To Protect and to Serve II

#4,326
#4,326
DEFENDTHISHOUSE said:
I am. It’s the profession itself that is the problem.

Are some cops good people, yes, undoubtedly. However, make no mistake, there are no good cops. They all enforce laws that conflict with their own conscience and sense of morality. Just following orders...
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Tell me old wise one, which laws did I enforce that conflicted with my conscience and sense of morality?

Your humble servant,

Boot Licker
 
#4,330
#4,330
tim said:
Well I dont have a gag reflex. Crime sucks.
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“Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.”
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#4,331
#4,331
Good news

"Preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) finds that 128 police officers died in the line of duty in 2017—44 of them were fatally shot. Last year 64 officers were fatally shot. And since 2011, the numbers have largely gone down."

There Still Wasn't a War on Cops in 2017 - Hit & Run : Reason.com
 
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#4,332
#4,332
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#4,333
#4,333
DEFENDTHISHOUSE said:
When given a choice between your rights, or their pension, which do you think they will choose....

Cops are simply the spearhead of all political will in America.

Name any bad actor throughout history, Hitler, Stalin, whoever, they would’ve never achieved the level of murder and mayhem absent police and military.
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I would rather live in a society where there is law and order versus absolute chaos
 
#4,335
#4,335
DEFENDTHISHOUSE said:
I am. It’s the profession itself that is the problem.

Are some cops good people, yes, undoubtedly. However, make no mistake, there are no good cops. They all enforce laws that conflict with their own conscience and sense of morality. Just following orders...
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They do use judgment but are asked to follow law they don’t create law they enforce law
 
#4,338
#4,338
Biopsyman said:
I simply don’t believe cops go out with the intent of murdering or targeting innocent people
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I'm sure most of them don't intend to, but their profession by it's very nature calls for suppression as the arm of the State. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Couple that with militarized tactics and you end up with normal people that will absolutely murder someone to fulfill the wishes of the State.
 
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#4,340
#4,340
zeppelin128 said:
I'm sure most of them don't intend to, but their profession by it's very nature calls for suppression as the arm of the State. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Couple that with militarized tactics and you end up with normal people that will absolutely murder someone to fulfill the wishes of the State.
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I'm beginning to think we, at least in many (most?) cases might be focusing on the officer a bit too much and need to do a much better job of focusing on the training. In what I could glean from the Shaver decision there was a lot of "acting as he was trained" verbiage thrown around. Now, I'm pretty dubious (nobody else seemed quite so hot to shoot Shaver) but the fact the argument was made at all points to a serious flaw IMO.

There's also evidence to suggest (and this is hardly limited to the Shaver incident) that the officer doing the shooting had a history that suggested he might be a liability. For myself if I was his supervisor and found out one of my officers had etched "You're F'ed" on his personal weapon he'd never carry that weapon, or any other for that matter, in my dept again.
 
#4,341
#4,341
n_huffhines said:
No idea what you meant to say.
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I believe that he is saying that it is often the case that the initial reports we hear that serve as a basis to criticize the police often turn out to be incomplete, exaggerated, or simply wrong.

I'll give you an example. In one case I have two officers fired their service weapons a total of 13 times, with 12 of the bullets going through a door and 8 of which struck and killed a man.

Now on its face, you say, my gosh, they shot through a closed door! How can that ever be right?

Well, it turns out that upon close examination by ballistics and trajectory analyses, the door was in process of rebounding as the guy on the other side had blocked it and when it was kicked open the guy had a knife and was coming at the officers. The first shot went through the open doorway as it was still open. The remainder came in at various angles, some more shallow than others because the door was in motion at the time. All of this demonstrating that the incident happened as the officers said, in a matter of 2-3 seconds and with them reacting to the guy in the doorway with a knife, not that they simply fired through a closed door.
 
