"The nation was in shock. This does not happen in our country," said Thora Arnorsdottir, news editor at RUV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.
She was referring to a 59-year old man who was shot by police on Monday. The man, who started shooting at police when they entered his building, had a history of mental illness.
It's the first time someone has been killed by armed police in Iceland since it became an independent republic in 1944. Police don't even carry weapons, usually. Violent crime in Iceland is almost non-existent.
"The nation does not want its police force to carry weapons because it's dangerous, it's threatening," Arnorsdottir says. "It's a part of the culture. Guns are used to go hunting as a sport, but you never see a gun."
In fact, Iceland isn't anti-gun. In terms of per-capita gun ownership, Iceland ranks 15th in the world. Still, this incident was so rare that neighbors of the man shot were comparing the shooting to a scene from an American film.
The Icelandic police department said officers involved will go through grief counseling. And the police department has already apologized to the family of the man who died — though not necessarily because they did anything wrong.
"I think it's respectful," Arnorsdottir says, "because no one wants to take another person's life. "
There are still a number of questions to be answered, including why police didn't first try to negotiate with man before entering his building.
"A part of the great thing of living in this country is that you can enter parliament and the only thing they ask you to do is to turn off your cellphone, so you don't disturb the parliamentarians while they're talking. We do not have armed guards following our prime minister or president. That's a part of the great thing of living in a peaceful society. We do not want to change that. "
Update, August 20, 2014: We checked back in with the Icelandic Police to get an update on this shooting in December. The superintendent says the police have not used firearms since.
I never said it was the worst, or most corrupted, just that it is a long way off from the Icelandic police force in dealing with criminals in a non-violent way, ultimately saying that calling them barbaric whilst holding the american police force as an idol means you have quite the skewed mental picture of barbarianism.
You think he was serious? I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
edit: I don't know what happened with that face in my previous post, but it should say " police brutality " right there.
Apparently armorgames' forums automatically changes a quotation mark followed by p to that, but it doesn't seem to happen after editing.
Hope for the best prepare for the worst, I hope he's being sarcastic but if he's not then something needed to be said on the matter at hand.
If he wasn't being sarcastic then he's probably a troll and the thread is better off ignoring him. DSM hasn't posted since, but at least the thread brings up an interesting subject. Now, going back to the original topic.
There was one case where the man was shot because he refused to remove his hands from his pockets, they were there because of a domestic disturbance call. He didn't have a gun, he wasn't threatening the police or anything, he simply didn't remove his hands from his pockets.
When dealing with the police you're supposed to keep your hands visible because otherwise they're forced to assume you're reaching for a gun. They gave that man multiple chances to remove his hands from his pockets and he refused. Hindsight might be 20/20, but if you're actually blaming the police for assuming the worst when someone is acting that suspiciously you're just being pedantic.
And I thought I had problems with sarcasm on the internet...
I think the problem stems from how many people will actually make threads with, seemingly, outrageous statements only for them to actually believe them (Conspiracy theorists, a certain someone that kept ranting and raving about chemtrails, etc etc)
Im confused did I say something wrong?
OP is being sarcastic about the calling the Icelandic police barbaric...a contrast between their actions as officers and the US's
When dealing with the police you're supposed to keep your hands visible because otherwise they're forced to assume you're reaching for a gun. They gave that man multiple chances to remove his hands from his pockets and he refused. Hindsight might be 20/20, but if you're actually blaming the police for assuming the worst when someone is acting that suspiciously you're just being pedantic.
True, but, reaches through memory or incident report as it has disappeared from original location as far as I can remember the guy had his hands in his pockets when they arrived on scene and he wasn't even in the building, he was outside waiting for the police, but this could be conjecture as there is only one side of the story here, he Was unarmed as it turned out but as you say hindsight is 20/20.
The police should have talked with the man and seen if they could get him to stop shooting before they were all dead. Instead they said "no thanks," proceeding to gun down the innocent man.
And that's why this is a perfect example of police brutality.
The man, who started shooting at police when they entered his building,
He shot first, endangering the lives of every officer in the area, along with everybody else, the police were well in their rights to shot to kill. It's wasn't brutality, at most, self-defense.
