It seems that the officers of Law Enforcement in the Cleveland area are providing advice to citizens that, at first blush, would seem to encourage criminals. Hmm, perhaps this is a job security measure on the part of the PD. Sorry, that’s not exactly fair to the PD I am sure that thought never crossed the beat officers minds.
A little background. It seems that last week, a gallery owner refused to comply with some malcontents that attempted a mugging. As a result he was shot (in the back).
As a result of the incident there is a great deal of unease in the neighborhood, and the police are involved to try and restore the confidence of the residents and businesses. But then, it gets interesting the money quote from the article:
“Don’t walk down dark, isolated streets, and whatever you do, comply
with what the robbers want because whatever you have is not worth being
shot over.”
Now, that’s okay advice. Material objects are not worth getting shot over but, the populace at large reads that quote and they walk away with “comply with the bad guys”. As Alan has pointed out, through out history this is just a bad policy.
How bad a policy is it, well Breda published some stats from Joe Huffman that gives you the break down.
Having a gun is consistently the
safest course of action when someone is confronted by a criminal.
Research by academics such as Gary Kleck and Larry Southwick have used
the National Crime Victimization Survey, which surveys about 100,000 to
150,000 people each year, to directly measure how different types of
victim reactions impact the probability that they will be injured by the
attack. The data from the 1990s indicated that the probability of an
injury after self protection with a gun is 3.6 percent; for running or
driving away, 5.4 percent; screaming, 12.6 percent; threaten without
weapon, 13.6 percent; and passive behavior, 55.2 percent.
At least one of those scenarios presents pretty good odds. But you will
notice that the more you trend toward compliance, the greater the
probability that you will be injured or killed. Ultimately, you make
your own decision based on the situation that you are facing.