Ok thanks.
Are you saying you are more likely to be disciplined for this than questionable shooting? Why is that?
When you say questionable do you mean questionable in court of public opinion or actually provably dodgy?
In sheer numbers of incidents, yes. Remember that very few POs ever use lethal force in their careers, and even fewer actually kill their subjects.
If you examine the use of force policy it allows for some "wiggle room" and for good reason. Officers are expected to respond and take action on whatever call or threat is reported to them. When a situation escalates to "Oh shit, I'm gonna have to go hands on with this guy" or if I have to take out a taser, baton, or if I end up pulling out my gun, it becomes a very dynamic, high-stress, ever-changing situation. And it's almost never fluid, clear-cut, black-and-white. That's why officers should be allowed some leeway to make what the public might deem as a mistake or bad decision.
Articulation is key after a use of force or shooting. Officers need to be able to articulate what they observed, what force decision they made, and why they made the decision at that particular time. Very similar to the Graham v Connor case, we had a use of force on an older diabetic man having a diabetic shock. He almost ran his car into the officer, got out and was stumbling, was unresponsive, not complying with verbal commands, physically resisted when said officer went hands on. He got slammed to the ground and eventually cuffed up. From the outside looking in, it looks fecked up. But the officer AT THAT TIME, without 2020 hindsight of knowing he was diabetic, observed what appeared to be a heavily intoxicated man who almost ran into him and then was non-compliant throughout the whole contact and even physically resisted. He felt like shit afterwards of course, but as long as he articulates his use-of-force well, he should be rightfully cleared.
So in short, as long as an officer is able to articulate the circumstances of why he used force or fired shots, he is usually cleared. I know it sounds like a cop-out, and in some incidents posted on here it very much is. But that "wiggle room" needs to be there or officers would be getting fired left and right for every mistake, and soon you'd have cops not taking any action or not using force at all because they know they don't have that protection.
It's more common to fire officers for getting into trouble off-duty or getting arrested, since they're supposed to be "law enforcement".
Or for integrity issues like lying when under investigation, since they'd no longer have credibility to testify in a court of law.
Or stupid things while on-duty like having sex w/citizen, or stealing property/money you were supposed to book, or lying on your timesheets to get some extra overtime pay, or not arresting someone you were supposed to (negligence of duty).
Questionable as in public opinion.
