cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15313778
Officers showed up at the home and found a man struggling with a woman over a knife. An officer opened fire and struck the man, killing him at the scene. Only later did they discover the man who was killed lived at the home and was struggling to fend off the woman who had broken into his home.
Police say Brandon Durham, 43, had called 911 and reported multiple people outside his home shooting, then told the 911 operator that someone had entered his home through the front and back doors and he was locking himself in the bathroom.
He also told the 911 operator that he was home with his 15-year-old daughter, according to police. Officers kicked open the door after arriving on scene and hearing someone screaming as well as damage to vehicles parked outside the property, police said.
This affects on duty behavior in a lot of ways. Tired cops make mistakes, they fuck up. They’re irritable. Sleep deprivation makes you stupid.
Being short staffed also means they’re not available for continuing training, which takes a back seat to things like actually doing cop stuff, being in court, report writing.
And sure, you could reduce the minimum staffing levels; but then you start having problems where cops are going from volatile domestics to answering phone calls because a cat was shitting in someone’s flowerbed and dispatch didn’t realize it was just a cat, or never mind simply having the time to sit with an EDP and talk them out of it.
Cops are far from perfect. But trust me, the world with fewer cops would be worse.
Whatever. They’re still powerful organizations and they’re still representing cops as a union. And they’re still going to oppose anything that takes from their people.
When you’re finished with your rhetoric, maybe you can come up with a plan to get your superfund-duper-big-changes done. You know. The ones that are somehow more possible than the “impossible incremental” changes.