First, idiots on welfare or with rich parents have too much time...
Knowing how trigger happy American cops are - it definitely is irrational to behave in certain ways around them. I don't commit any crimes, and I still tense up when passing by them. My documents are all in order, but I still sweat when driving past some ICE checkpoint in Florida.
This seems to me like a sh*tty way to live, and makes me wanna go home sooner.
My question (to no one in particular) - is why your society likes to build up these heroes out of certain classes of people. I always thought it was comical how everyone contorts themselves into a pretzel with the "thank you for your service" business, around military personnel. The same goes with the infinite piety towards cops - and their "oh so difficult" jobs.
I thought you had the societal mentality of "I pay your salary - where is my respect?!".
Why don't people go crazy for firemen, or teachers, or paramedics? It's only the folks with the big guns whose ego you must assiduously service.
From a Russian perspective, to me it's an absolute no-brainer that it's better to have a cop with crushed toes, or a broken pelvis from being run over - than a dead woman. Maybe my approach is too utilitarian, but the business about "was the wheel turned", or "is a moving car a deadly weapon" or "was there even sufficient time to make an accurate judgement of her intentions" is all beside the point. I don't think you shoot people in the face even if you think you're about to be run over or dragged on the hood of a car. Also, how does shooting someone in the face prevent you from getting run over? Doesn't it make it more likely as the vehicle will lose control?
Maybe because in America people are bigger strangers to each other than in more homogenous societies? Maybe it has to do with federal officers descending on a specific locality where they don't have any personal connections? In Russia a cop would be afraid to show his face in the street after doing something like this.
You gotta love each other a little more.