Parkland Rent a Cop Charged.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

:burp:

[Shell B]

When people who consent to receive pay and exercise authority in return for readiness to discharge a clear set of responsibilities specifically pertaining to life and safety signalingly fail to discharge this responsibility, everyone who is effected by his failure to discharge his responsibilities has a right to shame him.  Furthermore everyone who care those social contracts that are already paid for and are aimed at ensuring such critical responsibilities are discharged can normally be expected to be fulfilled has an vested interest to shame, and support the appropriate punishment of, those who enter into and then breach the contract.

The appropriate punishment must exhibit deterrence effect sufficient to contribute towards reducing the likelihood of further breaches of such contracts in the future by others.

Sure, if that's the way you look at it, but there is no way to anticipate how an individual will react to a situation until he or she is in said situation. This man wasn't battle tested, and, if we are going to expect him to go into battle, it is incumbent upon us to actually make sure he can discharge his duties effectively. That we have to expect this of people based solely on a mental health examination, firearms test, written exam and PT is a flaw in the "system" we have to accept. Otherwise, we'd have to put every cop out into a full-blown battle before we trust them to do their jobs. We can't do that, and the cop himself can never know how he will react, either. That's like hiring a chef and telling them, "You will never, ever cook a souffle until one day you do. On that day, your ability to cook a souffle will be life or death. All you will have is the recipe, and someone will be shooting at you."

This guy is a terrible cop and a coward, but he's not a criminal. He's also not even necessarily a bad person. Moreover, we don't even know he could have helped. So, there's no point in punishing him.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How long before somebody shoots him?

[The Grand Nudger]

You can add the parkland cop to the list of people our institutions have failed, and yet those same institutions have a hair-brained scheme to multiply the number of future do-nothings.

[tackattack]

Back to the thread,

I think it’s ridiculous She’ll to want it both ways. You can’t have a “hail the hero” celebration and not expect shame for cowards.

You 100% can. We hail overachievers without sending the kids who got Fs to jail for it. We hand out the Nobel Prize to outstanding people (for the most part), but we don't hand out a "fuck you" award to people who've contributed nothing to humanity. Cowardice is not shameful. It's just a reaction that some people have. It's unfortunately, but it's not fair to shame him.

Until girls stop haunting the bad boys while growing up and we as a society stop aggrandizing state sanctioned mass murder (read war) then hero’s should win and scaredy cats should be more like heroes, imo

Society rewarding this kind of behavior doesn't mean that's what's right, so I refer you back to my earlier posts.

Listen, I married the "war hero." He was an asshole of the highest order, and he used his service as an excuse to be an abusive prick. Then, I married a pacifist, and I can say with a certainty which behavior we should be rewarding. I'm not a pacifist, but I also try very hard not criticize it.

I don't agree Shell. You can't have "winners" without "losers", When people try that it leads to society giving out participation awards. I am very much against that. Winning should have meaning to be a valid goal, and missing the mark should be felt. The degree with which we punish or shame, bystanders that do nothing but film crimes, paid cops that can't shoot when needed to, soldiers who flee their post or people in power abusing children may differ. You, as an observer, may celebrate with the 1st place winner of a race. The winner is probably celebrating too. But there could be daggers in the eyes or shame in the runners up. It breeds healthy goal setting and competition, but like anything can be taken too far. If you don't think we hand out "FU" awards, check the latest Darwin award winners. I will contend that most of the shame for losing, from my experience, is internally generated. I suppose it is a point that societal ridicule could be perceived as kicking people when they're down, but that probably stems from motivation cues and communication issues.

[Shell B]

You think anyone wins in school shootings and gun violence in America? It’s not a competition. It’s something that happens, and heroes rise to the occasion. They haven’t won anything. That’s not the kind of situation we are talking about.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You think anyone wins in school shootings and gun violence in America? It’s not a competition. It’s something that happens, and heroes rise to the occasion. They haven’t won anything. That’s not the kind of situation we are talking about.

I know people, mostly relatives, who are drooling at the thought of being interviewed on TV after shooting a bad guy and saving a school full of kids. Too much NRATV.

[Shell B]

So, you could probably say some of them feel like winners, but that doesn't mean it was a win/lose situation. You don't get participation trophies for school shootings. Maybe some fucking losers get a testosterone boost from being able to use their weapons, but that doesn't mean everyone who didn't somehow lost.

tack, I want to also point out that the comparison of child molesting to not running into a shootout was a bad one.

Believe me, I wish he had gone in there and saved all those kids as much as the next guy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Oh, I wasn't implying that at all. It's a shit show regardless of what people hope to gain from it.

[Shell B]

Oh, I wasn't implying that at all. It's a shit show regardless of what people hope to gain from it.

I didn't think you were. I was just thinking "out loud" about it.

In all fairness, I'd probably feel pretty good about myself if I was able to stop a school shooting. I'd like to think that would stem from the fact that children who would have died lived, rather than from some sense of heroism on my part. I've been a handful of situations in my life where things were a bit sketchy, but it seemed like someone needed help, and the last thing on my mind was, "Oh, boy. Someone's going to pat me on the back." You either get scared and run or you just don't think about it and go for it. I don't think I can blame people who get scared and run. I've never personally run from someone who needed my help, but I have a panic disorder, so I've run from far less frightening situations, like phone calls, grocery shopping and a variety of social gatherings. I know fear intimately, and I don't blame people for giving into it. Sometimes, you have no choice. You shut down. That's all there is to it.