zlacker

I conditioned the retreating on “if you do something that could be met with justified self defense” (as was here the case). So this was not a blanket policy.

In general I do think there are many situations where police should not automatically return fire when fired upon. Not all situations – but many situations.

Also, I’m not obsessed with making all criminal acts impossible or making sure that there are never any loopholes or ways for criminals to get away with something.

First of all, that’s an impossible standard to meet even if you put no limits at all on police action. Crime happens regardless and criminals get away with it. (Which is not intended to be defeatist hyper-cynicism. My intention here is to say that perfection in terms of solving crimes is an impossible standard even if you don’t give a fuck about human rights and dignity. You have to measure differently.)

Second, policing that respects human dignity and reduces overall harm (as opposed to being fixated on this one possibility of some criminal getting away with it) will sometimes lead to criminals getting away with it and that’s a trade-off I’m more than willing to accept.

I would be much more keen on talking about trade-offs, otherwise you always run into the trap of running into a situation where a policy could possibly in some way be abused by criminals and as soon as that happens this policy is automatically no good anymore. That seems like dangerous dead-end thinking to me. You always run into stop signs.

Loopholes are a valid argument against a policy, however they are not the final argument against a policy. Put them on the con-side and keep on thinking about it in terms of trade-offs.