I’ve been musing on the nature of public service jobs since the video of the Texas pool party surfaced. Because I know the immediate response is “Oh, cops have a dangerous job! They need to protect themselves!”
US nurses have an estimated yearly rate of injury by assault of roughly 1.7 million. The best we have is an estimate of this number because, as someone working in the field, we report a fraction of the assaults that actually happen. It is the one fucking job where you shrug off someone trying to fucking bite you as “oh well, it’s Tuesday.” Factoring in the number of US nurses in 2011 (nearly 4 million) that is a rate of 43%. Nearly fucking half of us.
We are not trained to take down men built like tree trunks, fucked up on whatever shit they could get their hands on. We are trained to de-escalate people which does exactly jack shit when faced with someone suffering a psychotic break because of the drugs she is on. But we wade in there, often endangering ourselves in the process because it is our fucking job to take care of them. Regardless of what they are trying to do to me or are calling me in the process.
So, no. I don’t buy it. There is no excuse for manhandling and shooting unarmed children. If a child makes you fear for your safety, you have picked the wrong field my friend. But do not act like the nature of your job necessitates violence.
When you’re a carer, they teach classes on how to prevent people committing violence to you without committing violence to them. Tiny women are trained to take down grown men without causing actual harm, but cops ‘fear for their lives’ when faced with unarmed teens? It’s disgusting.
