There's A Disconnect Between What J.Q. Public Thinks The Cops Can Do, And What They Actually Can Do

The riots and protests in Philly, and subsequent pandering by the Biden campaign over the incident are a result of the ignorant believing the cops should have done something other than shoot a mentally-ill man coming at them with a knife.

Of course the Biden campaign decided this was the pre-election BLM moment to seize upon:

Yep, they are absolutely convinced that a man who happened to be Black, and was in the process of attacking officers with a knife had a life that "mattered".  It's rather clear they believe the police officers lives (at least one of whom involved also happened to be Black) don't matter.

 

Already people are stating Wallace was 12 feet away from the police when they shot him and the knife couldn't reach them from there so they shouldn't have shot him as he wasn't close enough.  John Q Public doesn't know about and has never seen a Tueller drill.

We already have the Wallace family playing the ghetto lottery and announcing a wrongful death suit claiming the cops should have done something else other than shooting Wallace while he was attacking him, claiming he was "assassinated".  

 

No, that word does not mean what they think it means.

The Wallace family, the Biden campaign, et al., expected the cops to do "something else" when faced by a man advancing on them with a knife.

Partially, this is because there is a tremendous disconnect between what the public thinks the police are trained and able to do and what they are actually trained and able to do. 

 

Hence the commenters with "He was 12 feet away", "Why didn't they just shoot the knife out of his hand?", or just per Biden "shoot him in the leg?" or, “Why didn’t you just close with him and use your hand to hand skills to get the knife out of his hand?, you could have easily done that right and no one would get hurt, right?”

The public thinks police are trained to be super-marksmen, experts at martial arts, and able to ensure compliance with no one getting hurt if they just want that to happen by words alone. 

 

Partially this is due to politicians claiming just let the police handle it as they are the “professionals”. Then add Hollywood to the mix and the average person thinks all cops are trained to be super-SWAT black belts that can't miss and can disarm someone with the flick of a wrist, and it’s easy to see where this misapprehension comes from.

Instead, in reality most police get minimal training in hand to hand skills, barely any refresher training in those skills, and just adequate training in firearms. 

Reality also dictates going hand-to-hand against a person armed with a knife is going to most likely result in the officer getting cut, perhaps very badly.

 

The average person also doesn’t realize how dangerous a crazed individual with a knife can be. 

 

Reality also dictates that just shooting them in the leg or shooting the knife out of their hand is not going to work in real life how Hollywood makes it appear. The officer is going to miss, or maybe instead hit and the attacker will likely bleed out via their femoral artery in their leg, or the brachial artery in their arm.

In short, the public's ignorance, encouraged by the media and politicians, lead them to think police can do what they currently cannot and they get outraged when reality doesn't meet their fantasy impression of how a situation should be resolved.  Throw in a little race baiting and you get riots as a result.