[I thought of three other less offensive titles: Generalizing Gendarmes, Caricaturing Cops, Stereotyping Smokey. But I had already made up my mind.]

As you no doubt know, especially if you are a reader in the LA area, there is a crazed ex-cop on the loose by the name of Christopher Dorner. I think it is only a matter of time before Dorner is caught. We don’t know how that will play out. But it probably won’t be as simple as arresting James Holmes (Aurora, Colorado theater shooter). This piece is not intended to be about that, and so it will gradually move away from it. I bring it up at all only because its writing was prompted, in part, by an argument I had with someone about whether a shooter such as Christopher Dorner, that is, a cop is more dangerous than a shooter who isn’t a cop. I stated that, naval and police training aside, I thought that he was because cops tend to have a mentality of being above the law (I think this is not the result of them becoming police, but rather the reason they become police), which makes them psychologically more capable of calculated brutality than just some civilian who goes nuts. This was back when the story first came out although many important details were already known. His manifesto was one of those details so I knew what he was about and that he probably wasn’t going to be shooting people at random. He has targets. So, in that sense he is less dangerous to most people around him than a random shooter would be.

But probably more dangerous in the context of a manhunt. A shooter with a mission and a plan, even if his plans are in the process of being thwarted, is more dangerous than a guy who has already emptied his clip in a crowded theater or a school and then tries to slip away. The guy that just opens fire at random might kill more people than the guy with a few targets in his sights, but he is no longer in control of the situation. And if he is stopped before he can empty his clip, he might never have really been in control in the first place. If there are any cops or armed civilians around, he will be stopped, often before he can cause as much damage as he otherwise could have, given his arsenal. Continue reading →