To Protect and to Serve II

#4,327
#4,327
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
 
#4,330
#4,330
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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#4,332
#4,332
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.
 
#4,333
#4,333
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.
 
#4,336
#4,336
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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#4,337
#4,337
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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#4,339
#4,339
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.
 
#4,340
#4,340
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.
 
#4,341
#4,341
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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#4,342
#4,342
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.”
 
#4,343
#4,343
Rasputin_Vol said:
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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Ok. Get the Legislature to get rid of some.
 
#4,344
#4,344
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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I don't think this was necessarily all about "more money". Being trained "better" needn't be predicated on better funding. Think more along the lines of when better coaching can beat better talent in sports.

The rest of your post comes awfully close to sounding like "It's tough out there and, well, sometimes civilians that should still be alive aren't.". That's an immensely unsatisfying answer even to people predisposed to being sympathetic to how tough being an LEO can be.
 
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#4,345
#4,345
hndog609 said:
I don't think this was necessarily all about "more money". Being trained "better" needn't be predicated on better funding. Think more along the lines of when better coaching can beat better talent in sports.

The rest of your post comes awfully close to sounding like "It's tough out there and, well, sometimes civilians that should still be alive aren't.". That's an immensely unsatisfying answer even to people predisposed to being sympathetic to how tough being an LEO can be.
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No, there are mistakes made and civil lawsuits follow. However, it seems rarely to be the case that an officer's mistaken judgment about the need for force rises to a criminal violation. Yes, law enforcement officers are given more leeway than an ordinary citizen in this regard, but that is because it is his duty to intervene in a crime.
 
#4,346
#4,346
lawgator1 said:
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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Refuse to second guess the officer... ever? At all? Or even if they are referring to taht one specific case, it is still a dumb thing to say. That is dangerous ideology.

If we can't even question of they did the right thing, then we are truly at the mercy of the state.
 
#4,348
#4,348
lawgator1 said:
No, there are mistakes made and civil lawsuits follow. However, it seems rarely to be the case that an officer's mistaken judgment about the need for force rises to a criminal violation. Yes, law enforcement officers are given more leeway than an ordinary citizen in this regard, but that is because it is his duty to intervene in a crime.
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What people are arguing (mostly at least) is to get out in front of the problem. Mistakes in judgement with lethal force have to START with the implementation of lethal force. This idea of "leeway" at the back end isn't the issue when dealing with unarmed individuals but rather a poor approach from the outset.

Let's go back to that Shaver case. I'm betting there are a bunch of middle school kids could come up with the question "How come an unarmed guy surrounded by a SWAT team couldn't just be cuffed and have things sorted out calmly?". The answer is there absolutely is no damn reason whatsoever. That isn't 20/20 hindsight...it's something that should be standard tactical procedure.

I'm not about to poo poo the expectations placed upon LEO in the field. What many people don't understand is that, as opposed to civilians, LEO have to "press" self defense. For instance when a "bad guy" is confronted by an armed individual and he runs away a civilian is done. They get to say "Glad I had a gun!" and call the police. LEO are charged with apprehending so they have to press their position which obviously leads to a conflict that needs dynamic resolution. Ideally that's a peaceful surrender and at worst it means use of lethal force for the LEO to defend themselves from an articulable threat. My issue, and it's the same with a great many others, is that the gap between those two can be terrifyingly narrow. Examination of equipment and tactics should (arguably well before now) be used to widen this gap as far as possible whenever the situation allows.

People absolutely have a right to expect that government agents aren't going to become lethal threats in ambiguous situations.
 
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#4,349
#4,349
Rasputin_Vol said:
At this point, nothing short of a revolution would be able to do that, unfortunately.
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Not true. Think about all the zillions of folks that have been arrested over the past x number of years for possessing pot. Now think about all the states that have decriminalized pot. Of course it will take some time for the more backward states to follow suit, but they will.
 
#4,350
#4,350
MercyPercy said:
Refuse to second guess the officer... ever? At all? Or even if they are referring to taht one specific case, it is still a dumb thing to say. That is dangerous ideology.

If we can't even question of they did the right thing, then we are truly at the mercy of the state.
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No, this is specific to the situation where the cop reasonably perceives a deadly threat, even if mistaken, and chooses to use deadly force rather than lower level of force.
 
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