cop_killing dafremen Police are shooting people faster than police are dying. In fact, there are rarely more than 200 cop deaths every year, and less than half of them are related to violent confrontation. In fact, on-the-job heart attacks and non-pursuit related auto accidents together normally exceed gunfire deaths among officers killed "in the line of duty." (http://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=1994) For the record, it is more dangerous to be a (fireman, roofer, logger, farmer, fisherman, iron worker, aircraft pilot, carpenter, power line worker or garbage man..among many others) than to be a police officer. Don't get me wrong, no doubt the job is frustrating, boring, bureaucratic and alienating at times. When you walk up to a stranger with a gun on your side and start acting like you're his or her father, people are bound to get a bit irate. So no doubt being a cop must have its hairy moments and its scary moments. No doubt police work must be so boring at times that it's tempting to spice things up. No doubt the public must be so obnoxious at times that most of us would feel tempted to at least Taze them, if not blow their loud, irritating mouths off of their big, selfish heads. (I was a city bus driver. They didn't allow us to carry Tazers..or guns. Good policy.) No doubt seeing the worst of society day in and day out in the course of paying your mortgage must make all civilians potential scumbags after a time on the beat. Seeing the fine-suited and rag wearing doing the same drugs, committing the same crimes..it makes us all suspect I suppose. But in this country, we expect our law enforcement to PROTECT lives, not take them. (By the way, officers have no obligation to help you, even if they see you being murdered. http://www.policecrimes.com/policeprotection.html) We expect a suspected criminal to be taken into custody to await trail before a judge or a jury of his peers. Not to be sentenced on the spot by someone who was chosen specifically for being just dumb enough to handle boring work without getting bored. ( http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/01/court-oks-barring-smart-people-from-beco ) We expect you to use, NOT the bullets in your gun first, but the training you've been given in moderating and defusing situations. The training you've been given in self defense and restraint techniques. Your overwhelming numbers and back up. Your trained police dogs. Your pepper spray. Your Tazer. Your baton. All of these are there for a reason. That badge on your chest isn't a license to kill. It's a responsibility not to. THat's why we have police officers swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. Because that's the document which is supposed to safeguard our lives from being snuffed out without trial. It contains the ideals which protect citizens from having their situations screwed up by agents of the government without process of law. If you don't like your better-than-garbage-man odds of coming home every night, and the free coffee at 7-11, don't try to figure ways around the law. Just do what the rest of us do: get another job. I hear mall security is hiring. 140916 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I hear you. It's not just an American problem either. Take Fredy Villanueva's death in Montreal in 2008. From all the reports I've read, the police had a flimsy excuse for shooting him, him and his friends being unarmed, suspected gang members or not. Racism? Well, they were black, and the reason the police approached them in the first place was that they were playing dice in a parking lot "contrary to a municipal bylaw." Whether it was the gambling or the place that was illegal, why was breaking up that particular game a high priority? Not to blame all cops. Just to say that there's a potential for abuse of power, and this kind of abuse is still happening (even in sleepy post-FLQ Kebekia). 140916 what's it to you? who go blather from