Are we clear?
Featured on the front page of the opinion section of Madison’s favorite Sunday newspaper, Gerald and Merle Sternberg put a lot of thought into devising “13 ways to deter police shootings” in the wake of Corey Ruiz’ shooting death. Too much thought.
The Sternbergs’ third point suggests the tone:
3) If use of the officer’s firearm is necessary to protect the officer or someone at the scene of apprehension, the discharge of the firearm should be toward body parts that would most likely not cause death, unless it is clear that the suspect is using lethal force.
Is that clear? You’re wrestling a guy slashing at you with a knife on the hard pavement in the heat of summer in the middle of a busy intersection and you’re supposed to wing him — think QUICK NOW! — in his … GAWDAMMIT! Would you hold your body parts still!
While Paul Simon had 50 ways to leave his lover, we put more stock into the observation Polonius made to Hamlet’s parents: “Brevity is the soul of wit … your noble son is mad.” Moses got by with 10 commandments. Blaska boils the Sternbergs’ thirteen casuistic rules of unilateral police disengagement into just One Rule to Survive to Steal Another Day:
1) Do not resist arrest.
If the Sternbergs and their African-American and Jewish Friendship Group want to save the lives of suicidally stupid offenders, they could post a video showing how one puts together one’s wrists for handcuffing purposes. The voice-over would remind perpetrators that “There are more of them than there are of you. Take the free hot and a cot. With any luck, Judge Mitchell will have you back out on the street by morning.” Before the cop has his second doughnut.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: The police monitor could conduct live handcuffing demonstrations on taxpayer-financed Freedom Inc. employees at the Corey Ruiz memorial. Along with face painting and balloons.
13 responses to “Boiling 13 ways to deter police shootings down to one”
Listen to Chris Rock… https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTb7D-Aitj8/
Sounds like Gerald and Merle got their knowledge of arrests from Kojak and/or Starsky and Hutch.
Is Huggy Bear mentioned in any of their suggestions?
But shooting at non-lethal body parts will still seriously injure the perp. In Blazing Saddles, the Waco Kid easily shot the guns out of a half dozen guys. The police should budget for some serious trick-shooting classes.
Harlem Nights:
Quick: I ain’t playin’ games no more. You put that fuckin’ razor away or I’ll blow your goddamn pinky toe off!
Vera: Oh! Now you’re gonna shoot me in my pinky toe.
Quick: I’m not playing with you. I will blow that little black, gnarled crusty, dead motherfucker the fuck off your foot! Now put the razor away!
That glorified letter to the editor could only have been written by two over-privileged armchair geniuses who have never faced a split-second decision under imminent threat of grievous bodily harm. For their next piece of unsolicited advice, maybe they should publish a guest article in the Sports section with 13 mandatory steps Jordan Love must add to his progressions.
That Sternberg fool is an attorney to boot. I don’t know if it’s more ignorance or stupidity. Accountability is very much a one way street for the left.
There’s a good deal of ignorance and stupidity at play here, but the main factor is a procedure that every elected official and a sizable majority of citizens in Madison have undergone: ideological self-blinding. The procedure enables the Sternbergs and their ilk to look out at the world (i.e., their privileged corner of Madison, probably Shorewood Hills or the near West Side) and pronounce judgment on those whose occupation puts them in the sort of peril Gerald and Merle will NEVER face. My personal vision of Hell would be attending a meeting of the African-American and Jewish Friendship Group–but then again, looked at from the right ironic slant, it might provide moments of comic relief.
It’s obvious the Sternbergs have never attended any community police academies or talked to ANYBODY about how extensively MPD is already trained.
Improving public education on street conduct, cooperation, and mutual respect is just as important as calls for “extensive training” for cops.
• Shooting at arms or legs is extremely difficult; it’s unreliable for stopping an immediate threat and is still potentially lethal.
• Police are trained to aim for the “center of mass” (the torso) to stop the threat immediately.
• The arms and legs contain major blood vessels and arteries, and a bullet to these major arteries can cause a person to bleed out and die in seconds.
• Aiming for a limb is not a dependable “non-lethal” option; it still constitutes lethal force with a high risk of death.
• A 9mm round could easily go through an arm or a leg and hit an innocent bystander.
I am not an expert, but I have been to many presentations and community police academies, so I can play one on the interwebs.
Brings to mind Dep SecState Warren Christopher’s query to Colonel Charles Beckwith on the eve of the hostage rescue attempt in 1980, “Will you shoot them [Iranian IRGC] in the legs?” To which Beckwith famously replied, “No sir. We’re going to shoot each of them twice, right between the eyes.
Reminds me about reading about the knife wielding women in Times Square that stab a man and stabbed and killed a 34 year old women who just got off maternity leave. Tasered twice and still came at police. Shot and killed and people in NYC said they should have wounded her in a crowd of people. Do these people know anything about firearms? I guess not. Maybe they should take a hunter education, CCW, or a police training class. These are not stationary targets and decisions have to be made in fractions of seconds. Just think what would happen if they shot to wound and the bullet went threw and hit a bystander.
Shooting to maim is a movie trope and a Joe Biden fantasy. How on earth do we have people that are this naive about police encounters and self defense?
Fifteen years ago, the WSJ editorial board would have laughed a column like this out of the newsroom. They’re now Cap Times Lite.
Call it the Sternberg BEP that must be followed while being stabbed by a repeat felon.
14. Replace all criminal-facing police officers with Tesla robots. All these robots will be faster, stronger and more invulnerable than humans. The best part is they are unarmed. The robot arrest technique is to put the perp in a bear hug and in a synthetic Robin Williams voice repeat “It’s not your fault” ad infinitum. The perp could blow a hole in one of these arresting robots and 4 more would instantly take its place. Thank you Elon!