PHILADELPHIA, PA – Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential Joe Biden has great advice for cops: just shoot the bad guys in the leg.
Biden dropped those now-heavily criticized words of wisdom during Thursday night’s ABC News Town Hall, filmed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
During the live event, the former VP gave the interesting response to a question about criminal justice reform and police training. The question related to the 1994 Crime Bill.
In an apparent effort to double down on his position that police should erase a so-called “shoot to kill mentality,” Biden said:
“”You can ban chokeholds, but beyond that you have to teach how to de-escalate circumstances. Instead of anybody coming at you and the first thing you do is shoot to kill, you shoot them in the leg.”
He also preached “transparency” and talked about banning chokeholds and other ways of “de-escalating.”
It echoes remarks Biden made in a June video tweeted by The Recount, captioned:
“Biden today on police training: “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person comin’ at ’em with a knife or something to shoot ’em in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing.”
Biden today on police training: "Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there's an unarmed person comin' at 'em with a knife or something to shoot 'em in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing." pic.twitter.com/2xgqvlQtJ2
— The Recount (@therecount) June 1, 2020
Breitbart reported that during Thursday’s Town Hall, Biden also suggested more background checks for officers in order to find those who are best suited to the job and hiring “psychologists and social workers” to go out with police when they are sent on a call.
It’s unclear if those suggested hires would be on the call to serve police officers, crime victims, suspects or all of the above.
The whole response to the question on the crime bill drew attention and raised questions about if Biden is familiar with how guns work and the difficulty of aiming.
A June 2019 article by Atlanta News Now explains why police shoot to kill instead of shooting to wound. It cites a study done by Dr. Bill Lewinski, the executive director of the Force Science Institute.
In the study, Dr. Lewinski pointed out, firstly, that most officer involved shootings are not static. Oftentimes, the officer or the suspect or both are in motion. Dr. Lewinski said:
“Hands and arms can be the fastest-moving body parts. For example, an average suspect can move his hand and forearm across his body to a 90-degree angle in 12/100 of a second.
He can move his hand from his hip to shoulder height in 18/100 of a second. The average officer pulling the trigger as fast as he can on a Glock, one of the fastest- cycling semi-autos, requires 1/4 second to discharge each round.”
To break it down into the simplest terms, the study found:
“There is no way an officer can react, track, shoot and reliably hit a threatening suspect’s forearm or a weapon in a suspect’s hand in the time spans involved.”
However, is really no surprise that Biden would call for police reform in this area and others, whether or not he’s citing research. The Democrat challenger has made it clear during his campaign and in his advertising that he is building a platform on law enforcement reform.
In a campaign ad released in early September, both Biden and his would-be vice president, Kamala Harris, ask why in the U.S. “Black Americans wake up knowing they can lose their life in the course of just living their life?”
The commercial runs for one minute and features Black families, doctors and teachers, all interspersed with the presidential and vice-presidential candidates talking about policing and racial injustice.
In the video, Biden said:
“Now is the time for racial justice.”
Harris adds:
“Reforming policing in this country means creating a national standard on use of force and conditioning federal funds for police departments on adoption of that standard.”
The ad wraps by promising to “hold police accountable.”
Dig Deeper
Biden proposes sending unarmed psychologists with police on 911 calls – what could go wrong?
October 7, 2020 – SCRANTON, PA- If you need any proof that Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is absolutely clueless, look no further than his proposal to have psychiatrists or psychologists dispatched to certain type of calls, along with police officers.
This is, in a word ridiculous.
This past Monday during a town hall event hosted by Lester Holt of Democrat state-run media NBC, Biden said that he thinks such a measure is a good idea in order to “de-escalate” calls where someone might be suffering from a psychological issue.
BizPacReview reports that Biden believes he can get a group of different interests together in order to “improve and help police officers.”
Remember the famous Ronald Reagan quote, if someone says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help, run the other way?” This is the same.
“I’m gonna do what I’ve done in the past. I’m gonna bring all these interests together,” Biden said.
“Peaceful protesters, police chiefs, police officers, the police unions, as well as civil rights groups in the White House and sit down and decide, what are the things to be done to improve and help police officers.”
