again, I don’t think that it negates the significance of the deaths of people dead post-tasing. Tasers are only throwing gasoline on a fire.

I don’t think so joerayI’m glad for your perspective even though we disagree on the device in question.
These threads do sadly tend to bring out the both ends though.  There’s always a “you just hate all cops” to go with the “bad cops” meme.  They seem to go hand in hand.
Myself, I want legitimate and powerful citizen oversight of law enforcement to prevent civil rights violations by taxpayer funded police. I’m also not willing to throw out a historical perspective that truly justifies being wary of a society with heavy handed law enforcement. Bull Connor would have loved the taser to be sure.

What about the charge of Disorderly Conduct?Giving the police all benefit of the doubt – it seems to me that whenever they’re in any kind of situation where they’ve screwed up – even if not their fault – there’s an automatic charge of “disorderly conduct” and usually “resisting arrest” too.
And that is abuse of power. Any arrest where a magistrate won’t sign off that there was a prima facie case is misconduct and has to be punished.

Someone with the mental age of a ten year old, is functionalJust as you’d have no problem with letting a ten year old go to a store unaccompnied, it’s no different for this man.
Our society encourages special needs people to live as independantly as they can, some having jobs, their own apartments (some in adult group homes), and relationships they choose for themselves.
The blaming of his parents or siblings not accopanying him every where, isn’t valid.IMO.

right…. and wrongHere is why:
Disorderly conduct is a broadly worded statute in most states.  Generally speaking, it allows for arrest of any person who disturbs the peace, in view of the public.  There is no requirement that the person be on public property; in most states there is no exception for a person who is on his own property; however, “public” usually means that there must be others – besides just police – present.
Police officers have a lot of legal discretion in deciding when to make an arrest for disorderly conduct, but rarely do they choose to make that arrest, even when the elements of the offense are there.  Disorderly conduct laws exist to help police officers take rapid control of a situation, as they are trained and expected to do.  
Judges and especially prosecutors have even more discretion than police officers do.

Any arrest where a magistrate won’t sign off that there was a prima facie case is misconduct and has to be punished.

I’m not sure whether you mean judges should require prima facie evidence or whether you mean that if charges are dropped, that is prima facie proof of police misconduct.  Either meaning shows lack of understanding.
Prosecutors can and often do decide not to prosecute (i.e. “drop charges”) for any number of reasons, many of them having nothing to do with lack of evidence.  Not only is it not prima facie evidence of police misconduct, it is almost irrelevant to whether or not there was police misconduct.  A judge or magistrate would be laughed off the bench if he or she required prima facie evidence in order to allow prosecution.
Here’s where you are right: abuse of power – even when it is not illegal – should be punished.  That’s where we depend on our law enforcement agencies to do the right thing – and where we expose it when they don’t.

Do you have a 10-year-old?I sure wouldn’t let a 10-year-old go to a store unaccompanied.  
The police should make special allowances for the mentally disabled man, but his parents should not?  That doesn’t make much sense to me.  The parents/guardians deserve just as much blame as anyone else for the resulting fiasco, IMO.
Also, how about joeray’s 42-year-old social work client?  Was she having a “relationship (she) chose for (herself)”?  It’s a very delicate thing, balancing the need for protection against the right to freedom.  I am sure it would break your heart to see how many of the mentally disabled and the mentally ill (including those suffering from dementia) live when they live independently.  

Actually…The parents/guardians are more to blame, because they were aware of the man’s disability, while the police were not.

actually I once was a ten year oldAt 5 yrs old I sucessfully navigated 6 blocks SOLO every day walking to kindergarten, and every store between home and school I’d stop in regularly.
By ten years old I ranged 3 to 4 miles from home on my bicycle, with many other kids my age or younger.
What planet were you raised on?
btw, I had 4 nephews and nieces which I regularly cared for, and two lovers who were divorced Dad’s with partial care of 4 more kids. So yeah, I’ve done parenting too.

btw…no one’s parents live foreverAttempting to bring your child,(what ever it’s mental age equivilance) to living as independant as possible is a rational goal, because eventually you won’t be there to care for them. Some people mentally challenged may never be able to live unsupervised, but that is the last fall back position, not what you optimally hope for.

Gotta feel sorry for those poor defenseless copsSounds as if the police assaulted this man. Then they charge him with disorderly conduct?
Every day, approximately 5 to 6 people are killed because they had the bad luck of coming to the attention of police officers.
Cops escalate quickly to lethal (or near-lethal) force in situations which could have been handled much more simply and safely. Investigations rarely lead to the officers being fired, nor subject to civil or criminal charges.
Any of us, however, can expect to spend decades in prison if we defend ourselves while being attacked by police.  That is, if we’re not simply killed on-the-spot.
In any disputed situation, expect charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Bargaining chips for later: “If you don’t sue us, we’ll drop the charges.”
Want to tell me how cops put their lives on the line every day and I don’t appreciate how difficult it is? Expect your indignation to be duly ignored. Deadly jobs? Try garbage collection, or working in a meat-packing plant.
It’s frightening to imagine what happens to non-white people in bad neighborhoods, esp. when no one nearby has a camcorder. An affluent white teenager with a reputation for being a model citizen (i.e. teacher’s pet), I got harassed by the cops. They treated my mother as if she were a criminal also, because she tried to protect me from their coercive tactics.
Call me biased if you like. I’m not the one armed to the teeth–injuring and killing innocent people on a regular basis–whining about how dangerous my job is.