1. A man sleeping in his car??
2. A dispute over a fake $20 bill??
3. A man selling un-taxed cigarettes??
4. Some boys smoking pot behind the bodega?
5. A driver making an illegal left turn?
6. Someone a snitch said had cocaine in their closet?
7. A man yelling at his wife?
8. A black man jogging through a white neighborhood?
9. A misbehaving child at school?
It’s almost as if you’re technically asking two distinct questions:
1. Is an officer needed?
2. Is a gun necessary?
For the first point, does it mean as opposed to someone other than a law enforcement officer?
For the second point, in the United States, and in many other countries worldwide, an on-duty law enforcement officer who responds to the situations you listed would most likely be armed. There are or were some countries where law enforcement officers do not carry firearms.
Barring points one and two, any of the situations you listed can rapidly evolve, escalate, deteriorate, explode, implode, etc., regardless of the presence or absence of a law enforcement officer and or a firearm. No one, not a victim, a suspect, a witness, a bystander, a dispatcher, a first responder, no one can predict from the second an incident starts to the second it concludes how it will transpire.
Setting aside firearms as carried by sworn on-duty law enforcement officers, let’s look at other tools or tactics available to officers. The duty belt and/or squad car have many implements that can also be entered into this conversation: spray, Tasers, batons, shields, handcuffs, etc.
Having stated all of that, I will expand upon some aspects that obviously derive out of the police officer murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020. Since that happened, I have said to people in my circle that the average young white blonde woman* with a pretty face and attractive physique would NOT have received the same treatment that George Floyd did, and I specifically mean from the point he was first handcuffed. Had Miss Blondie been the suspect of passing a counterfeit monetary instrument, the police may have asked her to step outside of the business establishment for questioning (which by legal definition is detention), may have done a cursory check for any weapons or contraband on her person in any area accessible to her hands, and if they deemed it prudent, may have even cited her in writing with a date to appear and released her at the scene (end of legal detention).
Alternatively, if at the point of initial questioning the officers decided not to release her, she may have even been formally taken into custody, that is, handcuffed (as dictated by procedure and regulation) placed in the back of a police car, driven to the station and booked. There is little possibility that she would have ended up on the ground with an officer administering a completely unauthorized move of kneeling on her neck.
Asking whether or not an officer should be the person to respond, or whether or not an armed officer needs to respond does open up the conversation, but it’s not a simple or easy answer that settles the issue. I will admit that line many people, I do not have the definitive answer. Saying no, it’s not necessary begs the next question of who does respond to incidents. Saying yes, it is necessary begs the next question of how to stop the continued mishaps that we’ve all seen far too often when things then get out of control.
*I‘m making a generic example only for the purpose of showing the difference between what mainstream American society sees as a threat and does not see as a threat.
~
