You can debate the need to arrest, but creating a ruse that ends up with the man being shot several times?

  • 520@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Plainclothes officers are supposed to be deployed in situations where the suspect’s knowledge of cops in the area could have an adverse effect (eg: destruction of evidence, fleeing suspect).

    What business a plainclothes has in a national park is questionable; in donning plain clothes you also lose some of the social protections that come with the uniform. For instance, unless you outright show you’re a cop, other people think you’re a civvie. Escalating situations as a civvie rarely goes well.

    If someone is doing something shady out in the national parks, even a wandering civvie can spook them, so the advantage of plainclothes is moot.

    Unless the uniform poses a danger specifically with regards to wildlife, the officers made a bad call to go in as plainclothes.

    Confront doesn’t always mean attack but it does usually mean hostilities, and often escalation.