Line of Fire

"Too many cases do not appear to meet the test of objective reasonableness with regard to the use of deadly force," the report found. "[I]n some cases agents put themselves in harm's way by remaining in close proximity to the rock throwers when moving out of range was a reasonable option."
CBP has a history of excessive force. Critics say they were unprepared for Minnesota

This isn't a new criticism of law enforcement. It was raised in the media in the aftermath of the Amadou Diallo shooting, and that took place in 1999. I suspect that the tendency of court cases pertaining to potentially unlawful uses of deadly force to concentrate solely on the immediate lead up to the point when an officer pulls the trigger is a large part of this. If the timeline is never wound back far enough to get to the point where it's reasonable to ask: "Should the officer have been in so vulnerable a position in the first place?" there will be little incentive for officers to avoid making themselves vulnerable.

The Trump Administration's reflexive defense of every shooting, and the immediate casting of the person killed as dangerous or a terrorist also ramps up the danger level. Not only because officers can come to feel secure in the idea that the Administration will back them, but as I was taught when I spent a summer as a security guard, a dead person can't contradict your version of events. In this sense, fatal shootings become easier to justify than non-fatal ones, where there is a survivor who can demand evidence of the allegations against them.

But perhaps the central problem is the polarization of the general public... or at least between those people who see themselves as ardent supporters or critics of the Administration. For people who see the Trump Administration's crackdown on economic migrants and asylum seekers alike as warranted (or even long overdue), interference with it, or even protest against it, makes one a bad person. And if the actions of law enforcement mean that bad people are hurt or killed, what's the harm?

The one thing that Americans appear to dislike more than fighting with one another is not having anyone to fight with, and the current Administration understands that it will be forgiven a certain amount of overzealousness, so long as it's directed towards perceived enemies of its base of voters. And as long as there's a significant segment of the public that's willing to ignore law enforcement personnel putting themselves in situations that they then feel the need to shoot their way out of, there will be little incentive for change.