Biden did not say anything about the “non-peaceful” protesters who have been shooting commercial-grade fireworks at police, throwing rocks at them, hitting them in the head with bats, or shooting at them.
Biden of course has a very loose grasp of the truth. He tried to make the claim that he has been the one talking about increasing police budgets.
If that were truly the case, police organizations and unions would be endorsing his candidacy, and not President Trump’s.
“I’m the only one who’s talked about increasing police budgets,” Biden said.
In fact, Biden said, in a June op-ed in USA Today that he would give police departments the “resources they need” in order to implement reforms, with any federal assistance predicated on adopting those reforms.
Also, Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate has been openly critical of the police, believes in the fallacy of systemic racism in law enforcement, and encouraged her supporters to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which bails out accused criminals from jail, including those who assault police officers.
Back to the “brilliant” idea of having civilians accompany police on certain calls.
“When your husband goes on a call that in fact is a 911 call, it’s better if he or she has with them a psychologist or psychiatrist with them, someone who knows how to deal with someone who is not all there [emphasis added],” Biden said.
“Not all there?” Well that doesn’t sound very presidential, does it?
“I also proposing [sic] that we spend a significant more money [sic] on community policing,” while adding that he would establish a “national commission” to work with him on the issue of policing.
Which probably would include a couple of Black Lives Matter founders, some left-wing educators, and a token chief of police who is an appointed political hack.
During the presidential debate with President Trump, the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Biden:
“You talked about ‘re-imagining policing.’ What does re-imagining policing mean and do you support the Black Lives Matter call for community control of policing?”
Biden of course did not answer the question.
“What I support is the police having the opportunity to deal with the problems they face. They need more assistance.
They need, when they show up for a 911 call, to have someone with them as a psychologist or psychiatrist, to keep them from having to use force and be able to talk people down,” Biden responded.
Gee, Mr. Biden…wonder how that would have worked out in Kenosha, Wisconsin when police responded to the call with Jacob Blake?
We wonder how that would work out with the hundreds, if not thousands of police calls every year for domestic violence where one of the parties is armed with a weapon?
The last thing police need to deal with is another civilian at a scene to babysit. The ramifications of such a policy are numerous and none of them are good.
Biden went on, “We have to have community policing like we had before, where the officers get to know the people in the communities. That’s when crime went down. It didn’t go up; it went down.”
Well, Joe if you did your homework, you’d realize the reason it went down was due to “broken windows” policing. Look it up, Joe. Meanwhile, Democrats want to decriminalize everything, let people out of jail, and tie the hands of police.
Then, Joe talk to your running mate, as well as Democrats such as Ayanna Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and all the other far-left nuts who want to defund policing, and who have condemned the very tenets of community policing theory.
They are also the same ones who want to take police out of schools, which is the very essence of community policing.
Many people disagree with Biden, including our own Gregory Hoyt.
“While the concept of increasing community policing is definitely a good thing to champion, this notion of sending in the psychologist/psychiatrist squad on emergency calls poses not only potential calamities—but seems impractical,” Hoyt wrote.
“One of the first things to take into account is the general safety of these sorts of professionals during emergency calls. If the likes of psychologists and psychiatrists find themselves getting dispatched on emergency calls, then they’re now one giant liability due to inserting themselves into possibly lethal scenarios involving dangerous individuals,” he added.
It has been suggested that psychologists should respond to certain types of calls, such as “disturbance” calls, domestic violence calls and “process” calls, such as those involving protective or restraining orders.
Clearly, those making suggestions such as that are themselves in need of psychiatrists or psychologists. Anyone who has worked in law enforcement knows that domestic violence calls are among the most dangerous calls that police respond to, due to the emotional aspect.
Likewise, sending non-police officers to process calls, such as restraining/protective order calls is a recipe for disaster.
Experts warn that the idea of having mobile health teams respond to behavioral crisis calls isn’t a new concept; however, they war that such teams cannot—and should not—operate independently of police.
“It’s a small fraction of the overall calls we do, but at times, there’s somebody who maybe just doesn’t really understand who we are or is in some kind of psychotic episode.,” said Benjamin Brubaker, who helps to run one of the country’s oldest mobile crisis teams in the state of Oregon.
“We rely on law enforcement to sometimes back us up in those situations,” he said.
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