Burlington police chief says police shouldn’t point guns at knife-wielders

Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said that police shouldn’t point guns at knife-wielding suspects, BlueLivesMatter reported.

Figures it’s Vermont. If that’s the case, then they should arm police with machetes, lances and bayonets.

“We tell officers that a knife or a shard of glass is always a lethal threat and that they should aggressively meet it with a lethal threat in return,” the police chief wrote. “But doing so forecloses all of the better ways to communicate with a person in crisis. There are alternatives.”

He said that one of the biggest mistakes trainers have made has been to teach law enforcement officers “to lead with the gun.”

If someone is coming at the police with a knife, they should not be required to play the role of social workers, they should shoot them, in our humble opinion.

The Chief wants Officers to back away.

“There is good psychological research on what type of communication stands the best chance of calming people in distress, regardless of what is in their hands,” he added. “And it is certainly not yelling at them or threatening their lives.”

Duty weapons shouldn’t even be involved in law enforcement training until the final phase of an academy, he added.

“By the end of the academy, the officers will have learned that yelling at a person as you threaten to shoot is a panicked, last-ditch effort, not a sign of competence,” Chief del Pozo opined.

No yelling! No guns! That’ll work!

MUST KEEP ATTACKERS ALIVE

Chief del Pozo did not specifically address the impact such training would have on law enforcement officers’ safety, however.

The chief noted that he works in a “progressive” city, where at least one city councilperson has already suggested, “that we should explore ways to disarm our city’s police because it would prevent them from killing people and force them to approach crises differently.”

Chief del Pozo said that such a concept is a “non-starter” in America, and acknowledged that it was unsafe for the community for police to be “rendered helpless” in the case of mass shootings or other firearms-related incidents.

“But if the police profession doesn’t want politicians broaching these ideas, we owe the public a commitment to doing everything we can to respect the sanctity of life,” he added. “We should fundamentally change the way police officers view their guns.”

Every dirtbag who tries to stab an officer must live, even if the officer doesn’t. He didn’t say that, of course.

A total of 42 law enforcement officers have been stabbed to death in the line of duty since 1990, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. These 42 deceased officers disagree with Chief el Bozo

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