It's especially tragic that the Dallas murders came right on the heels of the Minnesota and Lousiana shootings. The timing looks like it has caused people on either side of the debate to harden into their positions, which really leads to nothing being done, especially if those are the loudest voices in the room.
Dallas was pure premeditated murder. The other two looked to me (and I only saw the videos that everyone else did) like policemen who didn't have the emotional resources to be policemen, or who didn't have adequate training in those kinds of engagements. Watching the MN video, the officer, just from the sound of his voice, had completely red-lined. You could hear it in his voice, he was way far gone. This was after the shooting took place, but it's easy to imagine that he was up against or over the line leading up to it. Same with LA...it looked like one and maybe both officers who were in full fight-or-flight mode. That is the worst possible thing you want from the authority in those situations.
To me, that speaks of either cops who shouldn't be cops, or inadequate training I know it's more complicated than that, but making sure have officers who are very clear on that drill is really vital. Learning to control your emotions, learning to assess situations more clearly or recognize when you're over the line, knowing when to let another officer take over, staying as calm as possible, giving clear step-by-step orders...all that won't prevent all tragedies but will probably prevent many of them.
I remember in one of the Navy Seal books - I think it was American Sniper - he related that the Seals' approach was (something along the lines of) make haste slowly. Deliberate, keep your cool, and know that going red-line makes your judgement go south. Practice it over and over. I know this is easier said than done in the heat of the moment, and that is where weeding out those who can't or won't do it, and better training those who can, will make a big difference.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", about our instincts and snap judgement mechanism, had a chapter about a police vs immigrant incident that turned tragic because both a well-meaning African immigrant and four well-meaning policemen all got lost in their snap judgements/unconscious biases, and it turned tragic. Thats where I would love to see more training about how to approach those snap-judgement scenarios.
I've served a stint on a Federal grand jury. I know how many really, really, bad guys are out there, and how diligent the vast majority of police and agents are, and what they're up against. My heart goes out to the police force right now.
And yes I think that us John-Public folks could probably use some slow-it-down with the snap judgements coming from pure emotion too. No fingers pointed, I have a hard time enough doing it myself.