#4,344
#4,344
hndog609 said:
I'm beginning to think we, at least in many (most?) cases might be focusing on the officer a bit too much and need to do a much better job of focusing on the training. In what I could glean from the Shaver decision there was a lot of "acting as he was trained" verbiage thrown around. Now, I'm pretty dubious (nobody else seemed quite so hot to shoot Shaver) but the fact the argument was made at all points to a serious flaw IMO.

There's also evidence to suggest (and this is hardly limited to the Shaver incident) that the officer doing the shooting had a history that suggested he might be a liability. For myself if I was his supervisor and found out one of my officers had etched "You're F'ed" on his personal weapon he'd never carry that weapon, or any other for that matter, in my dept again.
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There are a lot of things working against the cops, to be fair. Poor training, a lack of non-lethal weapons, and being encouraged to enforce pizz poor laws. I get that. It makes the work conditions of being a cop very difficult. However, cops have a union. Why don't they use the union to help improve these conditions? Instead of begging for more military tactical gear and MRAPs, why not do something that actually favors less aggression towards the citizens?
 
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#4,345
#4,345
Rasputin_Vol said:
There are a lot of things working against the cops, to be fair. Poor training, a lack of non-lethal weapons, and being encouraged to enforce pizz poor laws. I get that. It makes the work conditions of being a cop very difficult. However, cops have a union. Why don't they use the union to help improve these conditions? Instead of begging for more military tactical gear and MRAPs, why not do something that actually favors less aggression towards the citizens?
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You are incredibly naive about the real world and who they deal with on a daily basis.
 
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#4,347
#4,347
Rasputin_Vol said:
What in particular in my post was naive? I clearly said they need better training, better non-lethal weapons and pizz poor laws to enforce. Where is your sore spot with what I said?
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It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets for training their officers.

It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets to hire better people to be officers.

But two things are true. Number one, they don't have unlimited budgets. Two, even if they did, their officers are still going to daily insert themselves into conflicts and situations which involve people who are aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable.

No matter how much you pay to get good officers and no matter how much you train them, they can't read the minds of the people they are dealing with.
 
#4,348
#4,348
lawgator1 said:
It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets for training their officers.

It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets to hire better people to be officers.

But two things are true. Number one, they don't have unlimited budgets. Two, even if they did, their officers are still going to daily insert themselves into conflicts and situations which involve people who are aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable.

No matter how much you pay to get good officers and no matter how much you train them, they can't read the minds of the people they are dealing with.
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Neither can I, but shoot first and ask questions later is not a privilege that will often be afforded to me.

It's okay to expect better from trained individuals. Your job does in fact offer insights many of us don't have, but it is also apparent that it blinds you to a very real problem with the culture of law enforcement in this country.
 
#4,349
#4,349
lawgator1 said:
It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets for training their officers.

It can always be said that it would be great if police agencies had unlimited budgets to hire better people to be officers.

But two things are true. Number one, they don't have unlimited budgets. Two, even if they did, their officers are still going to daily insert themselves into conflicts and situations which involve people who are aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable.

No matter how much you pay to get good officers and no matter how much you train them, they can't read the minds of the people they are dealing with.
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The simple/easy solution would be to shave down the number of infractions/laws that are enforced, which would in turn mean that you will need less police on the streets. Which means you can then use that excess money to go towards training fewer cops. We have far too many laws on the books and are asking these guys to do far too much.
 
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#4,350
#4,350
MercyPercy said:
Neither can I, but shoot first and ask questions later is not a privilege that will often be afforded to me.

It's okay to expect better from trained individuals. Your job does in fact offer insights many of us don't have, but it is also apparent that it blinds you to a very real problem with the culture of law enforcement in this country.
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That's because in real life there is no 20/20 hindsight when you are dealing with someone who may be some toxic mixture of a) in the midst of a criminal act; b) desperate; c) intoxicated; d) mentally ill.

This is the court's lingo from a particularly cogent case:

"Reconsideration will nearly always reveal that something different could have been done if the officer knew the future before it occurred. This is what we mean when we say we refuse to second-guess the officer.”
 
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