I'm failing to see how police could have handled either the situation any better without exposing themselves to a significantly higher risk of having either serious harm or possibly death inflicted. Salmo kind of summed up the general idea of how I feel regarding incidents such as these. If you consider Behavioral Analysis for one moment and apply he ABC model (Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence) handling these situations any differently simply would not make sense.

Antecedents are the motivating factors, thoughts, or feelings that drive decisions on choosing behavior. Consequences obviously are outcomes either good or bad that also reinforce decisions on selecting certain behaviors to have. I for one would not like to live in a society where people have the idea to get drunk, choose the behavior to go steal alcohol, and then once caught, choose the behavior to assault other people as a way of avoiding inevitably bad consequences. Should these bad consequences be avoided through assaulting police officers or resisting authority, what kind of a message does that send?

It seems like a lot of people must be okay with this because shifting the burden of responsibility away from the individual to make better choices and onto police to find other ways of handling these situations is how most people seem to feel. It does nothing but further reinforce negative behaviors and shift the risk of harm from the perpetrator onto other innocent bystanders or police who must adapt. Doesn't sound like a fair cross to carry as far as I'm concerned.

The ability of the average person to objectively analyze incidents of violence between citizens and law-enforcement is very concerning to me and where we are failing isn't necessarily with law enforcement every time because it isn't at the root of the problem. Where we are truly failing is with how criminal behavior is shaped to begin with. Poor guidance and parenting towards youngsters, or lack of available community/family supports play a large role in the development of juvenile delinquent behavior. Perhaps more funding for services centered on prevention could help? I simply just don't see how the small Band-Aid of police response can fix a gushing wound.



Matt