04-27-2006, 08:43 AM
My take on this is always the same, regardless of the circumstances:
If you physically threaten a police officer with a lethal weapon, you bring every conceivable consequence on yourself, up to and including death.
Cops have the risky (and often underpaid) job of rolling up their sleeves and doing societal dirty-work, and the day an officer neglects to protect him or herself could be the day he or she winds up dead.
I don't care if the subject is demented, crazy, or just plain dumb; threatening a police officer is unacceptable no matter where you live in this country, and doing so makes you a threat to society at-large. To go a step further and disregard warnings and commands leaves police with no other choice. Officers can't hold different standards for dealing with different types of volatile citizens when public (and his/her own) safety is at stake; that leads to complicated procedural policy, which is courting disaster...because you just never know.
If you physically threaten a police officer with a lethal weapon, you bring every conceivable consequence on yourself, up to and including death.
Cops have the risky (and often underpaid) job of rolling up their sleeves and doing societal dirty-work, and the day an officer neglects to protect him or herself could be the day he or she winds up dead.
I don't care if the subject is demented, crazy, or just plain dumb; threatening a police officer is unacceptable no matter where you live in this country, and doing so makes you a threat to society at-large. To go a step further and disregard warnings and commands leaves police with no other choice. Officers can't hold different standards for dealing with different types of volatile citizens when public (and his/her own) safety is at stake; that leads to complicated procedural policy, which is courting disaster...because you just never know.