"Set phasers to stun"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Set phasers to stun"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-05T15:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-27T04:52:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Set phasers to stun\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-05T15:11:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-27T04:52:59+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Set phasers to stun”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Set phasers to stun\"","description":"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Set phasers to stun\"","og_description":"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2014-12-05T15:11:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-27T04:52:59+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html","name":"\"Set phasers to stun\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-12-05T15:11:00+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-27T04:52:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?No, not that","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Set phasers to stun”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":168,"date":"2014-12-05T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T15:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T22:52:59","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T04:52:59","slug":"set-phasers-to-stun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/12\/set-phasers-to-stun.html","title":{"rendered":"“Set phasers to stun”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.)<\/p>\n

What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common?<\/p>\n

No, not that white police officers and vigilantes are systematically stalking innocent blacks. \u00a0Not that blacks are all a bunch of thugs who are rightly killed.<\/p>\n

But I think they demonstrate that we, collectively, have an unrealistic view of how self-defense\/police apprehension should work, based on watching Star Trek.<\/p>\n

The phaser \u2014 that modern marvel, the weapon which allows its user to take down his adversary with no consequences other than a temporary incapacity \u2014 doesn\u2019t actually exist. <\/p>\n

But people \u2014 in letters to the editor, in blog posts and comments, in protests \u2014 sure seem to think that it does.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice officers should be trained to \u2018shoot to wound,\u2019 not \u2018shoot to kill,'\u201d ran a letter to the editor in the paper the other day, failing to understand that it simply is impossible for a police officer to, in thse sorts of situations, aim for and shoot an assailent\u2019s hand or thigh. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe should have tased him\/used mace\/pepper spray.\u201d \u00a0(Never mind that tasers can be deadly, too, for medically fragile people, and harmful for others.)<\/p>\n

Of Zimmerman, beyond those who deny that Martin was fighting Zimmerman at all, there were those who seemed to think that Zimmerman\u2019s proper response should have been, if he couldn\u2019t fight back with his fists, to just endure the beating with the expectation that the worst that would likely happen would be blacking out and maybe a black eye or two.<\/p>\n

With respect to the Eric Garner case, so far as I can tell, the situation is even murkier. \u00a0Reports that I\u2019ve read say that it was not that a \u201cchokehold\u201d literally choked him to death (after all, a man who is being choked can\u2019t call out \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d repeatedly) but that he died due to the fact that he was pushed to the ground and even had one or more officers on top of him, which compressed his chest \u2014 and which, even so, would not have been a problem in an ordinary situation, but was deadly for an obese man with asthma. \u00a0Vox.com<\/a> quotes the medical examiner: \u00a0\u201cGarner was killed by \u201cthe compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,\u201d said medical examiner spokesperson Julie Bolcer.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the answer? \u00a0on Eric Zorn\u2019s blog<\/a>, commenters are suggesting that standards be raised for the police they recruit \u2014 requiring a 4-year degree (because sitting in a classroom will make a difference?), demanding higher IQs (I didn\u2019t know IQ testing was allowed), and so on \u2014 all made possible by higher salaries, presumably. \u00a0But the only thing that I can really see making a difference is more and continued training, especially a lot of role-playing, to enable officers, at that moment when they need to make a snap decision, to put some alternate training into play. \u00a0(\u201cThis guy is big but it looks like he\u2019s in poor physical shape\u201d or the like.)<\/p>\n

Besides which, it also makes me curious: \u00a0in the TV cop shows, any cop can outrun a suspect, no matter how much a head start the bad guy has, and even a woman has no difficulty taking down a male suspect. \u00a0But imagine that Eric Garner hadn\u2019t been asthmatic but had been strong and had fought back. \u00a0What story would we be telling then?<\/p>\n

(Oh, and by the way: \u00a0the fact that cigarette taxes in New York City may or may not been too high, and laws against evasion of those taxes may be excessive, is not the point here. \u00a0Garner could have been doing any number of things when he was arrested.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"