My friend Rod has a view of the #Ferguson issue that I agree with completely. Here it is: Im not exactly sure how he (Darren Wilson) ends up being a dead police officer by staying in the car and waiting something like a minute for backup to arrive. Malcolm Gladwell, in Blink, summarizes the research on the difficulty of police officers making smart decisions following a high speed chase or in situations like this. A couple of quotations for consideration from Gladwell, I think all of us become momentarily autistic when were under extreme physiological stress. For instance, when our heart rate gets above 145, our ability to make sophisticated judgments and to engage in this kind of mind-reading begins to erode very rapidly. And about police chases, Your pulse is 175. Your heart is in your throat. Your body is awash in adrenalin and cortisol. And everything we know about human physiology and psychology says that no one can make intelligent snap decisions under those circumstances. This research Gladwell summarizes is changing police protocol on high speed and foot chases. I know that Wilson said he was following his training when he chased Brown — but in my hugely uninformed and untrained view on this, better judgement would have been to stay in the car, calm down just a bit, and wait for backup. It is difficult to believe a 64, 280 lb and bleeding Michael Brown couldnt be found and arrested for shoplifting and assaulting a police officer.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 01:45:46 +0000
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