Biden Calls For Cops To Be ‘Retrained’ To Stop Killing People

During his remarks commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President Biden called for police in America to be "retrained" so that they stop killing so many people. These comments drew fierce backlash from police organizations, but Biden is right - and his comments probably didn't even go far enough to address other causes of police violence in America. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

During his remarks on Martin Luther King Day earlier this week, president Biden once again called for the retraining of police officers here in the United States so that they don't always feel the need to use deadly force when dealing with suspects. Here's exactly what he said. We have to retrain cops. Why should you always shoot with deadly force? The fact is, if you need to use your weapon, you don't have to do that. I signed a historic executive order that included key elements of that bill, which was the, uh, uh, George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, uh, at the federal level, bans, choke holds, and greatly restricts no-knock warrants, creates a national database for officer misconduct and tightens the use of force policies to emphasize deescalation instead of, of course, pulling out your gun and shooting somebody. Now, I agree a hundred percent we need to retrain police officers, but biden's problem with cops seems to be where they're aiming, not that they're using a gun in the first place, and this is not the first time he said it when he was running for president in 2020, he said the same thing. He said, instead of standing there and teaching a cop, when there's an unarmed person coming at them with a knife or something, shoot 'em in the leg instead of the heart.

A bullet in the leg can also be fatal. I I, I, I mean, listen, the, the, the issue is not where the cop is aiming on the body. The issue is that the cops are aiming their gun at people. And last year of the 1,185 people that police officers killed, 30% of 'em were fleeing.

So somebody's running away, obviously not posing a threat because they are fleeing, and the officer still says, all right, here we go. Another 30% of the people killed by cops last year. This is from a study we talked about a couple weeks ago. 30% of them were for either mental health crisis or wellness checks. Like the neighbors called the uh, uh, 9 1 1 because hey, my ne my neighbor hasn't been high. I haven't seen them. Their front door might be open. Can somebody go check on them and make sure they're okay? I fear they may have, you know, fallen out in their home. And instead of sending actual first responders, paramedics, firefighters, they send armed police in there who, oh, oh, now we've got a, now we've got a crisis because I've killed somebody. Now listen, I understand, I, I'm not totally, completely naive enough to think that there aren't situations where police officers have to use their guns. And I know that's not gonna win me any friends, but listen, we live in a country that has 5% of the world's population and 42% of the world's guns. We have guns all over this country. There are more guns than people.

So I get that sometimes these cops are afraid because they don't know. They don't know if that suspect, they're looking in the eyes of, they don't know if that person is an anti n r a gun hating liberal, or if they're a pro, n r a, guns are everything. Come and take it. If you can pry it outta my cold, dead hands kind of freak. They don't know the difference. So they treat everybody as if they are one of those. Come and take it from my cold dead hands people. And that is the problem that needs to be not just retrained, it needs to be rooted out. But I do to a degree, see Biden's point. If you know you're in a situation where you have to shoot somebody, do you have to shoot to kill? Can't you just shoot 'em in the hand? Can't you go for the foot? Doesn't even have to be the leg. You know, you do have a lot of major arteries running in the legs.